jonescg
100 MW
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/13/3091557.htm
Grrrrr!
Grrrrr!
Australia - the nanny state.
- Thread starter jonescg
- Start date
wineboyrider
1 MW
Dude we in the US got rid of 55mph a long while back! At least you don't have it rammed down from the federal level level.
liveforphysics
100 TW
What are speed limits?
jonescg
100 MW
^^
Those numbers on the signs that mean nothing until a cop feels the need to extract $300 from you
Those numbers on the signs that mean nothing until a cop feels the need to extract $300 from you
Although i feel like i live in a craphole country in some ways, i do feel bad for you Australians. The laws seems to be very prohibitive and sometimes nonsensical over there.
That has gotta be rage-inducing.
That has gotta be rage-inducing.
liveforphysics
100 TW
neptronix said:
If you think you live in a crap-hole, you need to travel. There are only a handful of nicer places in the world, and generally they have some massive drawbacks in various ways.
jonescg
100 MW
It's true, there are much worse places to live, and the crap that I hear that Tea Party mob coming up with about America becoming a dictatorship is pure hyperbole - but some of it has a point. The government is under pressure from lobby groups of all persuasion to force the general public to behave in a certain way. In this instance, at a time when cars are getting safer, the road toll per vehicle per km travelled is going down, and roads are being better engineered, why the f^ck should we be lowering speed limits??
Perhaps the worst part about Australia is that we let the authorities ream us and then complain that "the bloody government oughtta do something!"
You will never see so many signs that say "NO..." than in Australia.
Perhaps the worst part about Australia is that we let the authorities ream us and then complain that "the bloody government oughtta do something!"
You will never see so many signs that say "NO..." than in Australia.
wineboyrider
1 MW
The Tea Party mob that you hear about would be me and we are about saying Yes to liberty and No to tyranny! And yes, globalism sucks! But, we are all moving towards a soft form of tyranny and a nanny state is the breeding ground for dictators! :lol:
heathyoung
100 kW
This country is far too bloody apathetic to change anything.
In Europe, they riot in the streets.
Gives you the shits.
In Europe, they riot in the streets.
Gives you the shits.
dogman dan
1 PW
I remember 55, it sucked, at least for out west where towns are 70 miles apart. But then, a few of the cars I had back then were only capable of about 60 :lol:
1200 cc toyotas with no overdrive. uggh. Nowdays my subaru doesn't even get into it's overdrive comfort rpm till 80 mph.
1200 cc toyotas with no overdrive. uggh. Nowdays my subaru doesn't even get into it's overdrive comfort rpm till 80 mph.
For those of you who have never driven through the rural roads of Tasmania (or rural Australia for that fact), just a little insight... they can be downright dangerous at high speed for many reasons:
I worked as a chief mechanic for a Targa Tasmania race team earlier this year and I covered over 3000km on Tasmanian roads in a week - the number or roadside crucifixes is both astonishing and saddening. I have also driven to Perth, Darwin and Adelaide from Sydney several times on hot testing drives and I can vouch for the fact that there are just as many fuckwits behind the wheel in rural areas as there is in any major citys... its just that a fuckwit takes on a whole new meaning at 100kph+ in the outback as compared to 40kph in the city.
Yes, a slower speed could possibly reduce the amount of damage and death when two cars collide but in my experience, its the driver that causes the accident in the first place, not the road or the speed limit - therefore government resources (once again) would be better spent on driver training. When you see a news report about a car-full of teenagers killed when they speared off the road into a tree in some tiny rural town, you just know they that teenagers are always gonna put themselves in that situation... its how they react when the shit goes down that makes the difference
- - more often than not there is no centre line and people will cut corners and take up the whole road... not just their lane
- - there is a dirt ditch instead of a nice concrete kerb on the side of the road making it easier to oversteer/understeer if you run wide
- - rural roads see more crappy old utes and dungers than late model vehicles equipped with ESP/ABS
I worked as a chief mechanic for a Targa Tasmania race team earlier this year and I covered over 3000km on Tasmanian roads in a week - the number or roadside crucifixes is both astonishing and saddening. I have also driven to Perth, Darwin and Adelaide from Sydney several times on hot testing drives and I can vouch for the fact that there are just as many fuckwits behind the wheel in rural areas as there is in any major citys... its just that a fuckwit takes on a whole new meaning at 100kph+ in the outback as compared to 40kph in the city.
Yes, a slower speed could possibly reduce the amount of damage and death when two cars collide but in my experience, its the driver that causes the accident in the first place, not the road or the speed limit - therefore government resources (once again) would be better spent on driver training. When you see a news report about a car-full of teenagers killed when they speared off the road into a tree in some tiny rural town, you just know they that teenagers are always gonna put themselves in that situation... its how they react when the shit goes down that makes the difference
TylerDurden
100 GW
It's much easier to drive fast, than to drive slow. Try it.
