"Paulus" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:
[email protected]...
> Sheet! 4 in 24hrs..that's 1 of us every 6 hrs getting cleaned up..wots
> going on?????
>
>
> "Friday" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> As reported by the Age.
>>
>> http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/cyclist-killed-in-car-accident/2006/09/29/1159337306551.html
>>
>> A cyclist died when he fell from his bike and was struck by a car in
>> Melbourne's north-west.
>>
>> The man, 45, was riding south on St Albans Road at St Albans when he fell
>> from his bike near Merton Street and was hit by a car about 10.30pm
>> yesterday, police said.
>>
>> The motorist, who was not injured, stopped to assist but the cyclist died
>> at the scene.
>>
>> Victoria's road toll now stands at 244, 15 fewer than at the same time
>> last year.
>>
>>
>> Friday
>
I bet these 4 tragedies will not make anywhere near the coverage that the
Hell Ride accident in Mentone recently did. The motorist attitude would be
"get rid of bicycles from the roads and there wont be any more cycling
deaths".
Lose Lose. Sad.
Have a read of this in today's The Age.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opini...1159337278207.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Death Race 2006: let's ride it out
By Jim Schembri
September 29, 2006
If one more commentator, police official, talkback radio host, op-ed writer,
politician or concerned citizen comes out and laments how the slaughter on
our roads is due to "not getting the message through to drivers", I'm going
to throw up. Victorian roads have been host to an unprecedented degree of
carnage in recent days. There's no need to go into the details because
they're too appalling.
But the confluence of killing has drawn the usual round of earnest
commentary about the need for better driver education, for public awareness
campaigns, for the redesign of troublesome intersections, and for the urgent
need to insert a partridge in a pear tree. These sentiments do not come as
part of any sustained opposition to the road carnage, but instead reflect
the general public's lackadaisical Death Race 2000 attitude to the road
toll, which is to merely accept it as a normal part of modern life.
The big proviso, of course, is that the carnage must tick over at a nice,
steady pace. A few deaths a week is just fine, preferably in singles rather
than in groups, and in unspectacular crashes. That way the body count can
rise quietly and remain under everybody's radar.
It's only when the road slaughter hits an arbitrary critical mass - a
concentration of horrific incidents within a few days - that the death rate
draws focus. And each time the toll hits the news, the same nauseating
ritual of aimless, impotent agonising kicks in. What can we do? How can we
get the safety message through to drivers? Should there be road education in
schools? How can we make drivers think more? Where, oh where, has my little
dog gone?
Everybody is very serious for a bit - then the issue vanishes as quickly as
it was picked up. We cut to an ad break and come back to talk about footy
scores and the weather. It takes another spike in fatalities to get the toll
back on the agenda.
Too much time has been wasted debating. The problems are screamingly
obvious. The elephant in the room has now grown so big that there's barely
space left for yet another soul to ponder the eternal mystery of "how do we
get the message through to drivers?".
People act stupidly on the roads for one simple reason: they're encouraged
to. For although driver stupidity is responsible for so much of the maiming
and killing, the lenient penalties incurred by the stupid do not provide
sufficient discouragement.
The roads are clogged with drivers who clearly shouldn't be there. Ask any
plod on booze bus detail. And why? Because it's way too easy to get a
licence. It's way too hard to lose it. The penalties for culpable driving
would be a joke if there was anything funny about them. Speed and alcohol
are our biggest killers, yet the disincentives are too weak to keep people
from speeding and drinking.
Here's a great movie idea. A guy wants another guy dead. But rather than
plot an elaborate murder, he runs his victim over with a car. He makes sure
he's drunk at the time, is speeding, and that he does it while running a
stop sign. His penalty? Six-month licence suspension, a $130 fi ne and a
disapproving look from the judge. The title we're going with is: What Do You
Have To Do To Lose Your Licence In This Town?.
The one crucial element always missing from anti-toll campaigns is fear.
Every time a driver gets pulled over, the threat of lifelong, irreversible
licence cancellation should be front of mind. If you speed, drink, run a
red, fail to stop, there it goes - for good.
But we know that's never going to happen, and we know perfectly well why.
The hundreds killed and maimed each year on our roads are the sacrifice the
community willingly makes in exchange for the convenience of driving.
Introduce tougher laws and never mind the toll - you'll impinge on people's
freedom to drive drunk, veer over to the wrong side of the road and wipe out
a family.
There has been celebration over the fact that Victoria's road toll has been
"improving". That is, fewer people are dying needlessly now than were dying
needlessly before. This is obscene. To paraphrase Howard Beale from the 1976
movie Network, the implication underlying such a boast is that the annual
harvest of corpses from our roads is somehow part of the natural order of
things, as though that's the way it's supposed to be.
And it is, because driving is considered a right rather than a privilege. It
ought to be the other way around. Drivers should sweat to keep their
licences. Re-test them every two years. At their expense. Got a problem with
that? Good. It's the very lack of that type of measure that keeps idiots on
the road, secure in the knowledge that nobody will care enough to make them
suffer when their stupidity claims and ruins innocent lives.
