Car-bans

Do you drive a car in Queensland? Be afraid:

DRIVERS in Queensland will be slugged with heavier fines and penalties from March 1 in an effort to reduce the state’s road toll.

[...]

The measures – announced after a state Cabinet meeting in the north Queensland town of Atherton – are aimed at cutting inattention, aggressive driving and distraction on the state’s roads.

Oh goody.

“The new penalties being announced today are the next step of measures designed to deter people from the silly and dangerous behaviour that puts lives at risk,” Mr Beattie said.

Key changes to about 120 offences include a jump in the fine for failing to stop at a red light, from $135 and three demerit points to $225 and three demerit points.

A driver convicted of failing to keep a safe distance from the vehicle in front will have to pay $175 and lose one point, instead of the current fine of only $30 and one lost point.

I say that the Government just ban cars. Nobody will die on the road if there are no cars.

Counting down…

… To the big one.

The brilliant, wonderful Top Gear is returning to television this weekend to the British peoples. And they’ll be showing footage of Richard Hammond’s 290mph crash (that’s over 460km/h).

I, for one, am glad Richard has made such a speedy recovery and that there will be more Top Gear goodness for all. Oh yes.

UPDATE: Hammond’s crash is available at certain places on the internet. YouTube is a good place to start, though BBC’s lawyers will no doubt be onto it like a cheap suit any time soon.

More pointless banning

The New South Wales Government in all its wisdom has decided to ban P-plate drivers using mobile phones whilst driving.

In a drastic attempt by the State Government to stop the death of young drivers, Bluetooth, earpieces or hands-free devices will be outlawed in P-plated vehicles.

So P-platers won’t even be able to use a hands-free kit like the Supertooth. Under no circumstances shall there be any talking while you’re driving! Maybe they should ban driving instructors as well, since they talk to the driver and could be deemed a distraction. That’ll stop young people killing themselves on the road as well.

P-Plate deaths for 2006 increased last year by almost 30 per cent – to 94.

And how many of those were caused by a driver talking on the phone? The article doesn’t say, but I’ll put money on it being a figure that is quite low.

The NSW Government has lost the plot with all this nannying. Young drivers are, very simply, being killed on the road due to three reasons:

1) Idiocy
2) Crap roads
3) Inadequate levels of driving skill

Rather than dilly-dallying around with these rubbish “solutions”, governments are better off throwing all vehicle-related revenue (rego fees, fines, fuel excise and so on) to improving roads and ensuring young drivers get adequate training. Spending more time on a Learner’s licence won’t fix it either — many adult drivers are only going to pass their own crap habits onto their kids. I’m talking about professional training.

But, as always, this will be thrown in the “too hard” basket, and P-platers will be forced to endure seriously idiotic legislation all in the name of “safety”.

Give yourself an uppercut, Eric Roozendaal, you retard.

Queensland’s worst road

Apparently the Riverside Expressway right in the city of Brisbane is Queensland’s worst road. This is hardly surprising.

The stretch in question is only roughly 800 metres to a kilometre in length, has numerous onramps and offramps, and is 3-4 lanes wide. Almost every time you drive along the Riverside Expressway, you’re required to perform at least one or two lane changes and to do it quickly as there isn’t much room allocated for merging. When you add a healthy dose of human idiocy (and the occasional large truck), you get Queensland’s worst road with 25 “serious” crashes between 2001 and 2005.

Oh, it’s also one of Queensland’s busiest roads. The Department of Main Roads says volumes have reached up to 150,000 vehicles per day. That’s not a small number.

I’m not sure what the point of this post is — or if indeed it is supposed to have one — but I’m sure that thanks to the Courier Mail, the people of Brisbane will demand action. I say we lower the speed limit from the existing 70km/h to 20km/h, put fixed speed cameras every 100m along the road, and only allow bicycles onto it. There, that’ll solve Brisbane’s traffic problems.

Ruling given

Jeremy Clarkson, the most outspoken presenter of the BBC’s brilliant Top Gear, is in a slight pickle over comments made on the show in an episode that aired nearly 6 months ago:

The Top Gear presenter picked up a remark from an audience that a certain car was “gay”, the presenter then backed it up by saying, “a bit gay, yes very ginger beer” which is cockney rhyming slang for queer.

This is stupid. Firstly, on the show, Jeremy asks a member of the audience (who incidently looks like Jesus, and Jeremy made more comments to do with him looking like Jesus than anything else) what he thinks of a particular car. The audience member says “it’s gay.” Jeremy then repeats what the audience member said, rather than backing it up: “It’s gay? It’s a bit… ginger beer.” Anybody who has watched the episode in question wouldn’t seriously be able to argue that what Jeremy said was saying anything against gays.

Secondly, who cares if two or three gays were offended that a particular car be branded “gay”. It’s not really any different in principle to a V8 muscle car being branded a “manly car”, or small hatchbacks being branded “girls cars”. This is political correctness going mad, and yet another example of people being silenced because somebody, somewhere, at some time might take offence. It’s ridiculous.

Thirdly, the car in question was a Daihatsu Copen, and they are, with no shadow of a doubt, totally gay.