Lessss
1 MW
So speaks a CWD candidate.
hydro-one
10 kW
I HATE CARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
/\This. The roads you describe sound a lot like rural Delaware..often barely wide enough to pass two cars, no lines, not very well paved (tar&gravel)..and yet the vast majority of those roads are unmarked (unmarked == 50mph limit in DE). I lived in rural DE for almost 10 years and saw probably less than 10 crashed vehicles in all that time..and almost all of those were just someone who drove into a ditch...the only one I remember that was otherwise was someone who blew through a stop sign and got T-boned by a large truck. But, the driver's education courses in DE are compulsory and quite intensive (by US standards). Anyways, point of that is, yes, I completely agree, driver education will always trump road conditions.unsane said:
dingoEsride
100 kW
But we are only talking about the state of Tasmania which is an island and from what ive heard has very windy mountainous roads, sure an experience driver rider can handle these roads at a higher speed but its usually a hand full of the others that make the rules change, there are some vast distances to cover in other states and 90kph would be painfull
Despite introduction of model national road rules by the states in 1999, Western Australia and the Northern Territory retain different default speed limits. The table below indicates the default speed limits along with typical school zone limits and the highest zone in each locality.
State / Territory School zone[2] Built-up area Rural area Highest speed zone
Australian Road Rules[3] number on school zone sign 50 100 number on speed-limit sign
Australian Capital Territory 40 50 100 100
New South Wales 40 on all roads 50 100 110[4]
Northern Territory 40 60[5] 110 130
Queensland 40 on roads 70 km/h or less
60 on roads 80 km/h and some 90/100 km/h
80 on roads 110 km/h and some 90/100 km/h 50 100 110
South Australia 25 on roads 60 km/h or less 50 100 [6] 110
Tasmania 40 on roads 70 km/h or less
60 on roads 80 km/h or more 50 100 110
Victoria 40 on roads 70 km/h or less
60 on roads 80 km/h or more 50 100 110
Western Australia 40 on roads 70 km/h or less
60 on roads with 80 km/h or 90 km/h 50 110 110
Despite introduction of model national road rules by the states in 1999, Western Australia and the Northern Territory retain different default speed limits. The table below indicates the default speed limits along with typical school zone limits and the highest zone in each locality.
State / Territory School zone[2] Built-up area Rural area Highest speed zone
Australian Road Rules[3] number on school zone sign 50 100 number on speed-limit sign
Australian Capital Territory 40 50 100 100
New South Wales 40 on all roads 50 100 110[4]
Northern Territory 40 60[5] 110 130
Queensland 40 on roads 70 km/h or less
60 on roads 80 km/h and some 90/100 km/h
80 on roads 110 km/h and some 90/100 km/h 50 100 110
South Australia 25 on roads 60 km/h or less 50 100 [6] 110
Tasmania 40 on roads 70 km/h or less
60 on roads 80 km/h or more 50 100 110
Victoria 40 on roads 70 km/h or less
60 on roads 80 km/h or more 50 100 110
Western Australia 40 on roads 70 km/h or less
60 on roads with 80 km/h or 90 km/h 50 110 110
TylerDurden
100 GW
Let's move to Ohio...
"A highway patrol study conducted after the split speed limit's elimination and an accompanying trucker-friendly fare reduction found the 65-mph speed limit for trucks boosted commercial-vehicle volume on the turnpike by 22 percent, while it declined on surveyed parallel routes by 16 percent. The average truck speed increased to 67 mph, an 8 mph jump, while the average passenger-car speed increased to 74 mph, 1 mph higher than when trucks were slower.
Dan Castrigano, the turnpike's chief engineer, said more recent speed surveys show similar results, with a typical truck traveling at 66 mph and average car speeds in the low 70s.
Crashes on the turnpike spiked immediately after the speed-limit increase and toll reduction.
During the 18-month period the patrol sampled, fatal or injury crashes involving commercial vehicles on the turnpike during dry-road conditions increased by 56 percent.
Crashes in which a commercial vehicle driver was blamed increased to 680 from 482 during an 18-month comparison period before the increase, while at-fault commercial crashes on the parallel routes declined to 1,961 from 2,089, a 6 percent drop, during the same time.
Getting trucks off parallel secondary roads such as State Rt. 2 and U.S. 20 is the idea, said Pioneer, Ohio, Mayor Edward Kidston, the turnpike commission member who has placed the proposal on the board's agenda. Pioneer is on U.S. 20 in western Williams County, just north of the turnpike. "I've thought about this for a long time," he said. "I have no reservations at all about it. This is the right thing to do." "
"A highway patrol study conducted after the split speed limit's elimination and an accompanying trucker-friendly fare reduction found the 65-mph speed limit for trucks boosted commercial-vehicle volume on the turnpike by 22 percent, while it declined on surveyed parallel routes by 16 percent. The average truck speed increased to 67 mph, an 8 mph jump, while the average passenger-car speed increased to 74 mph, 1 mph higher than when trucks were slower.
Dan Castrigano, the turnpike's chief engineer, said more recent speed surveys show similar results, with a typical truck traveling at 66 mph and average car speeds in the low 70s.
Crashes on the turnpike spiked immediately after the speed-limit increase and toll reduction.
During the 18-month period the patrol sampled, fatal or injury crashes involving commercial vehicles on the turnpike during dry-road conditions increased by 56 percent.
Crashes in which a commercial vehicle driver was blamed increased to 680 from 482 during an 18-month comparison period before the increase, while at-fault commercial crashes on the parallel routes declined to 1,961 from 2,089, a 6 percent drop, during the same time.
Getting trucks off parallel secondary roads such as State Rt. 2 and U.S. 20 is the idea, said Pioneer, Ohio, Mayor Edward Kidston, the turnpike commission member who has placed the proposal on the board's agenda. Pioneer is on U.S. 20 in western Williams County, just north of the turnpike. "I've thought about this for a long time," he said. "I have no reservations at all about it. This is the right thing to do." "
