Streamlining Speed Limits In Nsw...finally

[hamiltonau]

http://smh.drive.com.au/roads-and-traffic/speed-zones-streamlined-on-major-nsw-roads-20110821-1j4fc.html

yeah about frikkin time, now if only they would get rid of the pointless things entirely we might be getting somewhere..

[mad082]

get rid of speedlimits? yeah that's a good idea........ certainly reduce the population

[Captain Kermit]

Speed zones have been decreased on the NE highway between Branxton and Murrurundi. Just f**king great, like the current limits aren't ridiculous as it is. I understand having constantly changing speed limits is a pain but really, the NE highway is not a difficult road to drive on. Some country roads are poorly graded thin pieces of shit and have 100k limits, there's a big stretch of the NE highway just north of Branxton that is a good quality 4 lane road with a HUGE median strip that is a 100 zone. Could easily be 130.

[Doobs]

get rid of speedlimits? yeah that's a good idea........ certainly reduce the population

Darwinian theory in practice. Certainly free up some oxygen in Gympie.

[Silvia GTR]

get rid of speedlimits? yeah that's a good idea........ certainly reduce the population

Thats right because the TV said speeding kills

[mad082]

Darwinian theory in practice. Certainly free up some oxygen in Gympie.

yeah i can think of quite a few corners where there would be piles of commodores stacked up on the side of them if there was no speed limits. also make crossing the main street a bit more of a challenge. as it is half the time cars are doing 10 to 20km/h over the limit and regularly fail to stop at the pedestrian crossings.

[The Bogan]

Lots of areas will be lowering overall limits, they are not putting any up.

Doesn't bother me at all really, I normally just cruise around in the left lane doing the limit, I save my speeding for the track.

People need to slow the puck down on the street, I always see idiots speeding, don't whinge and just do the speed limit, if you have more than 1 brain cell you can do it without your world coming to a end.

[mad082]

Lots of areas will be lowering overall limits, they are not putting any up.

Doesn't bother me at all really, I normally just cruise around in the left lane doing the limit, I save my speeding for the track.

People need to slow the puck down on the street, I always see idiots speeding, don't whinge and just do the speed limit, if you have more than 1 brain cell you can do it without your world coming to a end.

this. it's pretty darn easy to sit on the speed limit without having to watch the speedo like a hawk. if you are worried about it then drop to just below the limit. they are speed LIMITS, not minimum required speeds. you can sit on a few km/h below the limit without really impacting how long it takes to get to where you are going (ever seen someone going flying past off into the distance only to pull up beside/behind them at a set of lights a few mins down the road?). i drive 62kms to work everyday and my trip time varies by about 5 mins (on a 50 minute trip) from my slowest ever trip to my fastest trip (other than trips where i've been held up by roadworks or backed up traffic at a school near work).

[hamiltonau]

yeah i can think of quite a few corners where there would be piles of commodores stacked up on the side of them if there was no speed limits. also make crossing the main street a bit more of a challenge. as it is half the time cars are doing 10 to 20km/h over the limit and regularly fail to stop at the pedestrian crossings.

Laughed out loud at this, im sure your right and as others have said.. would thin the herd a little and IMHO for the better..especially in Gympie

now to my seemingly silly opening point..

I know its an extreme position to want no limits at all but there is some logic to it. I forget the scientific term but it was something to do with people subconsciously perceiving risks to be too low with all the nanny laws/safety restraints in place and automatically adjusting their behaviour until it was risky enough to be interesting. Only a pub analysis here but i think there is some validity to everyone driving with a bit more attention to detail and to actual road conditions if arbitrary things like speed limits, stop signs, lane markings and other pointless frippery are done away with.

an experiment was done a few years back where all road markings, speed limits and so on was removed in a medium sized German town and the accident rate dropped by a huge marging as people were actually paying attention to what the $% they were doing instead of just focusing on their GPS/ipod/mobile phone/screaming infant in the back seat..

the best i can do for a citation is 'some old issue of top gear' but it was legit and reminded me of another article i had read by James May about a railway crossing in Canada that had trees going right up to the barrier so you needed to pull up at the lights before you could even see a train coming. In a safety minded initiative the trees were removed up to a hundred or so metres on either side of the tracks providing approaching cars with some idea of whether a train was actually approaching or not.

