New Queensland P-Plate laws

[J_D]

on thursday 10 August... few days ago... at about 11 am this 44 year old man hit a power pole, snapping it off at ground level and KILLING his passenger... dont know his condition but he lived... this was in a 22,000 populaton small town (Mt Isa)..... doesnt seem age matters here...

Did the media say anything about them hooning?

Age only matters if your young as the media will trump it up as a young hoon even if there is no evidence they were one. When you look at the easter/christmas road toll hype I notice that most deaths are middle age people doing such stupid things as hitting trucks head on, I mean how hard is it to stay on the right side of the road! In fact when you look at the number of crashes per km travelled, young people dont fair as badly as the media would have us believe. Young people do a lot more km's than older people, the fleet average is only 15000 km, I do more than that in 3 months. So if I am spending 4 times more time on the road than the average driver, then my risk of a crash is a lot higher. Our road toll is amazingly low compared to 30 odd years ago. In QLD vehicle registrations went up 216% between 1973 and 2003 yet road fatalities went down by 44%. Thats an actual decrease of 84%! Yet we here about none of this in the media, just the bad stuff as usual. The increasing crackdown by authorities is the result of the media. The govt only does what the media tell it to do. In the great scheme of things the road toll is of little importance.

Causes of Death (2004 stats).
Transport accidents:1689
Alzheimers:1766
Suicide:2098
Breast cancer:2641
Prostate cancer:2761
Colon cancer:2784
Influenza:3381
Mental disorders:3414
Lung cancer:7264
Heart disease:32138

But car accidents pull in more ratings with pictures of car wrecks than people with cancer etc.

 

[Wombat]

That's a very good point about "age" and whether it's considered "hooning"...

A few years back here in Bundy, there was a fatal accident outside town on the highway. I think it was a Nissan Pulsar, an older one, which hit a telegraph pole late at night and killed the driver and his wife. The engine was torn out and flung something like fifty meters down the road by the impact! the car was unrecognisable.
Now, that same night on the news, there was a single vehicle fatal accident killing the occupant somewhere near Brisbane. The car had left the road late at night and hit a large tree. No-one was sure what had happened as there were no witnesses. The car looked less damaged than the Pulsar that hit the power pole.

I give you a question: One of these accidents was called a "tragic freak accident", and one was described by police as "being under investigation as to whether speed was involved, but it looks very likely".

One driver was an ex-policeman, the other was a young man about 19.

You guess which was driving which car...:bang:

You also make a very very good point about the number of drivers on the road.
Each year there in a hugely increasing number of drivers on the road, yet the road toll is going down every year. all we get hammered with is how "enough is enough", and simplistic statements about how "ever K over is a killer"...so if I am doing 100km/hr in the pissing down rain on a winding narrow country highway, I am perfectly safe, yet if I am doing 101km/hr on a straight open 4-lane highway, I'm doomed? No, I'm not being sarcastic...the media and police say "every K over"...no qualifications, no amounts, just one single km/hr.

Motorcyclists are constantly told how dangerous we are, primarily becuase of head injuries, even though pracically everyone wears helmets. Head injury figures show that there are more head injuries each year from falls, tripping over, pushbikes, and car accidents are almost right up at the top. Motorbike accidents are about fifth on the list, maybe lower, so this is an example of how the media concentrates on easy stories which make good headlines.

There was a good point made about a particular driver in a particular car, no matter what age...I am sure we all know people who we'd quite happily sit next to at 100mph on the highway, yet there are also people we know I am sure who we wouldn't drive around a K-Mart carpark with on a busy saturday morning. My 80 year old mother has to have a yearly eye test to keep her licence, and she always buys the yearly updated issue of the little "getting your Licence book" to keep up to date with the new rules and changes. I don't see why only old people should have to do this. As a matter of fact, you don't even have to do an eye test anymore when you go in to get your licence! How stupid is that! The Department of Transport obviously doesn't care one way or the other, because my wife has to wear glasses all the time, yet when she went for her licence renewal and got her picture taken, they said it deosn't matter if you wear your glasses or not in the picture, no-one ever checks that on your licence anyway!!!

Figures can be twisted to do almost anything you like...and unfortunately they make good stories on the TV...

