Just like the hypocrisy of governments bleating about endemic gambling while constantly increasing the amount of poker machines and other forms of punting and allowing more than fifty people per day to die of tobacco related illness while reaping billions of dollars from tobacco taxes, it is obvious that government road strategies are implemented not to save lives, but to extract the maximum amount of money possible from motorists in the form of fines. Motorists are targeted because people have to drive and they are easy to prey upon. The whole system of fixed traffic cameras and current police road "enforcement" tactics is just another form of blatant taxation, nothing more.
Instead of making their presence felt throughout the roads as a deterrent to dangerous driving practices, the police act merely as government revenue-raisers. This is easily proven by observing and analysing their methods. For instance, whenever a well-marked police vehicle is easily seen on the road, the behaviour of motorists immediately and dramatically changes. They slow down to the speed limit and drive very safely and carefully. In other words, there is no doubt whatsoever that the greatest deterrent to unsafe driving is a visible police presence on the roads.
So what do the police do? The exact opposite! They hide behind bushes and billboards with radar and laser guns and book speeding motorists, gathering tens of millions of dollars per year in revenue from infringements. If the police really wanted to stop speeders, the mere presence of marked police cars on the roads would achieve this immediately, but of course this does not produce any revenue. And why do police persist in using unmarked cars? The obvious and only logical explanation is that this also allows them to raise revenue by booking motorists who would certainly not be speeding if the police had made their presence felt by patrolling in marked cars. In other words, what the police are doing is entrapment, not enforcement, purely for the purpose of collecting revenue.
It was reported in February 2012 that NSW Police were going to crack down on motorists who perform acts while driving such as putting lipstick on, eating food items such as breakfast items and other activities that they perceive to be dangerous. Of course certain activities could be very dangerous while driving, such as reading newspapers or shaving while looking in a mirror at their faces. However, it is more than obvious that it will be very hard for police to prove that motorists were indeed performing dangerous acts, when many activities that involve taking hands off the wheel are perfectly legal.
For instance, it is perfectly legal for motorists to smoke while driving, yet many accidents have been caused by smokers dropping their lit cigarettes or hot ash in their laps and crashing while trying to stop themselves from catching on fire. Taking one's hand off the steering wheel to change gears in a manual car is quite legal, in fact necessary to drive the car. Taking one's hand off the steering wheel to change the volume or stations on a car radio is perfectly legal. Taking one's hand off the steering wheel to adjust the car's air-conditioning or any other dashboard function is legal.
So what are the criteria that the police are going to use to make a certain act while driving a bookable offence that can be justified to a court of law? If a motorist can take his hand off the steering wheel to scratch his nose, will he get booked for taking his hands off the steering wheel to place candy in his mouth? If he is permitted to place candy in his mouth, then obviously he should be able to eat a banana or a cereal bar while driving, because the act is exactly the same.
It is currently illegal to operate a mobile phone while driving unless it is via a hands-free device. However, many modern cars have Bluetooth integration that allows a motorist to make and receive calls via the touchscreen on the dashboard, which also controls various other features, such as the radio and the satellite navigation system. So if the police see a motorist poking away at his dashboard touchscreen while driving, how will they know that he is not merely changing the radio station and not dialling a phone number to make a call to the Bluetooth-connected mobile phone in his pocket? What is the difference? The act is exactly the same, inasmuch as the motorist takes his hand off the steering wheel and operates the touchscreen in both cases.
If a motorist was booked for eating a cereal bar while driving, he could haul the booking officer into the witness box in court and demand to see how many people the cop booked in the past year for smoking, considering that eating a cereal bar and smoking are literally the same hand actions and obviously can cause the same distraction. Obviously the cop would not have booked any people for smoking, so a very strong case for dismissal could be made to the court on the grounds that the booking was grossly discriminatory and devoid of any logic or sense.
