The Law!

[Outlaw Torn]

Hey guys, i want to know peoples opinions of these new damnable Car laws! Im refering, in particular, to the modified vechiel laws of NSW and QLD. Stating that a Factory NA car cannot be turbo'd, rather drivin, by a 'P' Plater. And certain Horsepower restrictions would be imposed.. eg, no V8, 2L Turbos and up. all that nonsence.. I mean yeah were young but what the gay man. That Doesnt mean we CANT drive.. MY PERSONAL OPINION is that: If somebody young wants to go fast and crash, injuring themselves, that they took that risk, it was them who choose to, and regardless of the car, YOU CAN STILL GO FAST! So why do young drivers like myself and others get targeted? Isnt it democracy? Shouldnt i be able to choose the motor car i drive?

Well thats my Two cents. Bit Nieve but eh.

I beleive these laws were set to come in Early 2007.

Just think, how fast can a 2ltr + and turbo get up to speed?. sure all cars are capable of high speeds these days, but what hasnt been mentioned is how fast these cars get up to that speed. That may be an area that causes problems because some people may not be able to handle/control that sort of acceleration.

Put it this way, you're not going to plant your foot in little hatchback and run out of room in a hell of a hurry are you? If this is done in a bigger car, the driver, if inexperienced, is highly likely to misjudge what is happening, causing damage.

 

[Doubleshadow]

Very well said!

You've obviously never seen an Excel hire car.
Wouldn't it make more sense to stop the people who are taking silly chance from driving, rather than just force everyone to drive a **** car?

You solution makes perfect sense. The problem is in its application. Do you really think the government has the police manpower available to track down every driver who takes silly chances? In a civil society, one may have to squeeze on some innocents for the greater good of all. In other words governance is not the avoidance of mistakes, but the making of approximate solutions to impossible problems.

 

[crazyspoon05]

It will probably be easier to police once GPS Sat Nav gets installed in more and more cars, if you go from point A to point B faster than the time if you were driving at the legal speed limit they may be able to ping you.

 

[Doubleshadow]

Very practical!

It will probably be easier to police once GPS Sat Nav gets installed in more and more cars, if you go from point A to point B faster than the time if you were driving at the legal speed limit they may be able to ping you.

This is also a very practical solution and well thought out. Do you think it will fly politically, though? This sounds too much like big brother and politicians may be afraid to sound too non-democratic/secret police. I would like to get some more input from the rest of the group as to how the public might react to such a proposal from a politician.

 

[J_D]

Putting GPS into cars to book people is ridiculous. There is not one person who has NEVER exceeded the speed limit, if they tell you they havent they are lying. Why should the safest drivers on the road be penalized. Its proven that the safest drivers are the ones who exceed the speed limit by a small amount. You could say the GPS will only book people doing say 30 or 40 over and leave the rest alone, but if such a system was introduced you can bet that the margin will be lowered until people doing 1kph over would be getting booked. The same deal with the smart card ID the govt want to introduce from 2008, they have said it wont be compulsory to use it as ID, but mark my words as soon as a large majority have it it will be made compulsory. We have already had enough of our rights trampled on. A lot of this stuff involving terrorism wouldnt of seen the light of day if the USSR was still here. Back then all the democratic nations had to allow as many personal libertys as possible so they wouldnt be compared with the USSR and could hold the high moral ground but now the major adversary has gone we are like a frog in a pot of water. Laws are slowly being changed around us so we either dont realise what is happening or we think it is a good thing and soon people will realise we have ended up like a totalitarian state. A democracy is supposed the be formed on trust of the people to do the right thing, we are supposed to have free will to do as we please unless it impinges on other peoples rights but increasingly we are being told how to live our lives because a statistician says that people that do X have a higher risk of Y. Law shouldnt be dealing with statistical probablities, only what happens as a result. "You made the wrong decision and now you will pay for it". Not "You might make the the wrong decision it the future so we will stop you from making that choice now."

 

[Doubleshadow]

Some observations on J_D

Again, your response, as in the other responses is well thought out. There is one observation, however. With your reasoning, the logical conclusion seems to be an paradigm that equates to the passage of no laws. Surely, that is not what you mean. Laws must have a statistical element. There must be a statistical safety reasoning behind a law that states that highway speed should be 110 kmph, for instance.

In a democracy the passage of laws must be must be balanced between freedoms and what is likely to be most beneficial to the entire population as a whole. And I do not believe that all people can be trusted. Left unchecked, segments of the population would trample over the rights of others. I am sure you heard of the one neighbor in the street that plays their music at 12 midnight that is so loud that it revebrates your thoughts out of your dreams.