 

[NVE_069]

i was just thinkn it says u have to have 100hrs of driven b4 u can go for ur p's rite, now how much is a lession these days around 40 times that by 100 hr's remember its 1 hr lessions. if im not wrong isnt that $4000

 

[Wombat]

The "100 hours" is merely 100 "supervised" hours kept in a logbook showing you have had someone with an Open licence with you, it doesn;t have to be with a driving school...I bet that will be an honest and accurate record of what has actually been going on...:whistling :yeah:

 

[Patrio7]

heck, i'd be more scared of a driver of any age riding my ass in an excel than something '98 onward, the way i see it a car like an old excell can still do the speed limit and say i have to pull up quick smart, the old car doesnt have abs or an air bag, yet, as an example, a BA xr6-T would have abs, better suspension and better design. sure the extra power would be more dangerous with a group of hoons but im sure all ages have said type drivers, but even a timid driver would hurt himself more in a litle excel or charade than in a better built car [ heck even a spanking new mini would be safer in my opinion and they're nippy little cars. ]

sure reducing the risk of the unexperienced in modified cars is an interesting idea but i dont realisticly see it changing, lil johnny will be getting a $900 hatch, ripping it to peices from his 18th to his 25th then leaping into something more comfortable, i see that as dangerous.

 

[minux]

I got into plenty of trouble in that car but I never overstepped my own limits, in my opinion I think the passenger curfew will have a positive effect as I always had people "egging me on" as soon as I got a sports car, but I never got drawn into doing things other people told me to do. I think a lot of teenagers get killed because they are trying to impress their mates and bite off more than they can chew. Ill bet that the guy on the news in the wheelchair wasnt telling his mate to stop, he was probably telling him to go faster. If it was his friend he would know how that person drives and still made the choice to get in the car with him. People always change their opinion as soon as the shoe is on the other foot, he probably thought it wouldnt happen to him.

:rofl: contradicting yourself. You get into plenty of trouble but never overstepped your limits? How do you know what your limits are?

 

[calais_304]

does this mean i have to sell my 8? after all i need it to tow my other car to and from the track. a 6cyl won't do it, i know we've tried and blew the gaskets.

 

[Wombat]

Interesting point with the New Mini you bring up there...
Has anyone been in an old Mini? Something like a standard Cooper S with a 1275 which has factory twin SU's? By Christ, you'll cake your trousers if someone is driving who knows what they're doing! It's like being in a go-kart with a roof, you feel that low to the ground...they go round corners like it as well.
How about an early and relatively cheap now RX7 series 1 or 2? They go pretty damn good and have a body that just screams "give me the revs you pussy!".
Or then what about a light VN Commodore, say a Executive, with a V6?
Something older but still absolutely "standard and unmodified"? How about an old LJ two or four door...find one with a 186 or, better yet, a 202 and a manual, and you'll frighten yourself...
All these vehicles (and I could have gone on and on) are fireballs that run much quicker than you might expect, and unless very well maintained, will by now be getting a bit sad and iffy mechanically...and none of them have big brakes, ABS, airbags, or any of the modern safety stuff we take for granted. Also, not allowing them to be "modified", has wider ramifications than the government might imagine. You can modify an old car any number of ways...not only the engine to make it go harder, but the suspension, brakes, and modern tyres and wheels to make it safer to drive.

My point is that the "car list" they are going to do up later in the year will have to be a pretty broad and comprehensive and well thought out thing if they want it to have any effect at all. There are more cars which you can get yourself into trouble with very quickly indeed than the obvious suspects of V8's, turbos, or modified cars...I can see this "list" the government wants being a very long one indeed with just as many revisions needed as when they brought it in down south... :bang:

 

[Infus10n]

I drive a v8... on my P's... in Qld...

But the laws dont affect me so its ok!

As argued by everyone when these p plate laws came into affect in other states is it doesnt matter what car you drive pretty much all go 100km/h these days.

I can see how turbos can get you into trouble... mainly in the wet if your being a dick.

If your a p plater and want performance; buy a manual v6 VN-VS and you wont be dissapointed.

 

[TheForgotten]

personally, I can see more danger in LSD/locker diffs with younger drivers.
What about the idea of annual roady's like NSW, I know my car would be off the road for a while, but I see dozens of cars every day that wouldn't pass a roady, and yet these things are considered by QLD gov't to be acceptable, even though driven by kids