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> ... Australia ... has very strict road safety laws and practices, which are generally supported by the community I think this is it. Australians are okay wit

> ... Australia ... has very strict road safety laws and practices, which are generally supported by the community I think this is it. Australians are okay with just about any kind of big-brother surveillance or nanny-stateism as long as it's sold to them with a good story. Australian roads are on par with other wealthy Western nations (US is an outlier), and Oz has an advantage of not having snow/ice and related hazards. The cops there are largely harassing people and raising money, it's not driven by an aim to reduce harm or protect drivers.

tomhoward 6y ago
> it's not driven by an aim to reduce harm or protect drivers Yeah, this is false. Australians like living in a place that has safe roads, and support governments that keep things that way. It makes for well-functioning health system and a harmonious society. I agree that Australia can be too nanny-statist; that's a separate matter. But it's not true that authorities don't care about reducing harm to people. Governments/authority figures who aren't serious and sincere about this topic don't stay in office very long.
- logifail 6y ago
  > Yeah, this is false. Australians like living in a place that has safe roads, and support governments that keep things that way (Counter-example) Approximately 70% of Germany's motorways have no speed limit, yet despite that and being very busy, they are still considered the safest roads in Germany. Full disclosure: I don't support the lack of speed limit, from personal experience when driving in Germany it appears to encourage tailgating and/or generally aggressive driving.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - tomhoward 6y ago
    Australia’s high-speed dual carriageway motorways are quite safe too, so speed by itself isn’t the issue. The riskier roads are single carriageway highways where vehicles with drowsy/impaired drivers can lose control and veer off the road into a tree or onto the other side of the road into an oncoming car. Notably, the most dangerous road in Victoria is the Western Highway, which is a single-carriageway road that joins two major cities that are about 9 hours drive apart, and is Australia’s second-busiest road for freight.
- z77dj3kl 6y ago
  Let's take an example: a lot of states in Australia have recently embarked on a war against speeding. Speed is a really important factor in safety: it's imperative that drivers drive on roads at an appropriate speed. If the purpose was harm reduction, an appropriate thing would be to concentrate on what really is a safe speed on individual roads, updating speed limits (they are currently set by very stupid rules and are often very inappropriate), and concentrating on those with actually excessive speed (which they do to some extent). However, the majority of the effort these governments have put into it is to get really picky about anybody driving 3km/h over the limit and giving them insane fines for it. This causes people to just stare at the speedo instead of concentrating on defensive driving or paying attention to their surroundings.
  - anticristi 6y ago
    I always drive with the speed limiter in the city and mostly with cruise control on highways. I can easily imagine keeping the speed exactly at the limit, without having to stare at the speedo. Most people are amazed I just relax around speed cameras. "Careful! You need to slow down. Oh, you are already at or below the speed limit." I don't get why this isn't a routine for all drivers.
  - tomhoward 6y ago
    I gather you're not in Australia and are basing this on what you've heard from others, so I'll make some corrections: - The campaign to enforce speed limits has been going on for decades; there's no "recently" about it. - They do update speed limits to what is deemed safe on different roads, and there is constant research and discussion about what speed levels are appropriate, along with published correlations of speed limits with fatality figures, and consideration of practices in other countries. - I live in s state that supposedly penalises you if you exceed the limit by more than about 3kph. I've been fined a couple of times in recent years, since I moved out of the city into the suburbs. I wasn't fined for 3kph breach, more like 6. The fine is now AUD $207 for exceeding the speed limit by up to 10kph. It was annoying, sure, but I've learned to be more careful about keeping to the limit, and haven't had a fine for over 2 years. I don't stare at the speedo. Nobody does. In city roads it's usually hard to exceed the limit anyway due to traffic, and on open roads I use cruise control. It's no big deal. Meanwhile, the fatality figures continue to decrease year on year. The notion that traffic fines are a scam to raise government revenue doesn't hold much water. Traffic fines make up less than 1.5% of state revenue in Victoria, and it is spent on road upgrades to improve safety and traffic conditions.

tomhoward 6y ago

> it's not driven by an aim to reduce harm or protect drivers Yeah, this is false. Australians like living in a place that has safe roads, and support governments that keep things that way. It makes for well-functioning health system and a harmonious society. I agree that Australia can be too nanny-statist; that's a separate matter. But it's not true that authorities don't care about reducing harm to people. Governments/authority figures who aren't serious and sincere about this topic don't stay in office very long.

logifail 6y ago
> Yeah, this is false. Australians like living in a place that has safe roads, and support governments that keep things that way (Counter-example) Approximately 70% of Germany's motorways have no speed limit, yet despite that and being very busy, they are still considered the safest roads in Germany. Full disclosure: I don't support the lack of speed limit, from personal experience when driving in Germany it appears to encourage tailgating and/or generally aggressive driving.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tomhoward 6y ago
  Australia’s high-speed dual carriageway motorways are quite safe too, so speed by itself isn’t the issue. The riskier roads are single carriageway highways where vehicles with drowsy/impaired drivers can lose control and veer off the road into a tree or onto the other side of the road into an oncoming car. Notably, the most dangerous road in Victoria is the Western Highway, which is a single-carriageway road that joins two major cities that are about 9 hours drive apart, and is Australia’s second-busiest road for freight.
z77dj3kl 6y ago
Let's take an example: a lot of states in Australia have recently embarked on a war against speeding. Speed is a really important factor in safety: it's imperative that drivers drive on roads at an appropriate speed. If the purpose was harm reduction, an appropriate thing would be to concentrate on what really is a safe speed on individual roads, updating speed limits (they are currently set by very stupid rules and are often very inappropriate), and concentrating on those with actually excessive speed (which they do to some extent). However, the majority of the effort these governments have put into it is to get really picky about anybody driving 3km/h over the limit and giving them insane fines for it. This causes people to just stare at the speedo instead of concentrating on defensive driving or paying attention to their surroundings.
- anticristi 6y ago
  I always drive with the speed limiter in the city and mostly with cruise control on highways. I can easily imagine keeping the speed exactly at the limit, without having to stare at the speedo. Most people are amazed I just relax around speed cameras. "Careful! You need to slow down. Oh, you are already at or below the speed limit." I don't get why this isn't a routine for all drivers.
- tomhoward 6y ago
  I gather you're not in Australia and are basing this on what you've heard from others, so I'll make some corrections: - The campaign to enforce speed limits has been going on for decades; there's no "recently" about it. - They do update speed limits to what is deemed safe on different roads, and there is constant research and discussion about what speed levels are appropriate, along with published correlations of speed limits with fatality figures, and consideration of practices in other countries. - I live in s state that supposedly penalises you if you exceed the limit by more than about 3kph. I've been fined a couple of times in recent years, since I moved out of the city into the suburbs. I wasn't fined for 3kph breach, more like 6. The fine is now AUD $207 for exceeding the speed limit by up to 10kph. It was annoying, sure, but I've learned to be more careful about keeping to the limit, and haven't had a fine for over 2 years. I don't stare at the speedo. Nobody does. In city roads it's usually hard to exceed the limit anyway due to traffic, and on open roads I use cruise control. It's no big deal. Meanwhile, the fatality figures continue to decrease year on year. The notion that traffic fines are a scam to raise government revenue doesn't hold much water. Traffic fines make up less than 1.5% of state revenue in Victoria, and it is spent on road upgrades to improve safety and traffic conditions.