Blight has to go wtf ?

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26078512-3102,00.html

 

Of course the stupid bitch has to go!

--

- KRudd at his finest.

"The Labour Party is corrupt beyond redemption!"
- Labour hasbeen Mark Latham in a moment of honest clarity.

"This is the recession we had to have!"
- Paul Keating explaining why he gave Australia another Labour recession.

"Silly old bugger!"
- Well known ACTU pisspot and sometime Labour prime minister Bob Hawke
responding to a pensioner who dared ask for more.

"By 1990, no child will live in poverty"
- Bob Hawke again, desperate to win another election.

"A billion trees ..."
- Borke, pissed as a newt again.

"Well may we say 'God save the Queen' because nothing will save the governor
general!"
- Egotistical shithead and pompous fuckwit E.G. Whitlam whining about his
appointee for Governor General John Kerr.

"SHUT THE **** UP YOU DUMB ****!"
- FlangesBum on learning the truth about Labour's economic capabilities.

"We'll just change it all when we get in."
- Garrett the carrott

 

What do they call zero?

It would be quite possible to still have a level of alcohol in the
blood the day after a night out, or even many hours after a social
event.

There would have to be an arbitary level.

As 0.05 BAC is scientically and medically proven to be a level which
does not impair driving/riding ability, what good will a lower or zero
policy do?

None whatsoever.

Electric monitoring tags now, what a laugh. Is that the best they can
come up with? There's plenty of camera equipment available to do the
job now without trying to reinvent the wheel.


What a political wankathon.

The same crash uptrend is happening in SA, it's not just MCs, and the
authorities don't know what to do about it. The simple fact is that
road crashe numbers are subject to annual variation - and thats all
this is.

The pollies were crowing about their successes last year and this year
it's all gone pear shaped for them.

The only solution they seem to be able to come up with is another law.
Whether it can be enforced or is effective doesn't seem to enter their
pea like brains.



Rob

 

They seem to trot the minimum clothing thing out every six months or so,
It's getting like the front number plates thing.

It's almost like it's just an empty annoucement meant to reassure the
great unwashed that she's doing something about a problem.

The no-alcohol thing is a newie, typical of government to hit all those
who are professional drivers and those who had to undertake training
courses, while leaving the enormous herds of gormless amateur cagers
free to drink as normal.

We used to call ourselves the smart state once...

 

It's measurable, but not regarded as "legally impaired" by a majority
of countries.

Rob

 

I see the front number plate issue arises again ::


Queensland Transport is investigating the benefits of a zero alcohol limit
as part of its four-year motorcycle safety strategy, along with new
technology to prevent bikes escaping speed camera detection.

Radio Frequency Identification Devices are being developed to help overcome
the problem of motorbikes not having a front registration plate by allowing
bikes to be identified through other means.

Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson said identification was an issue for police
trying to enforce the road rules.





"Some really irresponsible motorcyclists as they go through a speed camera
will even reach back and put their hand over the number plate so the
motorcycle can't be photographed," Mr Atkinson said.





"So they're the ones in my view who are at a higher risk of death and injury
and they're the ones we really need to stop."

He said he was confident technology would solve the problem.

"There will be something that can be put safely on the front of a motorcycle
that would be an identifier for the motorcycle, and would link the
motorcycle to a registered number or a number plate."

 

Agreed. The tone of the article suggests it's background noise news
(can't remember the correct term for it now).

Given the numbers 28 and 54, the average number of deaths in the two
years, is 41. It's such a small number I'm not surprised to see a
relatively large variation -- plus or minus 13 is equivalent to
about 30%.

If the death toll has increased, it makes sense to look at the causes
and address them. For example, before spending money on enforcing a
zero BAC, I'd want to know how many motorcycle deaths are due to
alcohol in Queensland. Call that number AD. It could be 3 (of the
54) for all I know. If the cost of creating and enforcing the new
rule exceeds $60000 x AD, I believe the money is better spent
elsewhere. Otherwise by enforcing new rules without knowing the
expected outcome you are just stabbing in the dark. Next year the
number will likely be lower, as the average depends on something
else...

