Driving habits ad nauseum

New senator Marc Bean offered this when talking about road safety recently:

"We also need to look at the behaviour of road users.

We are now experiencing the negative effects of that with 11 road fatalities and countless numbers of serious injuries this year.

So, that's a challenge with in itself because no legislation or policies can change people's thinking and behaviour."

Um, (and when I start with 'um', you know I'm about to knock on heads) enforcing legislation and policies is a good way to start,... instead of the current method of pleading for people to be safe then sitting on your hands hoping the situation will go away.

If not, then you're pretty much saying the only way is to let Darwinism take its course and hope that we kill off more people on the roads than we put on.

Silly me for thinking that Government was actually going to do something way back in April.

If Government only now wants to look at the behaviour instead of looking at it over the past five plus years and can't figure out that people drive like crap because there's no police deterrent on the roads then they're plain stupid. Tourists fresh off the cruise ships can see how we drive and say that there's chaos on the streets. Does the Senator think that last year was a calm one by comparison or something?

We have this demerit points system in place now, which seems to be confusing the courts, and people worrying that implementing speed cameras is going to backlog the court system... hm, separate Traffic Offenses Court, perhaps? People don't seem to be proactive and that doesn't apply just to this situation but other ones in the community, unfortunately.

I wish Dr. Froncioni, a man who's been commenting on the state of our roads and drivers for far longer than I, well in trying to inspire Government to take action but don't have much optimism that anything will come out other than more lip service from those in positions to influence legislation and enforcement.