This blitz by NSW Police against people who have the temerity to eat doughnuts or other food while driving is very obviously another revenue-raising scheme to fill the coffers of the NSW Government. Motorists can drive in perfect safety, whether they are manually changing gears, eating a piece of chewing gum or changing stations on their car radios. Anybody who is booked for doing such acts should fight the bookings in every case.
Radar detectors are banned in most states of Australia, but for all the wrong reasons. Many international studies have shown that motorists using radar detectors have far less accidents than those who do not have these devices. An analysis in the US state of Virginia by a group called Stop The Virginia Radar Detector Ban that is fighting to overturn the ban on radar detectors, makes the following very valid points that I have modified slightly to correlate with Australian circumstances:
After examining the many studies around the world about radar detectors, the only conclusion that a person could draw is that they are banned only because they are devices that reduce revenue from infringement notices, not reduce the road fatality rate. It is obvious that if motorists were warned of a police presence using radar speed guns, those motorists would slow down and drive carefully, just as if they were in the presence of marked police cars on the road. But of course this would not have the desired effect of maintaining the cash cow of speeding fines, so the police still act as government revenue-raisers by hiding behind billboards and trees and driving in unmarked cars instead of making their presence felt.
It is allegedly an offence to flash high beam headlights at oncoming motorists within 100 metres. The reason given by police is that flashing high beams may dazzle oncoming motorists, creating a hazard. This is a complete load of baloney, because during the day, people can tolerate much higher levels of light intensity because their irises are closed more than at night. So momentarily high beams would have literally no effect on drivers, but the offence was created to stop drivers being warned of speed traps, so that the revenue stream from speeding tickets would not be jeopardised.
How on earth can the government justify making it illegal for motorists to inform other drivers to slow down to the speed limit? This idiotic law about flashing headlights merely proves for once and for all that police speed traps are indeed revenue-raisers and have no intention of trying to reduce the road toll by deterring speeding drivers. For instance, if I flashed a light at a speeding driver and he slowed down to the speed limit, I would achieve a lot more for road safety than a bunch of cops hiding in the bushes with radar guns.
It may be illegal to flash high beams at oncoming motorists, but obviously if low beams are flashed rapidly, there is no chance of dazzling oncoming drivers. Thus it is not a hazard and cannot be a bookable offence. Drivers who really want to help their fellow motorists to avoid being entrapped by police radar can easily wire a momentary pushbutton switch to their low beam switch that can be used to flash their low beams. If pulled over by police for flashing lights, drivers can easily demonstrate that they flashed their low beams, not causing oncoming drivers to be dazzled and thus beating any booking.
As far as I am aware, it is not illegal to carry a torch in the car and flash it at oncoming motorists. So as a service to your fellow motorists and to stay within the law, keep a torch in your car and use it to warn oncoming motorists of speed traps. Those high-intensity LED torches are ideal for this purpose, as they are small and convenient, the LEDs never burn out and the batteries seem to last forever. These torches are not bright enough to dazzle oncoming drivers, so flashing them to warn of speed traps could not possibly be illegal. If a blue filter was placed on a torch, it would certainly indicate to oncoming motorists to beware of a police speed trap ahead.
Police using radar and laser speed guns are often observed in 40kph school zones, invariably positioned at the departure end of such zones. Logic dictates that this method of so-called "speed zone enforcement" is another blatant form of revenue-raising that actually risks the lives of schoolchildren. If the police wanted to deter motorists from speeding though school zones, they would place police cars BEFORE the entry points to those zones and illuminate their roof signs to indicate that the zones were active and warn motorists to slow down. Such highly visible indicators on police cars BEFORE the zones would virtually guarantee that every motorist would slow down to the 40kph speed limit, however it would also mean that none of them would be booked and thus the state would not receive the revenue from such bookings.
So police place themselves at the departure ends of school zones and book hapless motorists who do not notice the often obscure school zone signs or fail to note the time when these zones are active. This has become a massive cash cow for the state government, however it does not protect the very people who are most at risk, the schoolchildren. Imagine the scenario if a motorist sped through a school zone and struck and killed a schoolchild, when there was a policeman at the far end of the zone with a speed gun waiting to trap and book him? It would be far too late for the dead child and the alleged "speed zone enforcement" that the police claim they are enforcing with such tactics will have done nothing whatsoever to save that child. If that police car had been placed before the zone, with illuminated warnings, then that child would have most certainly remained alive.
