Revenue Raising Scum

[Leewah]

The latest round of shock tactic television advertisements from the Victorian Transport Accident Commission is nothing but a blatant slap in the face to all Australians. How stupid do they think we are?

Mindless lemmings without sufficient brain power to think for ourselves, obviously, judging from the thinly disguised propaganda they're dishing up to us... The most sickening -- and disheartening -- aspect of the campaign is we're swallowing it whole.

In case you're not familiar with the advertisement in question, it's a victim's view of a road crash that left Rachel Roberts in a coma and fighting for her life. Rachel tells us her boyfriend was driving at 5km/h over the speed limit. The suitably authoritative voice-over suggests that, had he been sticking to the speed limit, the crash and this lady's trauma which continues today, may not have happened.

Let's look more closely at the circumstances surrounding the event. Let's go beyond what the TAC is prepared to disclose in order to get its "Wipe-off five" message across, and look at the facts they chose to withhold. Rachel Roberts wrote an account of the crash for the Teenagers' Road Accident Group (www.trag-vic.org) website, and it's very revealing.

Firstly, the road is the Ringwood-Warrandyte road in outer Melbourne; a typical outer suburban road; narrow, badly surfaced and with no gutters - just mud on the verge. The road on the TV ad is inner suburban; smooth, good gutters, footpaths, the best a man can build.

Second, the real car is a 1978 Ford Escort four-door. Nothing wrong with that. The average Australian car is 10.1 years old, according to the government's own data. The car in the advertisement is a 1993 Ford Laser, which the TAC says it chose "for its similar size and safety features". Ford must be happy to hear its small car safety went nowhere in 15 years.

Third, Ms Roberts' own words say it was raining at the time of the crash. No rain on the TV version. Interestingly no rain on the police crash report, either. Photos of the crash clearly show a wet road.

Fourth, Ms Roberts' own words say the tyres on her boyfriend's Escort were bald. Her father and her future brother in-law had been telling the driver to "get new tyres on his car". Again, no mention of bald tyres in the ad, and no bald tyres noted in the police report.

Fifth, the driver was on his P plates, and in Ms Roberts' own words "he was inexperienced".

The vehicle's speed, which is the crux of the advertisement, was deemed to be 5km/h over the limit. By who? Witnesses, that's who. How accurately can you judge a car's speed? Try it sometime, and discover how widely your estimate can vary based on the proximity of roadside objects.

There is no doubt that Ms Roberts is the victim of a tragic set of events. There is also no doubt that these events can be avoided. But is wiping 5km/h off a vehicle's speed the answer?

Would tyres with tread have performed better than the car's bald tyres? Would a more experienced driver have read the situation better? Would a better maintained road, without muddy verges and without trees right alongside have resulted in a different outcome?

The most alarming question to come out of this commercial is the abysmal level of intelligence the Victorian TAC attributes to the average driver. Is everything we see on television God's honest truth?

The TAC pursues its 'speed kills' campaign for one reason and - shock horror - it's not the safety of road users. It is to legitimize its use of speed cameras to raise revenue. How else does a government department meet a traffic infringement budget forecast of $392million? That's up $101 million on the previous year.

Want to know how ludicrous this situation is? If more money is expected to be made, then more people are expected to speed. If the government itself predicts more speeding drivers, then clearly people aren't slowing down. If people aren't slowing down, then the road safety campaign is not working!

Or is speeding not the real cause of crashes?

Glenn Butler

Editor, CarPoint Australia

http://carpoint.ninemsn.com.au/news/blanks...ory.asp?ID=4909

[predator]

Time to bring back my politically motivated sig methinks...

[Guest INASNT]

time to vote geoff back into power!

[predator]

yer, but jeff ****ed up all our roads with tollways and a lot of this stuff.. and set the precedence for many of the stuff Bracks is riding on..

[Ant97GTR]

Leewah,

Mate have a look at any of the TAC speeding adverts and even blind freddy can tell that in all cases speed was a FACTOR not a CAUSE.......the tac/govt/police seem to have forgotten this....(or maybe the big dollar sign is blocking their view!!!)

