Was this illegal or just plain disgraceful?

[FenceFurniture]

2.
Once I was travelling at 128kph by the speedo in a 110 zone, when the cruise control was set to 120 (because I knew for a fact the speedo was 9% under in this vehicle), but I had come down a major hill and was going to let the next uphill take off the excess speed (this was a Motorway with virtually no traffic at the time, again in the Southern Highlands, just north of Mittagong). Then I saw the parked radar car up ahead and fully expected to be pulled over. However, he didn't budge. He clearly had his radar set to go off for cars doing +10 as determined by true speed, and I was doing only +8, even though the speedo said +18. In subsequent years I asked the NSW Traffic Commander about how they set radars (he was a client of mine) and he said it was "usually plus 10% of the limit plus 4kph" so in a 110 zone it would be +11 +4 = 15 (so I was still 7-9 kph under pinging speed, and in fact I could have been doing 135kph be the speedo and not been booked. Where's the sense in that???

25kph over by the speedo and not get booked!!!! EH???

[FenceFurniture]

3.
OTOH, one morning I had just dropped my son at school and so was critically aware that it was school time. I drove off, not exceeding 40, only to later learn that this street was (somehow) not a school zone. Turned left onto the main road which I knew was a school zone, still <=40. Stopped at the lights, then proceeded on at 60. This particular section of road has a 1km stretch of School Zone because there are two schools about 600-700 metres apart. The SZ is continuous, but if you have stopped at the major intersection, there is no immediate reminder on the other side, and there is a plethora of various roadsigns to take in. You are still 500 metres from the next school. About 70-80 metres after the intersection I was pinged by a mobile radar car - and I was just getting prepared for the next school zone (i.e. looking for the first sign). The car was hidden behind trees, as was a reminder sign. In my opinion this fine was completely unfair because of the length of the SZ without visible reminder signs. Clearly I was on full alert for SZs. The copper would have served the community better by standing out waving his arm downwards to remind traffic about this unusually long SZ. What is a better use of resources? Booking cars, unknown to them until some weeks later, and so they continue at the same speed, STILL ENDANGERING CHILDREN'S LIVES, or waving them down as a reminder so that they don't endanger lives????? The latter clearly makes more safety sense (I'd like to see a counter-argument to that one!), and is also a brilliant public relations exercise. It is also cheaper as the pictures does not have to be processed, notifications sent out etc.

I went to court on this one and received a reduced fine and less points knocked off, no court costs. I produced pics of the whole stretch of road, and apparently must have made a cogent argument as described above.

[FenceFurniture]

4.
This one is quite interesting. In the period before the Sydney Olympics there were major roadworks on the M4 and traffic was pulled back to 80kph from 110. I was obeying this, travelling in the right hand line slowly getting past a huge chain of perhaps 10-12 semi-trailers about 200-250 metres long (all involved in the roadworks). When I was just over halfway past this chain of trucks I caught a vague glimpse of my exit coming up (the height of the trucks was blocking my left hand vision) in the next 500 metres, about 22 seconds away. My current speed was not going to get me past the chain in time, and there was no way I was going to drop in between two of the these trucks who were virtually tailgating each other (as they do to conserve fuel). So, what to do???

I had a three choices:

1. Add a little speed to get past them safely and make a courteous exit (I was the lead car in my lane)
2. Put my brakes on for gawd knows how long to let 125 metres of trucks go past me so I could duck in behind them, and hopefully still make the exit. This would have caused enormous inconvenience to the huge stream of cars behind me (it was very very busy, and compacted because of the roadworks). This would also have caused great potential danger of an accident because it would only take one thickhead to drop into the stream of trucks because they would now be going faster, and we all know how impatient thickheads are. Of course added to this was that by the time the trucks went past I would then be faced with trying to drop in on all the thickheads who had subsequently changed lanes. THIS WAS NOT AN OPTION FOR A MOMENT.
3. Continue on to the next exit, quite some kilometres further on, retrace my steps etc through reasonably foreign territory.

So, I chose option 1 as the best all round choice. Wouldn't you know it - radar up ahead, and they pinged me. They flagged me to pull off to the right hand side of the motorway, thus inconveniencing the aforementioned traffic behind me, which I had tried so hard to avoid. Because of the roadworks the coppers with the radar gun had to stand right on the edge of the traffic lane and lean out into it to take their readings. This was clearly very unsafe practice. As a professional photographer at the time I had a car full of gear, and so proceeded to take pictures of their activities, the traffic stream etc.