It is only a matter of time before such a terrible event happens and the police and the state will not be able to wriggle out of the public outrage or to justify these blatant revenue-raising tactics any more. Unfortunately it will mean that an innocent child will have to die to make the point.
If state governments really wanted to make school zones safe for children at the allocated times, then every school zone sign would be fitted with bright flashing lights that would indicate the hours of operation, thus alerting motorists to slow to 40kph. However this has two drawbacks for governments, firstly the cost of installing flashing lights on all school zone signs. But what seems to be the most important reason that governments have been so slow to do this is that massive amounts of revenue would be lost if motorists were warned to slow down in those zones and thus not be booked for speeding.
It is blatantly obvious that although state governments constantly issue propaganda about how much they care for the safety of schoolchildren, their tardiness in installing warning lights at those school zones shows that the revenue raised from booking motorists in them is far more important than saving lives.
Not only that, positive proof periodically emerges that shows that police are given booking quotas to fulfil. In other words, they must actively book a certain amount of people per month, whether they need to be booked or not. Of course this leads to situations where, if the quota happens to be low at one particular time, police will issue infringements for the most trivial or even unsubstantiated charges, knowing that most motorists are either ignorant of the law or their rights and do not have the resources or knowledge to fight such travesties and will just pay the fines and write them off as bad experiences.
Motorists should always ensure that they stand up for their rights and not be bullied into accepting unjust infringement notices. It is most important for motorists to know that they are not required to volunteer information to police if they are pulled over, apart from producing their driver licences and stating their name and address. Anything said to police can be used as evidence, therefore motorists should always resist temptation and apart from stating their name and address, refuse to say anything whatsoever. Even if motorists know that they were speeding or committing some other offence, quite often infringement notices will have errors on them that will invalidate them completely, thus saving motorists money and demerit points.
One of the best ways of proving innocence is to have a car black box recorded that logs an entire incident with GPS position and speed, video and audio recording and other data. A motorist producing such a record in court can easily get a wrongful infringement notice dismissed, especially if it shows that the policeman deliberately booked the motorist on a bogus infringement so as to fill his booking quota.
This is not to say that motorists should try everything to evade being penalised for actually committing offences, but in many cases, motorists have been booked unjustly and in such cases, should use every legal means at their disposal to fight the bookings and get them withdrawn or dismissed in court.
With inexpensive mobile phones with built-in cameras being readily available, all motorists should have them and take plenty of photos whenever they are pulled over and booked. No amount of verbal argument in court is better than even one clear photo. The data from car black box recorders that show that motorists did not commit the offence for which they were booked will invariably get the bookings dismissed.
Police often get it wrong on many occasions and motorists need to gather as much hard evidence as possible to prove that they were wrongly booked. Do not be intimidated by police trying to stop you taking photographs, making recordings and notes, as you are legally entitled to do this.
The presumption of innocence has been a long-held foundation of Australian law. It is a simple principle that states that a person is presumed to be innocent of an offence until proven guilty. This has been the bastion on which every criminal court case has been prosecuted.
However, this very important foundation of law has been completely overturned by the way that motorists are being prosecuted for offences. If a motorist is booked for speeding, he is presumed guilty of the offence and he is fined. If he decides to fight the fine, he has to go to court and try and prove his case against the police or a speed camera. For the average motorist, this is nearly impossible, unless there is an unimpeachable witness available to back up the motorist's claim of wrongful booking.
State governments have conspired to make it nearly impossible for motorists to fight speeding fines by declaring that speed cameras and speed guns are scientific instruments and their accuracy cannot be challenged. In fact, hard evidence shows that most speed cameras are notoriously inaccurate and unreliable, with around 14% in NSW being declared faulty in some way at any given time. The same goes for hand-held or roadside laser speed cameras that rely on being calibrated accurately by the operator and in many cases they are not.
