More than several years ago the Tas govt bragged about how it was making the midlands highway (main road from Launceston to Hobart) safer by adding overtakng lanes in places where traffic tended to get held up by hills etc. Last weekend I was not happy to find speed cameras secreted beside at least two of these lanes. I ask you - where would be a more STUPID place to put a bloody camera? Here you are in a column of cars overtaking a slower vehicle, and conscious that you've got only a few hundred metres to finish the manoeuvre. Suddenly a driver ahead spots the camera, whacks the brakes on and mass pileup. Didn't happen, but it could easily. Speed cameras = revenue raisers. They obviously don't give a STUFF about road safety or they wouldn't have put them in such dumb stupid dangerous places!
Knods, I agree, purely revenue raisers I have NEVER seen a multinova at or near a black spot over this way. What does that tell you?
About 8 years ago I got done for speeding down in NSW. 70kmh either side of a narrow bridge which had a speed limit of 60kmh. And of course there were speed cameras set up on the bridge. I paid the fine and politely suggested that the revenue they were raking in should be spent on widening the bridge. 8 years later the bridge is still narrow and the speed cameras are still there. Nuff said??
I'm not surprised....(longish) I neglected to mention that the day I was travelling on the Midlands Highway the v8 supercars were racing at Symmons Plains Raceway (just South of Launceston) so the radar operators were having a field day! About 15000 people would have travelled North for the racing over the weekend. I wonder how many are considerably poorer now? And no - I have never seen a camera in a black spot. They are invariably in a downhill location or where one may find oneself inadvertently exceeding the speed limit, and they are most heavily deployed when people travelling to or from work are on the road - ability to contribute to the public coffers? I totally agree that speed cameras do no good in terms of reducing the road toll. Ours is as high as ever, and its often people killed in the 'wee small hours' of the morning driving after drinking or being on drugs. You hardly ever see patrol cars - the emphasis is just on using the cameras. You do see lots of bad driving - sloppy lane changes, tail gating, turning without signals etc etc - all of which seems to go unpunished. I could say for a fact that a warning after being pulled over by the police slowed me down for a lot longer than 3 camera tickets. All cameras do is make you less likely to concentrate on other traffic and the road and instead watch the side of the road. Bad drivers need to be stopped and their behaviour corrected immediately. Taking a photo of someone speeding and sending them a letter a fortnight later is not exactly effective policing! Think of what could happen in the intervening time if their behaviour is really such a problem! Tailpiece to this story - I obviously missed one camera :angry: as I got a fine in the mail today for that day for 121 in a 110 zone! The place where I was 'done' was yet another passing lane on the Midlands Highway!
