Copyright (c) 2007 Kylie Monet

It is time for Australian authorities to review the existing road rules system regarding speed cameras. The prsent system has become a source of frustration to the citizens. They have totally lost faith in the way governments are managing the issue of speeding. The problem is only getting accentuted and no one is addressing it.

What they are though, is a GREAT revenue raising tool. The governments earn close to $10 million every WEEK from Speeding fines, but is this money being invested to improve the road conditions? The money is NOT going to make our roads safer and WE want to change that.

So, what IS the answer?

We believe that the answer lies in education and training. Training is a critical to success in anything which involves risk. A surgeon has to complete 6 ? 8 years of training before they can pick up a scalpel and operate on someone, even a hairdresser must complete a minimum course before they can pick up a pair of scissors just to cut someone's hair. BUT, there is NO real level of training required to drive a car.

It has been proven that the most dangerous thing you can do each day is hop in your car and take to the roads. So, based on the information detailed above, this would suggest that you should be trained for in excess of 8 years before you can do that.

Now, that is obviously not practical ? but CLEARLY neither is the minimum standard that is being used today. Just as the government provides public schools to educate us and public hospitals to look after us, we FIRMLY believe that, with all the money they have collected so far from speeding fines, they should provide free driving training for EVERYONE before they even receive a driver's licence.

Learning how to reverse park from your Mum and Dad or having 2 - 3 lessons from a private instructor ? that many people can't afford to pay for ? simply doesn't cut it. Would you allow yourself to be operated on by someone who learnt surgery from his dad but had no formal qualification? Of course not!

We need to have a detailed, formal driver training program in place that every single person must complete BEFORE they are given a licence to drive a car, bike, truck etc. on our roads. One of the fundamental parts of this driver training would be to allow young drivers to attempt to exploit their limits and those of their vehicles in a controlled environment. Most people are NOT idiots (despite the fact that the government still chooses to treat us as such) and if they can see for themselves that they can't REALLY do what they thought they could in a car in a controlled environment, they will be FAR less likely to try it out on a public road.

But THEN, if they were not only given the opportunity, but ENCOURAGED to continue improving their skills ? again, by way of proper driver education undertaken in controlled environments ? we would find the base level of competence on the road would improve DRAMATICALLY and then the road toll really would DECREASE.

Most of you would agree that people perform better when they are given incentives. Sales people tend to get better results when offered a performance based bonus, employees will work harder if they have an employee of the month type award to strive for and clients will be more loyal when offered a VIP customer status. Most of us agree that this makes logical sense yet the government does NOT do this ? all they ever do is punish us for what they BELIEVE is bad behaviour.

Think about this for a moment. Every child learns to walk before he or she takes the first steps? Eventually they fall over but the parent doesn't yell out "You idiot, you fell over. You'll never be able to walk." In fact, we would be HORRIFIED if they did. No, instead, they say "Yeah, that's it. Keep going. Try again, etc." They offer words of encouragement for doing the right thing. The reality is that the best training is rewards based training, NOT fear based.

So, what if the government introduced rewards for better drivers? What if you received a discount on your registration if you haven't been involved in an accident ? not you haven't been speeding, but you haven't been involved in an accident ? because after all, that is what we are REALLY trying to stop isn't it, accidents.

What if the government rewarded you with the ability to drive that little bit faster than everyone else (on open roads) if you had completed certain courses and could PROVE that you were a focussed, competent driver? Do you think some of these strategies might work? It is because in activities involving risk, a higher amount of focus and precision is required!

Now, we're not talking about letting people run around at high speed in the back streets but if you can prove you have a high performance car and you have A) the interest and B) taken the initiative to improve your driving skills, should you not be rewarded for that? If you start your own business or invest money should you not have a right to be rewarded for that, over others who just do a 9 ? 5 job?

We have very detailed ideas about what needs to be done but the governments will not even be willing to listen to us until they NEED to. The governments will only wake up to the reality when they stop losing the hundreds of millions of dollars they are earning. Once you have all played your part, taken a stand for your rights and started to object to these fines, then the government will HAVE to stop and take notice.

Then we will be speaking to them about implementing our ideas which will certainly work better than the current systems in place. Should any of you wish to discuss these ideas in further detail, pleas e-mail us with your concerns, questions or suggestions. In fact, once we see that we are making an impact by people around the country objecting to their fines, once we see front page headlines that the government is now LOSING hundreds of millions of dollars in speeding fine revenue rather than earning ANOTHER hundred million form illegal speed cameras, we will actually be looking at running public seminars to further educate people on the flaws with the current system and our specific strategies on how to implement a fairer system that works for everyone.


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