So the hapless motorist trying to fight a wrongful booking has to not only contend with being automatically declared guilty, but trying to prove that a notoriously inaccurate or faulty speed camera was wrong, when legislation has declared this piece of rubbish to be a scientific instrument whose readings are the gospel truth. The same goes for a booking made by a cop with a laser speed gun who has miscalibrated it, but whose word is almost invariably taken over that of the motorist.
In other words, state governments have deliberately passed legislation to make it almost impossible for motorists to fight wrongful bookings and their enforcement arms such as police are in on the scam as paid revenue-raisers. But the worst aspect is the complete denial of justice by the abrogation of the most important principle of law, that of the presumption of innocence.
In fact, in 2011 South Australian independent MP Bob Such is considering taking his speeding fine case to the High Court. He stated, "The High Court is very strict about presumption of innocence. What we've got here under this Gaddafi Road Traffic Act is a system that takes away your presumption of innocence and puts the onus of proof onto the citizen against the resources of the police because the police inspector says it (the reading) was accurate."
Such said, "It's worse than David and Goliath because the system backs the system. What we have with a police officer using a laser and in South Australia they use these cheap lasers which have no camera unlike New Zealand, unlike the United Kingdom where they can show you a photo."
Chances are that Bob Such will also lose his High Court bid to have the principle of the presumption of innocence upheld, even though he is absolutely right about the state negating it. Simply put, the government cannot allow such a thing to happen, because it will completely destroy its method of raising revenue without going to a lot of very expensive trouble. If the government had to individually try and prosecute every motorist in court on any traffic offence, rather than just issuing a fine, the system would collapse. Therefore the High Court, being mindful of this, would be most unlikely to uphold the principle of the presumption of innocence in Such's matter.
When pulled over by police, REMEMBER THIS - Anything you say can be used against you as evidence in court. You are only required to give your name, produce your driver's licence and submit to a breath test if asked. That's all. The police don't have the right to even search you or your car without just cause. This is what you should do.
Speed has been blamed more than most other factors that cause fatal accidents, but there is nothing wrong with driving quickly, provided that certain criteria are met. If the road is of a high standard, the vehicle is modern, well-handling and has excellent tyres and if the driver is competent, sober and well-trained in handling a car in emergencies such as skids, then driving at 160kph or more on most good freeways such as the Sydney to Melbourne divided highway poses no reduction in safety at all. This is easily proven by statistics.
Germany's road toll is similar to that of Australia, but there is no speed limit whatsoever on German autobahns and in many cases the weather conditions are much worse in Europe than in Australia. Therefore speeding in itself cannot be blamed for our road toll and it is ludicrous to see unrealistic limits of 110kph on freeways that are capable of accommodating modern safe vehicles travelling at almost double that speed. In fact in the recent 2000 holiday period, the only area that did not sustain any road deaths was the Northern Territory, where there was still no speed limit on open roads.
It is most apparent that a major change in policy and the application of the law to motorists needs to be implemented. Governments require money to operate, but if it is at the expense of road deaths, this is far too high a price to pay. Police must be prevented from acting as government tax collectors and must do their job of deterring errant motorists by showing a high profile on the roads in marked cars instead of skulking behind bushes or in disguised vehicles. Speed cameras should be completely abolished, as they do not deter speeders, but just act as revenue-raisers. Red-light cameras have been proven to be completely ineffective and in fact contribute to accidents at intersections, so they should be removed forthwith.
Every motorist has the means to beat those revenue-raisers easily. Just go and get a GPS with a current traffic camera database and say goodbye to being booked by traffic cameras and of course do not accumulate those demerit points that can result in licence loss. Every motorist can use a Bluetooth hands-free car kit and never get booked holding a phone to his ear while driving. Every motorist can get a car black box recorder as an unimpeachable witness to wrongful bookings and accidents. Taking active measures is quite legal.