Reducing the road toll is a sisyphean task, with a yearly requirement
to keep good driving in everybody's mind (and police on the streets).
I believe people would drive with a zero BAC of their own free will if
their attitudes and behaviour were influenced by someone that could
motivate change. One problem is governments tend think about things
in terms of laws and enforcing them -- I wish I could change that.

 

Woudn't the police be better off actually enforcing existing
legislation? ie. mobile phone use.

How many MC riders (or other road users) have been killed, injured, run
off the road or had the sh#t scared out of them by errant mobile phone
users.

No that's too hard. Might upset too many people, particularly business.

But big ticket items like that are where serious gains can be made.
Not on small fry issues like trying to catch the occassional yob on a
bike.

Rob

 

From a legal perspective I would expect that the current level was set
at a point where alcohol was NOT regarded as a significant causal
influence in a crash.

Rob

 

Didn't each state do it's own research and set it independently (in
line with Federal recommendations).

Rob

 

In aus.motorcycles on Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:52:20 +1000

The stats in Oz have shown that those who crash cars to the point of
having police attend or needing medical care for someone involved are
overwhelmingly over .08. Usually on the far side of .1

This may mean that those between .05 and .08 are lucky or have mostly
non-injury crashes.

Zebee

 

In aus.motorcycles on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:08:40 -0700 (PDT)

It is my understanding that the deaths due to alcohol tend to also
involve unregistered/unlicenced. There's also a lot of not wearing
helmet in there.

In other words getting pissed, hopping on a mate's bike to have a bit
of fun or nick up to the boozer for more.

If you removed that demographic from the numbers, the fatalities
dropped a lot.

There used to be a graph of this on the MCC site.

Zebee

 

In aus.motorcycles on 16 Sep 2009 10:54:22 +1100

From a political perspective I think it was set because the Feds
bullied the states into it, and the Feds were mostly about political
points.

Zebee

 

Except for those that were told "make it .05 or lose road funding".

Pietro

 

And specifically; how many of those alcohol-related deaths/injuries
are caused but riders with between 0% and .05% alcohol.
I would suspect it's a big fat ZERO and the whole process of dropping
the limit just makes a lot of previously law-abiding riders into fine-
able law-breakers for no safety benefit.

It's like that stretch of road near Gympie where there was a series of
fatal crashes a few years ago.
All of the bad ones were speed-related with cars estimated to be
travelling 30, 60 or more kph above the 100 limit so the govt response
was to drop the limit to 80.
Where's the sense in that? The people doing 100 were never a problem
but they're the peopl who're now gonna' get fined, and the people
doing 160 are now gonna' get precisely the same penalty as they got
before.

I blame the newspapers; they cook up this stupidity to embarrass the
Govt and the Govt just takes the simplest knee-jerk solution to make
the newspaper-readers think they're doing something!
LC.

 

I'd suggest that it was set as just another knee-jerk reaction to a
high road-toll one year!
Same as .02 for P-Platers.. They had a lot of crashes when the limit
was .05 (and .08) so now it's .02.
(it doesn't matter whether any of those crashes actually involved
people driving at .05 or .08 though!)
LC.

 

Yeah but that takes police on patrol actually out on the roads to do
that kind of work.
Far better economics to just lower the speed-limits and put up a
camera or lower the BAC and park a booze-bus.
Better stats too; "we caught 300 offenders over the lond
weekend ......"
LC.

 

In WA they also used to count off-road bike deaths. No licence, no
rego, no helmet, etc.

Theo

 

Zebee Johnstone wrote:

....and that type of demographic doesn't care about what rules it may be
breaking, so stiffer rules won't do any good anyway.

regards,
CrazyCam

 

U r rong here

u will find it is approx 4 times higher