Fist waving / Vent

[ptooey]

I'm getting really sick of right-lane hoggers on freeways.

No make the beast with two backsing consideration; have no awareness of what's going around them (or behind them), and they just stay in the right lane even when the inner lanes are clear.

Only satisfaction I can get is when I'm on the bike and I *ahem* ride around their oblivious arses. Worse when I'm stuck behind em in the car.

Are cops supposed to nab drivers for this behaviour?

[dragonworld.]

If the cops arnt selectively and politically choosing the laws out of the Road Safety Act to enforce,

YES THEY PHUGGIN' SHOULD!!!!!!

[Betty]

The other week while heading south up from the Hawkesbury (nice little twisty bits) there was a car in the 'overtaking' lane with no-one to overtake. I patiently waited for him to move over (my ride buddy was not so patient ), but .... nothing. It was not until I held my hand up and pointed to the left that he moved over. The whole time he was sitting at least 10km/h below the posted speed limit.

[brimo]

http://www.1098-forum.com/forums/images/smilies/horse.gif

Symptomatic of our " don't give a make the beast with two backs about anyone else" society. Up here though (Bris) it does seem to be trucks #1 closely followed by drivers of no certain ethnicity,age or gender.   I really don't think our friends in blue   seem to be interested in doing anything on our roads apart from catching those "dangerous" speeders.
Want polite driving try pom land, and the frogs and Italians might be psycho but they do know what the difference is between the fast and the faster lane.

[dragonworld.]

In the early 90's when I worked at Vic Roads and got sick of getting all the calls from irate motorists regarding their fines they just recieved in the mail!! (Cops arnt stupid, they DONT put their contact details on the fines/correspondence. Its just you've been nicked pay up!! or You wanna go to court...pay up!!)
Aaaanyway, we used to get to look at peoples infringement records and it appeared that after around '89 - '90 or there abouts, the incidence of "Failing to keep left", "Failing to signal", "Failing to give way", "Failing to maintain a safe following distance" and the like fines were becoming as rare as the proverbial rocking horse shit.
It was becoming very apparent that the vast majority of fines being issued were for speeding with very, very little of the other types getting a guernsey. Easy pinches, lotsa revenue for relatively litlle outlay?? You betcha.
And the resulting degradation of driver attitude and good manners and the resulting lots of poor road user behaviour!! 

And they Guvmint and Plods still try to tell us that it aint for revenue!!! Yeah right!!

Dont piss down my back and tell me its raining

[roy-nexus-6]

And they Guvmint and Plods still try to tell us that it aint for revenue!!! Yeah right!!

Dont piss down my back and tell me its raining

I think you're being a little hard on the plods... I know plenty of them, and not ONE of them disagrees with anything you've said here: they agree that speed cameras are for revenue raising, pure & simple. And they'd prefer to be doing something else - but they take their orders from above. 

[dragonworld.]

I also have quite a few Cop friends and aquaintances, some still tow the company line (Their description not mine) at least in public!!

And some were in favour of the cameras initially, but have now a different attitude because of what they percieve as "Political Policing" over recent years. And they feel that they are being inhibited in doing what they took an oath to do.

And quite a few good cops have left the force because of this.

[loony888]

i think the easiest, most cost effective to reduce the road toll, and no bullshit here! is to make it law that any truck/bus etc with a rgvm over 4.0T is restricted to the LEFT LANE. this would free up the centre and right lanes no end and would reduce significantly the instance of stupid undertaking caused by a build up of frustration. i could see it being easy to enforce as well, there's already safeTcameras on most arterial roads, that record truck activity, just mail em a ticket if that rego number comes up as over the weight limit and they're snapped out of the left lane.
the coppers should enforce it heavily and at the same time make undertaking illegal.
this system works very well throughout europe where people drive faster on more congested roads and per capita have much lower accident statistics than we do!


paul.

[monstermick58]

See now, I was just going to just read this and say yep, I agree with what you are saying, until I read loony's post.

i think the easiest, most cost effective to reduce the road toll, and no bullshit here! is to make it law that any truck/bus etc with a rgvm over 4.0T is restricted to the LEFT LANE.
paul.

You dont drive a truck do you Paul?

If you have a look at some of the arterial roads around Sydney, and I'm not talking about multi laned freeways, you will notice that there is quite a bit of street furniture about, you know, telegraph poles, large street signs etc...
Well what happens is, when a large truck, say a taughtliner for example, gets caught in the left lane in one of the narrow multi laned roads, the top of the truck is further to the left than the bottom, ie; its wheels, so the street furniture that I mentioned actually hits the top of the truck and either damages the truck or damages the signs or both.
I dont disagree entirely with what you are saying, but I thought that bit about the trucks was a bit silly.







                                                Mmick

[Super T.I.B]

You dont drive a truck do you Paul?

If you have a look at some of the arterial roads around Sydney, and I'm not talking about multi laned freeways, you will notice that there is quite a bit of street furniture about, you know, telegraph poles, large street signs etc...
Well what happens is, when a large truck, say a taughtliner for example, gets caught in the left lane in one of the narrow multi laned roads, the top of the truck is further to the left than the bottom, ie; its wheels, so the street furniture that I mentioned actually hits the top of the truck and either damages the truck or damages the signs or both.
I dont disagree entirely with what you are saying, but I thought that bit about the trucks was a bit silly.







                                                Mmick

Yeah, I've seen what happens when a truck tries to negotiate a tight left hander...down goes traffic light.

But, it does piss me off when you have two trucks besdie each other on a freeway, one doing about 5 km/h more than the other trying to overtake. 

[loony888]

actually i do mick, i have a HR rigid and drive a 15 tonne redmond gary elevated work platform around. it's an isuzu, and bloody slow, so i'm fully aware of the laziness involved in truckies who don't want to lose momentum. i'll also add here that if you are unaware of the dimension of the vehicle you're driving and can't keep it within your lane and not smash mirrors on overhanging trees or roadside signage, you shouldn't have a truck license!
obviously where overhanging structures will foul a load or trailer on congested inner suburban roads, like parramatta rd for example, exemptions would apply, they're usually 50 or 60 zones anyway. what i'm talking about mainly is dual carriageways, expressways and freeways.


paul.

[ducmeister]

Being a regular user of Melbourne's ring road I'm all for trying to keep trucks out of the right lane.  The worst bit of that road that I use is the stretch from the Hume to the Tulla freeway with most of the accidents occuring around the Moonee Ponds creek crossing (locally known as Death Valley).
IMHO most of these accidents could be avoided if the trucks stayed out of the right lane and used a bit of patience instead of the 'don't slow down at any cost' attitude that seems so prevalent.  If this could be achieved it would lessen the sudden speed changes that occur when a truck doing 65kph pulls out into the R/H lane to overtake a truck doing 60. 
It's not just trucks though.  Any vehicle not doing the speed limit on a freeway needs to get into the left lane.  There's nothing worse than everyone on a 3 lane freeway queueing up in the 2 right lanes at 20kph under the limit while the left lane is empty.

Rant over.

[monstermick58]

OK, I stand corrected.

Well thats the trucks all sorted......


What should we do with the Volvo drivers







                                               Mmick

[loony888]

drive over them with the trucks!!


paul.

[Super T.I.B]

OK, I stand corrected.




What should we do with the Volvo drivers







                                               Mmick

No, they've turned into Camry drivers.