Incidents then swiftly tripled at the site and baffled investigators eventually worked out people could now spot the fast moving train and half the time would attempt to outrun it with pretty obvious results.

just one example of good intentions paving the road to hell..literally in this case for some drivers..

end thread/

[BoyWhoCriedWolf]

They took the NT's open speed limit down to 130kph, accidents went up. Its not the speed that was the problem, its the drivers who drive drunk in town, people on motorbikes, aboriginals sleeping in the middle of the road and the same with them packing 12 people into a troopy and rolling it on a dirt road. Add all that to the tourists who are not use to driving at that sort of speed.

[The Bogan]

It's more for the urban areas that limits need harsher enforcement, people doing 70 in 40 zones, lots of kids get hit because people speed, braking distances decrease massively when you lower the speeds, my area is 50 kph zone with lots of parks and schools around but idiots still speed and drift the roundabouts, you can hear them gassing it up and down the streets all the time, mostly P platers but there are some older people who should know better.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, some people are so stupid they need to be put down.

[GTR-N1]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, some people are so stupid they need to be put down.

...and I write the reports as to why they shouldn't be put down

Actually, I believe in "Name 'n Shame"

[sinistaGTR]

It's more for the urban areas that limits need harsher enforcement, people doing 70 in 40 zones, lots of kids get hit because people speed, braking distances decrease massively when you lower the speeds, my area is 50 kph zone with lots of parks and schools around but idiots still speed and drift the roundabouts, you can hear them gassing it up and down the streets all the time, mostly P platers but there are some older people who should know better.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, some people are so stupid they need to be put down.

In the same regard, people doing 40 in 70 zones cause accidents aswell

[The Bogan]

I don't think that "name and shame" wouldnt work, most of these people wouldn't care, I say harsher penalties to fit the crime, I don't care if they have to catch a bus or ride a bike for the rest of their life, they don't seem to worry about the general public so why worry about them, the laws have softened to a point that even if you break the law if you whinge enough about how hard it all is you will get off because the bleeding hearts jump on the hand wagon.

It's just another case of people not accepting the responsibility or consequences of their actions.

Your views on these things change when people you know are killed by these idiots, if they just killed themselves it would be OK but they usually survive leaving others dead in there wake.

[mad082]

Laughed out loud at this, im sure your right and as others have said.. would thin the herd a little and IMHO for the better..especially in Gympie

now to my seemingly silly opening point..

I know its an extreme position to want no limits at all but there is some logic to it. I forget the scientific term but it was something to do with people subconsciously perceiving risks to be too low with all the nanny laws/safety restraints in place and automatically adjusting their behaviour until it was risky enough to be interesting. Only a pub analysis here but i think there is some validity to everyone driving with a bit more attention to detail and to actual road conditions if arbitrary things like speed limits, stop signs, lane markings and other pointless frippery are done away with.

an experiment was done a few years back where all road markings, speed limits and so on was removed in a medium sized German town and the accident rate dropped by a huge marging as people were actually paying attention to what the $% they were doing instead of just focusing on their GPS/ipod/mobile phone/screaming infant in the back seat..

the best i can do for a citation is 'some old issue of top gear' but it was legit and reminded me of another article i had read by James May about a railway crossing in Canada that had trees going right up to the barrier so you needed to pull up at the lights before you could even see a train coming. In a safety minded initiative the trees were removed up to a hundred or so metres on either side of the tracks providing approaching cars with some idea of whether a train was actually approaching or not.

