Mark Webber Attacks 'nanny State'

[Priestley]

Speaking of stupid people:

http://www.news.com.au/national/kmh-too-fa...r-1225847725280

"THREE in every four drivers think 100km/h is too fast for country speed limits and have voted for a cut to 90km/h, a study has found."

If you want to talk "nanny state", the hoon laws are nothing in comparison to the reduction of speed limits we've seen in recent years...

[Birds]

Hence my call for an IQ test to determine voting eligibility...can't have that in democracy though

We can restrict people from voting until they are 18, this is based on maturity...why we can't do the same with intelligence is beyond me. Some people never reach mental age of 18.

[Priestley]

Hence my call for an IQ test to determine voting eligibility...can't have that in democracy though

We can restrict people from voting until they are 18, this is based on maturity...why we can't do the same with intelligence is beyond me. Some people never reach mental age of 18.

A common sense test would be better

[Birds]

Anything along the lines of that really...

Hell, even a write your name on a piece of paper test would be better than nothing. You don't even need to do this to vote!

[Flynnn]

Stay on topic please if not, just gtfo

[alr33x]

democracy is an interesting point in its self,

wouldn't a TRUE democracy not force you to vote, ie USA? some merit to this at least only people who care enough will then vote sure if may only reflect 20-50% of the population but it would be the people worth representing.

fk the retards.

[bozodos]

Stay on topic please if not, just gtfo

post of the week LOL

[frozenpod]

Birds you have made some interesting comments I think you are out of touch with what is really going on but you are intiltled to your opinion.

I have been to the US, and asia not the UK and I will say without a doubt in the US and asia they have it much better off from a driving perspective.

The governement in Australia uses fear to change public opinon to creat new laws and the public is conned into thinking we despirately need them when we don't.

We don't need hoons laws, as everything in the hoons laws was perviously covered by exsisting laws which are still in place. The hoons act has only changed one thing which allowed at the same time the government to introduce impounding cars.

It is a disgrace the attitude the police and government are trying to inforce/create is that if you are driving at 5km/hr below the speed limit you will be fine yet speed by just a couple of km/hr you are highly likely to quote Ken Lay "slide of the road into a tree".

The skill of feeling a car and driving to the conditions is totally lost.

IMO the roads are getting more and more dangerous with drivers that are not paying attention to anything other than there speedo.

The comment about having an instruction book is not how I would put it but perfectly in line with what is happening.

Car control no longer exsists, people are not driving but they are passengers sitting in the drivers seat.

IMO the current actions of government and police is resulting in a lower standard of driving and resulting in more accidents and in some cases more deaths on road.

The police have modified/tweaked the statistics to support there revenue rasing approach to traffic safety and the truth has been lost.

Earlier this year Ken Lay said we have had record large number of increase in young driver deaths on the road, the offical statistics drivers under 24 were down 30% from previous years yet the two older age group was up 700 and 800% and accounted for almost all the road toll on there own.

A good example of non truthfull statics was present on another forum by Peter D from the accident research center at Monash University which a fatal accident which he investigated he put down to by him to be 'failure to give way'. The police on the other hand recorded the cause of the accident 'speed'. The situation was as follows, major rual HWY with a side road meeting it ie T intersection, the vehicle on the main road going straight was estimated to be travelling at 105km/hr in a 100km/hr zone, car pulled out from a small side road which had a stop sign and they failed to stop. The vehicle on the HWY was unable to avoid the other car and a collison occured which resulted in multiple deaths (all occupants).

Pretty clear what was the cause of that accident 'failure to give way' and speed had nothing to do with the cause at all. Even if the vehilce on the major HWY was doing 100km/hr instead of the estimated 105km/hr it wouldn't have prevented the accident and would have been highly unlikely to have prevented deaths. But as the driver that was not at fault was estimated to be travelling at just above the speed limit police were able to use speed as the cause.

In other posts by Peter D

"Would be interesting to know how many road deaths are specifically attributable to hoon defined actions. The last data I looked at showed you were more likely to be killed on the road by mum, dad and the kids than a hoon. Most road deaths occur at or below the speed limit and speed is No17 on the list of major causes of road fatalities."

Given speed is the 17th highest cause of fatalities on the road there is no doubt there is 16 higher causes which at least some of could easily be targeted by media advertising, public awareness and police inforcement. But by doing so you don't generate the revenue from fining people for going 3km/hr over the speed limit and it actually costs money to educate and train people by both better driver training and community awareness to save lives.

The current approach is not helping and is creating a much bigger problem on the roads which is only getting worse. If there was a sudden change in governement approach it would probably take a generation or two too have a major impact as a lot of young to middle age drivers have bad habbits which are already ingrained. There are a lot of unaware passengers that sit in the drivers seat.