I don't know how much info is on the net but look up M.A.D. from england (motorists against detection)....very funny stuff!!!

[Guest INASNT]

to test this 5km/h bogus theory they should strap bracks into a car and shoot it into a concrete wall at 80km/h and see how badly he is injured. Then get the vic police minister and strap him into another car and shoot it into the same concrete wall at 85km/h and see how badly injured she gets.

And then if they are both still alive strap them onto the front of another car and shoot them into the concrete wall at 200km/h!! :uh-huh:

this as you could say would be the way to kill 2 birds with the same stone

[predator]

Speed doesn't even have to be a factor, it can be just it happens that that a driver killed or injured was over the speed limit at the time. My way of seeing is that it wasn't speed that caused the accident, but it may have been speed that contributed to a worse accident.

When you start eliminating all other major factors that are often also attached to many fatalities such as lack of seat belts, alchohol or drugs in the system, fatigue, lack of concentration which I would say would be the actual cause of most fatalities.. then speed on its own would be a much smaller figure than they would make out.

And 5km/hr is just to make more money, no doubt about that.

Problem is that it is a very one-sided view put out there, and of course the TAC is very well funded and also have to protect their own interests at keeping their funding/jobs by having the statistics to backup their claims.

[SmoothLine]

I know that road really well, and if I was in a car with bald tires, in the rain and I had little experiance....

I'd take another road home.

[Scotty]

Thanks Leewah,

Can I ask, can we get this more publicised. I would love this story to be blown out and communicated to all road users out there and place some pressure back on the government.

I'm sick of Bracks and phucken useless polices, bring back Jeff I say, but politics aside, if we can get more people aware of the blatent lies the govt is feeding us, surely this must bring some power back to us road users.

Perhaps we should be giving, Glenn Butler (Editor, CarPoint Australia) a call.

[Guest INASNT]

send the info to today tonight and a current affair!

they love this type of stuff

[Scotty]

Who wants to do it then?? *points finger to Leewah!* haha

[king_kw13]

Should be used to the brainwashing and manipulation that the governments use - not just for road safety campaigns but for everything else....

Bracks is probably just continuing with the policies laid down by Jeff - and the opposition probably has no idea what to do if they were in power anyway... except continue with Brack's old policies.

I should stop reading 'Stupid White Men' now...

[Ait]

In light of all this revenue raising. Here's an article someone posted on the WRX forum.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/sto...1037031,00.html

It might start happening over here

[Guest INASNT]

thats awesome, we should pay them to come over here or we should start our own camera bashing gang!

[Leewah]

Today Tonight won't publish anything like this because it defaces the value of a govt funded initiative.

They generally only pubisise things which private organisations or people do to rip off the everyday Joe.

I wrote to them previously offering an insight into our circle after they ran the story of illegal street racing and the hoons associated with it. They didn't reply. Typical.

[Horus]

yer I 100% agree with u guys

Im gonna move to Alaska where there are no speed cameras

[R31Nismoid]

Originally posted by INASNT

to test this 5km/h bogus theory they should strap bracks into a car and shoot it into a concrete wall at 80km/h and see how badly he is injured. Then get the vic police minister and strap him into another car and shoot it into the same concrete wall at 85km/h and see how badly injured she gets.

And then if they are both still alive strap them onto the front of another car and shoot them into the concrete wall at 200km/h!! :uh-huh:  

this as you could say would be the way to kill 2 birds with the same stone

Denham... i think that your post has to win post of the week!

[predator]

yer, that is gold

We really need an SAU all time classic quotes sticky thread! My vote is for that one for sure.

[Guest INASNT]

Originally posted by R31Nismoid

Denham... i think that your post has to win post of the week!

   

glad you enjoy my work, i try my best

[MaXiMuS007]

funny shit

Today Tonight are pricks, they only ever try to stuff people around, never give the full story