i only got my red P just 1 month ago so i have little to no experience ..id say as part or going from a lerners licence to a provisional licence should be ..defencive drivers cources and all the **** ... one thing i noticed as i drove home from a long day of windsurfing i was cruising at 60kph in a 70zone while i was drinking my thinkshake from macccas ... NO ONE OVER TOOK ME IN A 2LANE ROAD.... after i was done my drink and drifted baack up to 70 pl started to over take me ..only takes one person to influence the half dozen others around.

evlPanda said...

if as many people died from a new designer drug as road accidents there'd be a war on it.

if as many people took designer drugs as drove, there wouldn't be war on anything. We'd all be cuddling and telling each other how much we loved them....

landyacht said...
when I recently took my daughter for her test I would have been quite happy for her to drive home on her own. shes a geat little driver. But they tell me she now has to do25 more hours of supervised driving before sitting a computer test( that he passes every time at home) before qualifying for here P pates. Certainly not the Dumb test you are suggesting,
I now have to sit in the car whilst she does 100km return , trips to the next town, after the 3rd trip , I started sleeping through the whole trip
.Only 11 to go, 1100kms, 11hrs.
I can see why so many people are not bothering to get a drivers licence.
it would cost more than your first car just to get the licence

So what does driving 100km (in mostly the same gear) teach her about accident avoidance, skid control etc - it creates a comfort zone of 'normal' driving - what happens when something out of the normal happen?

Dont get me wrong, I think the new tests are better than when I got my licence but still not teaching anything they wouldn't pick up driving normally.

j murray said...


have you ever seen an aboriginal car

Are they the cars that were here before the holdens and fords turned up

j murray said...


So Landyacht......have you ever seen an aboriginal car with "L" plates on it

or any of their kids doing log book hours. It dosent happen over this side

of the continent. Matter of observation, I dont think i have ever seen an

indigenous vehicle with red or green "P"s. one law for some , another

for others. Would their cars pass roadworthy?

i havent ever really noticed the racial or skin group of any Lor P platers. I have noticed how few of my kids mates have got thier licences tho. when we were young you did your test within days of our 17th birthday

rod_bunny said...... accident avoidance...

The only accident avoidance techniques that work reliably are seeing hazards ahead and slowing down to to avoid them, and creating a buffer of space around you (ie. not tailgating and slowing or changing lanes to get away from other drivers).

rod_bunny said...... skid control etc ...

There's no such thing. Driving under the illusion that you can control a skid creates the potentially fatal situations of driving too fast and over correcting when a true skid occurs.

The only way you can maintain high performance driving skills is to practice them frequently. There's no way anybody could reliably put in several hours at a skid pan every month to hone the skills necessary to actively control a skidding car without making things worse.

Believing you are a high performance driver is exactly the reason 18-25 year old males are over represented in accident statistics.

Far better is to drive defensively by slowing down and maintaining a safety buffer around you and drive a modern car with all the safety bells and whistles (ABS and ESC) and drive it well within the capabilities of the systems and your skills.

Good driving has vey little to do with driving skill and everything to do with good judgement.

(BTW I just drove home after an Easter trip. The only hassle I had was a dickhead with high beams on approaching from behind. I briefly considered having a headlight war with him. Instead I immediately pulled over and let him get a long way ahead. Problem solved. Uneventful trip home.)

Gorgo said...

Good driving has vey little to do with driving skill and everything to do with good judgement.

Isn't that the truth.

busterwa said...

late for work ?????????????!!

Somewhat akin to base jumping with the adrenal buzz prolonged by mechanical assistance. Like the intro said a total disregard for any kind of law, legal, moral or ethical.

Choco...... any info on nationality of driver, that should be released too.

All motorists are paying for unsuitable drivers now on Australia's roads.

Scenes are now common as one would unfortunately see in third world

the bar has been lowered, smashed, to allow people who in their country of

origin would never ever drive. It is madness, the lowest common denotational.

Buell said...

I like this, no, I really like this.

Hmmmm very simple isnt it.
Notice how there is no reference to multiple changes of speeds in varying zones...
If your in town 50
If your not in town and on a dual carriage way 110, a motorway 130

How is it that Poland with a more densely populated, shorter travel distances country can have such an elegant solution... and Australia with longer distances and lower pop. density need to have some massively complex, constantly changing, 'make your own mind up about what speed you should be doing cause the signage is so poor' system FOR EACH STATE!?

How is it that Poland with a more densely populated, shorter travel distances country can have such an elegant solution... and Australia with longer distances and lower pop. density need to have some massively complex, constantly changing, 'make your own mind up about what speed you should be doing cause the signage is so poor' system FOR EACH STATE!?

Simple answer, too many politicians

Appreciate the response stamp, as you’ve read my post and know what my views are, you won’t be surprised when I say that I can’t agree with you.
If slowing down heavy vehicles is not going to have any effect on the crazy things that happen on our highways then another solution is to remove them altogether.
Rail is a vastly more economic method of moving freight from state to state. It’s a shame that consecutive governments over the last 30 years have let our rail system degenerate into something that most third world countries would be embarrassed to own.

cisco said...

You've got that one right Buell. Freight by rail is the most economical tonne/klm form of goods transport.

This country desperately needs the high speed Darwin to Melbourne rail freight line via the heart lands. The government won't build it and expects private enterprise to do it.

I believe there should be little or no interstate heavy truck haulage of anything that can be handled by rail.

At night I see trucks get into a convoy of up to 6 trucks and fly up or down the highway at 130 kmh. Totally irresponsible and sheer madness.

I thought convoys were illegal?

OK, this claim about the 70 mph limit in the UK....

Yeah, that's the official limit. Cops won't even look at you on a motorway unless you're doing over 85 mph if the conditions are good. Over take them at 85 and they won't touch you if you're driving sensibly.

If you're driving like an idiot they'll do you immediately.

Same as in France. In good conditions the limit is 130 kph - you can cruise straight past a copper at 147 and he won't bat an eyelid. I know, I've done it for years.

The problem in Australia isn't so much the speed limits (110kph on the Hume is FAR too slow in my opinion) but the extraordinary lack of freeway driving talent. The UK isn't brilliant, France is better, the Germans are the best, but they're all far better than here.

They keep left unless they're overtaking.

...and they don't tailgate.

It's taken a long time to get used to people deliberately undertaking in this country... cruise past a freeway exit in the 2nd left lane... don't pull in, because cars are going to be merging into that lane in a hundred meters... car comes up behind, and instead of using the empty outside lane, deliberately pulls into the left lane and undertakes right through my blind spot (BIG blind spot in a panel van) into a lane that's about to be filled with cars.

Never seen this anywhere else, and I see it on every journey I make on the Tulla.

Everyone should be given lessons on how to drive on freeways safely and responsibly... and then the speed limits should be lifted on roads such as the Hume.