Speed Crackdown crock

QB weekend, and onwards, speed tolerances will drop - we are told this is in a bid to reduce road deaths.

So far the only effective way to reduce road deaths has been to increase the petrol price (people don't drive as much.) Fact is that speeding, by itself, is not a significant contribution to the road toll. Driving too fast for the conditions, even if within the speed limit, is pretty major though. The cures for that are (a) driver education and (b) experience. Sadly not things that look good in the news - particularly, these things are out of police control.

If speeding were really such a big deal, we can fix it in one go by mandating governors on all cars - set everyone's top speed to 105kmph so there are no excuses and make it an offence to bypass them. Transgressors will be easy to spot and it could be on the WOF check too.

Driver education is expensive. Getting the police to make a big noise about a crackdown may make unthinking drivers nervous enough to be more generally cautious. However, I expect there will not be a zero road toll any time soon.