As to the desal plant, it is the wrong thing to do. It makes no sense what so ever and it should not be built at this time. Sadly both parties are for it and they have been from day one and they have refused to entertain and explore any other ideas.

and follow up with this one:

Edited March 31, 2010 by funkymonkey

[Harey]

+11ty

Post of the year!!!!!!!

Well thought out and statistics to back it up.

Edited March 31, 2010 by Harey

[adznight]

Great video's frozenpod!

[alr33x]

good post, well written too!

there was also a study conducted in WA that showed their was no link between high powered vehicles and "in experienced" or " p plater" car accidents, it actually found the opposite that there was less accidents in these cars.

got brushed under the carpet well, of course the media weren't interested.

most hoon related offences would be unlikely to cause major accidents anyway lets be honest, i could go drop some skids in the middle of an industrial area and get my car impounded, i could also drive down the monash freeway on my mobile phone texting/talking in peak hour and only get a fine and demerit points.. not saying either is acceptable but i know which i feel is more dangerous.

[xALmoN]

that was a very nicely informative pair of videos.

[Sami]

frozenpod for pm

or at least you should try and get a voice across

[Roy]

Ditto, great post. Sadly our govt is full of people who feel they have a sense of entitlement to power/promotion through the ranks due to their tenure in the public service...NOT because of innovation, dynamic leadership and excellence.

20 years ago my dad made the comment that when he was in school all the fools that did poorly at school got jobs in the councils and governments. 20 years later and they were running the state, and badly. I dont think anything has changed between the generations and the trend seems set to continue....

[bozodos]

Well that and the fact that the current regieme seems to listen only to their lobbyists and not the voice of reason or their electorates!

Look at the disgraceful way Stephen Conroy has been 'slamming' Google, and anyone else who opposes their totalitarian style internet censorship, which has been lobbied HARD for by the Australian "Christian" Lobby. They don't tend to publicise THAT part much.

[Wheezy]

http://www.tac.vic.gov.au/jsp/statistics/r...D=1&navID=3

Not really enough data or information to make any real conclusions, but interesting read none the less.

[alr33x]

people dont rise up to be running the state cos they moved up from local coucil or similar thats nonsense, they get their through peoples votes and internal party votes , and yes the party does help but those clowns are easily removed via public vote the problem lies that they are only replaced by another clown.

[Birds]

Perhaps you could state for me frozenpod, where exactly you think I am out of touch as opposed to just stating so.

Keep in mind that I said I don't agree with many of the laws, but that the reality of it is that the Australian public are content with having them there - certainly not discontent enough to demand changes be made. Else, at a minimum, we'd have the same "lobbying" effect that the Christian groups have on internet censorship.

Claiming that our government relies on public deception is a fallacy in itself, as this can't be proven or disproven whether it is true or not - only a subjective observation on your behalf so perhaps best not to state it as fact.

[blackrex]

A few things to add to these posts.

We live in a representative republic, where we vote for people to represent us in running the country. A true democracy would require the whole population to vote for every single decision that has to be made.

A media commentator made a comment recently that in the last 50 years, we have changed from a top down society, to a bottom up. What this means is that we used to admire, respect and want to be the same as the upper levels of society (not false people like celebrities) such as the engineers, scientists, managers etc. Now we seem to be admiring the bottom feeders such as the trailer trash "celebrities" (Paris Hilton comes to mind) and sports people (Fevola and Carey) and trying to be like them, with anyone who aspires to greatness in the sciences or business treated badly. This will lead to the downfall of our society, as no longer will people be willing to expand their abilities for fear of ridicule.

[frozenpod]

Birds I don't have time to reply to all your comments but I will reply to the following statement.

Restricted freedoms aren't always a bad thing. Sometimes they stop alot of bad shit happening to good people. It's an unfortunate reality but when it comes to alot of things we can't actually trust average Joe to know what he's doing. It's somewhat comforting to know there is alot of red tape and regulation standing between him and I.

You seem to think that these laws are here to protect you and without them you couldn't go about your life safely. Whilst some laws are required to insure this we are well beyond that point and massively over regulated.

Your approach results in removing the ability for the individual to make a choice "we can't actually trust average Joe" because the person is either not smart enough or a mence to society and assumes if he did have the right to make his own choice that he would make the wrong one.

If you take this to extremes which is where we are heading the individual ends up with not able to make there own choice about anything even the simplest daily task they cannot choose.

I think you need to vist some other countries in the world to see how they live and compare to what we have here, countries which on average has a much lower education standard that Australia people are still allowed to make more choices.

IMO whist many additional laws/regulations are bought in under the banner of the protection/safety there is often hidden agenders such as revenue rasing, additional taxing, keeping people employed as someone has to insure these new regulations are carried out.