Note: The following posts were imported from my previous blogs.

Drive  #
Sunday, 07 Apr 2002 06:35PM
What are we going to do about how dangerous today's roads are? The police are coming down hard on speeders. Recently they promised to book drivers going only 3km over the limit, where previously it was 10%. The 10% is from the standard expected from speedos in Australian cars. It is possible for a car to say it's going 60km but infact be going 66km due to engine problems, tire wear, problems with speedo and problems with the machine that originally calibrated the speedo.

At first I thought it was a good idea. The biggest problem on Melbourne's roads today, I think, is that people KNOW about this 10% leway and so almost everyone does at least 5km OVER the limit no matter what the conditions. I'd love to see people change their habits so that they stay UNDER the limit. And recent tests say that most cars speedos are right to within 3km/h.

Personally I'd love to see speed-cameras every 50 metres on every road in all of Melbourne. But that would be too expensive. And speed isn't the only problem. It's idiot drivers like this. It's a lack of education. It's a lack of punishment for when you do something wrong. Even a speedcamera isn't instant enough. If everyone was instantly informed when they were driving badly maybe they'd stop doing it. But probably not.

As far as making everyone slow down goes, I'm all for dropping all of the speedlimits by 10kmh. Everyone drives 10k over the limit anyway so at least that way they'll all be within the safe limit. Because that is what the speed limit is... the savest speed for which this piece of road allows...

But it's impossible to get through to drivers who drive badly, you just can't. People who drink and drive and go to jail and get out and do it again. People who've lost their license and the government gives it back again (which I still don't understand at all) and they still drive like idiots.

How about driving training in schools? For free. How about harder tests, and less expensive tests so people don't feel as bad if they fail.

And how about more and better quality public transport because we could all solve this problem if we just got people off the roads.


Melbourne's transport to unite again  #
Sunday, 07 Apr 2002 06:18PM
Subject URL: Melbourne's transport to unite again

Melbourne's two transport companies, Connex and M>Train are to unite and form supertransportmetthing. This will magically make people use public transport more... or at least it will save a lot of money in uselessly building brand awareness of a system that doesn't need it. Buses, trams and trains will be "colour coded to make public transport more attractive and easier to use." I hope my busses are fluro green. We all love fluro green.
(via acb)