Incidents then swiftly tripled at the site and baffled investigators eventually worked out people could now spot the fast moving train and half the time would attempt to outrun it with pretty obvious results.

just one example of good intentions paving the road to hell..literally in this case for some drivers..

end thread/

big problem with removing speed limits is the massive variation in speeds that you would get. this would actually increase road rage by a large amount. not to mention drastically increase P plate fatalities. only part of this would be due to road condition, but would also come down to car condition and driving to the conditions. could you imagine it in the wet? but back to closing speeds/speed variance. i'm no angel on the road and i've had a few moments when i was younger where i've done well over the speed limit out on the highway late at night. i discovered 2 things. 1: it takes a suprising amount of time/distance to slow down. 2: it's hard to judge just how fast you are closing the gap to the car in front until you start to get closer, by which time you need to start to get on the brakes pretty early. it was my fear of the car in front of me being a police car (and one time it was) that made me slow down at a reasonable distance. i think that there would be many P platers who would be pushing it faster and faster and then not start to brake until too late. if there happened to be a car coming the other way then it's going to end 1 of 3 ways. a head on collision, a rear end collision, or the car speeding running off the road to avoid the other cars.

I don't think that "name and shame" wouldnt work, most of these people wouldn't care, I say harsher penalties to fit the crime, I don't care if they have to catch a bus or ride a bike for the rest of their life, they don't seem to worry about the general public so why worry about them, the laws have softened to a point that even if you break the law if you whinge enough about how hard it all is you will get off because the bleeding hearts jump on the hand wagon.

It's just another case of people not accepting the responsibility or consequences of their actions.

Your views on these things change when people you know are killed by these idiots, if they just killed themselves it would be OK but they usually survive leaving others dead in there wake.

i had a cousin killed by a drunk driver. before that i had little tolerance for drink drivers. now i have absolutely no tolerance for drink drivers. i think they the punishment should be much harder than what they are, especially for people seriously over the limit.

oh and as for name and shame, i actually think that we need to bring back the stocks. a lot of people would be more scared of being locked up in the stocks for a few hours (possibly a few hours a day for a few days) in a public place where people could come and laugh at them or even through rotten vegetables. for a lot of criminals public humiliation would work better than locking them up out of view.

[GTR-N1]

^ ^ ^ Stocks are good medicine for a bit of humiliation + the name of the tool around each neck!

The rack for 2nd offence.

[hamiltonau]

not sure stocks would do it or reach maximum embarrassment for these people in the 21st Century, maybe force them to post all their crimes and how much of a douchebag they are on their facebook pages?

Also force them to 'like' NAMBLA and a few other groups guaranteed to raise their popularity among their thug friends..

yeah your right Marc about the differing speeds, as long as people follow the rules of commonsense and keep to the left and out of my way then it would be work..unfo i cant see my idealism being practical in real life

[mad082]

not sure stocks would do it or reach maximum embarrassment for these people in the 21st Century, maybe force them to post all their crimes and how much of a douchebag they are on their facebook pages?

Also force them to 'like' NAMBLA and a few other groups guaranteed to raise their popularity among their thug friends..

yeah your right Marc about the differing speeds, as long as people follow the rules of commonsense and keep to the left and out of my way then it would be work..unfo i cant see my idealism being practical in real life

hard to keep left on a 1 lane road, LOL

as for posting crimes on facebook, half of the deadshits already do. they post up telling their friends about how they have to go to court, etc, so it's not like it's not common knowledge amoungst their friends. making them stand in the middle of a mall in the city in the stocks with their name and crimes on display might do it something though, especially if you are allowed to throw rotten fruit at them because i think that even their friends would join in.

[hamiltonau]

yeah gotta admit throwing rotten fruit at bogan scum like that would make for an entertaining afternoon, we're not heading into 'becoming as bad as them territory' though are we? Meh stuff it, i would still vote for it.

oh and ironically i caught some of that awful show ACA tonight, they had a segment on the damage it does to a child when you vilify them in public. eh? some mom in penrith had dragged their kid to the playground with "i am a thief dont trust me' written on a sandwich board. apparently busted for the umpteenth time shoplifting and she didnt know what else to do..good on her i say.

[xALmoN]

public humiliation is good, makes an example out of them, and its a big enough deterrence not to want that shit happening to you.