Well, one of them took great exception to me photographing them, and I have a picture of him striding towards me. I knew my rights, and knew he couldn't stop me. The subsequent exchange:

• "What do you think you're doing"
• "Taking pictures to take to court of your ridiculously unsafe work practices, endangering not only your safety but that of the motorists. And I don't think I can do it - you and I both know I can do it, so if you don't mind I'll get on with it". (nothing like aggravating an already aggravated copper - legally)
• "HURRUMPH!" and walked off.

I still have all these pics, btw, but they are prints, and my scanner is busted.

And so I went to court which resulted in no fine, no court costs, points loss reduced from 4 to 1. I still have a copy of the statement that I read to the court.

[FenceFurniture]

5.
Travelling north of Singleton on the rather good road to Lake Liddell (at least it was at the time), I remembered it as being a 110 zone (coz it sure felt like it - divided road an' all). Wrong! Copper pursued me and pulled me over, only to ask THE most aggravating question of all: "How are you today sir?".

"Booked, at a guess" which at least got a grunt of laughter from him.....

Cheers
Brett

[FenceFurniture]

I'm sure that you'll keep saying that when a speeding drunk driver hits the car that your best mate was driving and kills him, like what happened to my mate.

It's easy to talk in the abstract or make fun of it thinking it will never happen to you BUT when you or your family are touched in a similar manner by these hoons that disobey the road laws I'm sure you will very quickly change your tune.

I'll now leave this topic, I've said my bit, but some of you with your attitudes disgust me.

Peter.

Think you may have missed the tongue in cheek there Peter.

[smidsy]

5.
Travelling north of Singleton on the rather good road to Lake Liddell (at least it was at the time), I remembered it as being a 110 zone (coz it sure felt like it - divided road an' all). Wrong! Copper pursued me and pulled me over, only to ask THE most aggravating question of all: "How are you today sir?".

"Booked, at a guess" which at least got a grunt of laughter from him.....

Cheers
Brett

Reminds me of the time I got pinged outside Cunderdin in WA - fairly late at night and I had the hammer down, I didn't complain when he wrote me up for 133/110 because the speedo read 138.
Anyway, the cop walks up to the door and asks me if I have any excuse for speeding - when I replied "none good enough to get you to let me off" he laughed as he reached for the book.
He was pretty cool though - even let me get out and have a smoke (company non smoking car) while he did the formalities.

[FenceFurniture]

Anyway, the cop walks up to the door and asks me if I have any excuse for speeding - when I replied "none good enough to get you to let me off" he laughed as he reached for the book.

Have said the same on a few occasions.

[smidsy]

At the end of the day, I'm peeved about this helmet fine because of the double standard, getting a fine when a child would have been warned.
That said, speeding fines I accept with probably not happiness, but good grace - you don't want a fine, don't speed. If you are incapable of driving to the limit then it's time to hand in the car keys. Its that simple.

Something that's becoming a new pet peeve of mine is the amount of old timers I see here riding unregistered motorised (both electric and petrol engined) scooters and push bikes on the footpaths - including today, a road going petrol scooter with no rego being ridden on the footpath by an old guy in a foam bicycle helmet. And not a cop in sight.

[Groggy]

This one was a woman who parked like this for over 4 hours. Multiple near misses on cars coming around the corner. Busy main road and side street, endangered pedestrians as well. If you look at the angle you will see the rear of the car is actually angled out into the road further than the front.



2012-11-10 16.30.42.jpg2012-11-10 16.30.26.jpg2012-11-10 16.30.10.jpg

[Mutawintji]

There's still a lotta wine an lonely girls,
In this best-of-all-possible worlds


cool bananas ... Greg

[crowie]

There's still a lotta wine an lonely girls,
In this best-of-all-possible worlds


cool bananas ... Greg

You're showing you age, Greg... Kris Kristofferson....

[Mutawintji]

Haaaa ... thats true .....

Greg

[Sturdee]

I'll now leave this topic, I've said my bit, but some of you with your attitudes disgust me.

Think you may have missed the tongue in cheek there Peter.

Sorry, but no "tongue in cheek" smilie for I'm deadly serious in this matter and so far nothing has been said that would convince me otherwise.

Peter.

[FenceFurniture]

Sorry, but no "tongue in cheek" smilie for I'm deadly serious in this matter and so far nothing has been said that would convince me otherwise.

Peter.

Ok, but to be clear, I meant AlexS was tongue in cheek.

[FenceFurniture]

Greg (Muta), you've got mail. At least, you will have.

Can't say too much = LLSS.