Laws are threats to individual freedoms. But it is a risk the innocent must bear for the welfare of society at large. Afterall, that is what the "civil" in civil society is all about. And let's be realistically honest, not all of us are designed to be civil. And that is conundrum politicians must wrestle with. And for the most part a politican's job is thankless. Maybe we should all be a politician for a year and we would be less critical of a very difficult job. If you say the word, "politician", the first image that comes to mind is a weasel or some other deragotary thought. Maybe we should be a little more understanding of the people we put in power, despite their highlighted mistakes. After all, democracy is not pure science, just a noble experiment with a dissonance of moving borders and ever changing rules.

 

[J_D]

I realise that there must be laws in society but I dont think they should be based on the probability that you will do something wrong. When a cop gives you a ticket for speeding for example, they are punishing you for exceeding an arbitrary limit, not for endangering lives(thats covered under driving recklessly, without due attention etc.) So even the law doesnt recognise speed as being dangerous, (to a certain extent) otherwise all speeding tickets would carry a driving reckless charge. Only excessive speeding 30-40 over carry those charges. And if speeding was such a big killer like we are told then the massive increase in speed cameras over the last decade should of made a big dent in the road toll but it hasnt. The problem isnt that the rules keep changing but that they only change one way(harsher) they dont reverse laws when they have been proven to accomplish nothing but victimize the majority and are disobeyed by the minority that are causing the problems.

 

[Doubleshadow]

I think you may have it in reverse somewhat. Many laws are not based on the probability that you will do something wrong, it is statistically based on the act having being done before frequently and being a possible danger to you and other members of the public.

Lets talk about the speeding for a minute. If one person were doing over the speed limit, that would not have a lot of consequences, but imagine if everyone were speeding, imagine how high that would push up the probability of a dangerous situation.

Concerning speed limits, they are not abritary. Most speed limit is based on what is called the 85th percentile speed. Most motorists travel at about the same speeds, so setting the speed limit at the 85th percentile legalizes the vast majority of motorists and keeps traffic on an average even keel. Uniformity in driving speeds has an effect as in when soldiers are marching. They keep each other in cadence and is less likely to cause accidents.

Speed cameras will not stop people from driving fast. It just ensures more people who are speeding will be fined. But it forces people to slow down because it threatens their pocket book.

Believe it or not, speeding kills. An NCSA US study covering 1994 -2004 found that speeding was a central factor in over 25,000 road fatalities. While slow driving had a little over 10,000. It also found that in fatal crashes, young males were most likely to be speeding which is the reason while young males have higher insurance premiums than older ones. The insurance companies recognize them to be greater risks.

On your final point about laws that are disobeyed by the minority, but applies to the majority, I am still a little dismayed. I mean with that logic we could say that only a small amount of people are murders, so that law should not be justified. The fact is the law applies to everyone, but it only punishes those breaking it. To be honest, I am not sure about Australia, but in the US, driving is not a right, it is a privelege that can withdrawn at the people's (government) discretion, usually at the breaking of driving laws.

 

[J_D]

I should of clarified that better. What im getting at is the majority get punished with fines(who hasnt had a speeding fine), and the ones that are really dangerous ("hoons" if you will)dont care about the penalties and continue driving dangerously anyway.

As to the 85th percentile, there are plenty of roads set below this speed and the govt isnt going to up the limit because the majority of people drive on that road say 20 over the limit, they will put a speed camera on it and make revenue off of it. Where I live ive never seen a speed limit raised despite numerous roads that have been improved. And on the flip side the Ipswich Motorway which has remained in the same condition has had its speed limit lowered to 90(which has stuffed up traffic flows as people now see it as OK to do 80 and hold all the traffic up, after all its only 10 below. But the majority of traffic follow the old speed limit 100). If doing 100 was too dangerous on the same road that is now signed 90 does that mean that whoever signed it originally at 100 was negligent. Of course not, the reason that it was changed to 90 was as a kneejerk reaction to the large number of accidents on the motorway, which most are actually caused by people not speeding up to merge. we have created such a fear of speed now that about half of all people I see merging wont speed up to merge, its like they are afraid of the accelerator.

 

[Hairy Eater]

Bloke at work had a USA imported Toyota 4 cyclinder Non turbo - Non supercharged sports car .... Soarer I think ... it had 3 modes ... Economy, Power 1, Power 2 .... in Power 2 he said the car has been over 300 kph ... to me that's mind boggling .... guess that a new P-plater can drive that ...