Our biggest hazard on our roads

In my opinion the biggest hurdle to over come in road safety is our governing bodies eg. Vic Roads and the TAC. Why you may ask? You see ever since I lost my son in a road crash I have been involved in road safety first via the TAC Campaign The Ripple Effect ( which you can see at www.everybodyhurts.cm.au) I have seen, heard and be involved in so many co nversations. I have formed an opinion that most who are employed in this space are more interested in saving their jobs over what is best to reduce road crashes.

The Tac have just be given $8 million to research the causes of serious crashes. What have they been doing for all of these years has all the research they have conducted not given them the answers?

What I have learned from being in this space is the education into getting our licence is very poor what is done is token education that only gives if we are lucky only 1/2 the knowledge that we need to give us and our kids a fighting chance to survive on our roads.

The authorities are to scared to show and support realistic stories because they don't live it and are not able to tell someone else's story with the power of the message that a real victim can deliver.

They tell us what's best for children to learn is from us driving yet the ones that make that disission don't have teenaged children or none at all yet they know what works and what doesn't. I wander how they can be so forthright in this with no real experience in dealing with teen aged children? 

They insist that the 120hrs is working but p plate drivers still remain high in road trauma and the road toll. It is a good idea but would work better if the people that are instructing knew what to teach and why. 

Just sitting in the passenger seat isn't quality instruction. What we tend to do is pass on how we drive but not everyone can relay what's in their head into constructive instructions. For example in my employment we have a instructor that has over 20 years as a b doubledriver with lots of knowledge but didn't know how to teach after being taught how and what to teach he is an excellent instructor. I put it to the TAC that we could put on seminars on how and what parents could and should teach. But got an email back saying that it wasn't something that they would be interested in doing. So for now our drivers aren't getting any better which is a concern to all of us road users. 

You see the TAC operates that if we didn't think of it it won't work. Because it makes them look bad and they are always trying to justify their place in road safety. 

Over the summer break I will be working on an education program to give learners and their parents the knowledge of what to teach and why. These seminars Will point out what the criteria is to gain your licence because if you are taught what is required to pass then you should have a better understanding on the safest way to drive a car.

Our biggest hazard on our roads part 2

As I promised in my previous post I will talk about Vic Roads. Now they are a completely different animal they can do no wrong in their eyes just this week they where exposed for lack of inspections in trucks allowing our biggest vehicles to drive on our roads unroadworthy.
The way they transfer international licences to Victorian is a massive concern. You see not many have to do a test to get their Victorian licence just 6 months driving experience in driving on our roads. I been given information for a good relyable sorce overseas drivers coming to get their truck licence not knowing or understanding our road rules the most common is thinking that if there are no cars you can roll through a stop sign.
I heard that an applicant at the start of the month who had been in our country since  January this year got his licence transferred to Victorian then got an exemption to gain his Heavy Ridged truck licence based on having his licence for more than 2 years in India not how much he understands Victorian road rules. Hence he failed his first attempt due to breaking the road rules but was able to try again and just got through so here we have a person new to our country not really understanding our road rules on our roads allowed to drive a truck upto 25 tonnes on our roads and we say that P Plate drivers are at the biggest risk on our roads due to lack of experience but its ok to drive a truck with little knowledge of our road rules.
Now back to Vic Roads inability to make sure the trucks on our roads are safe we just resently had a number of our fuel carrying trucks caught with massive defects only to be allowed on our roads to be taken off again. Now Vic Roads will claim they did a spot check but only went and inspected after a whistleblower told them that the defects went rectified and they better do something about it before more innocent people die from a crash with a fuel tanker.
Clearly Vic Roads in their Heavy Vehicle section don't have the capacity to do what they are employed to do and do regular checks I think that it could be a job for Worksafe. Why? You ask. You see a truck is like an office it's someone's workplace and should be inspected like another workplace just like a factory or an office. If you have leads all over the place and Worksafe come and inspect your place of work it will be deemed unsafe due to a trip hazard a notice to rectify would be placed and you will be allocated a time frame to fix that's based on the danger and how easy it is to fix. Not much different to a Truck it needs to be a safe workplace roadworthy and fit to do its required task. You see most transport companies just care about if their goods get from A to B and how quick not how it gets there just as long as it does.
The next point is the demerit point system and eligibility it is a fact that when you book in for a heavy vehicle licence there is a check done to see if your eligible. But it seams that if you have no demerit points left and have taken a 12 month bond you are deemed safe to drive an heavy more dangerous vehicle on our roads. You would think that by showing that you have no regard for a road rules driving a smaller vehicle you would deffently have no regard in a bigger one.
Yet believe it Vic Roads allow you to get your licence. I think that you should have a clean driving record to be able to drive a more heavier and dangerous vehicle on our roads. But according to Vic Roads head of road safety there is no need to look at changing the demerit point system yet people are dying on our roads at the hands of such drivers.

Time to review driving demerit point system

In my opinion demerit points should be there for when we make a mistake on our roads to give us something to think about. Like how important my licence is. How would I make a living if I was to lose it. If I drive like this again how much of an increased risk am I on the roads?

The demerit point system should not be there to reward unsafe driving behaviour and give a driver multiple chances to break our road rules. We have at the moment 12 points available to us and if we reach it we a given an option to keep our licence. We can chose to lose it for 3 months or go on a 12 month bond where if you get 1 more point you lose your licence for 6 months.

I would hope that given the events in the past weeks it give the authorities a chance to look at our current system and see if its failing us, can we make it better and not just we've got it right to save admitting you've got it wrong so wrong in fact. 

I would like to see that we only get 6 points with no option of a bond and we lose our licence for 3 months and truck drivers 6 months. It might sound harsh but we need to make a stance to making our roads safer make us the drivers take more responceability on how we use or roads.

Driving while using Mobile devices illegally

We all know that talking and texting while driving is a distraction and can result in crashing. Victoria has increased the penalties but are the penalties hard enough? This government is good at making people think that they care about road safety if they really did they would get tougher on drivers putting road users at risk by using their mobile phones illegally.
I think that if we really want to reduce drivers from using their phones and making it dangerous for other road users they would impose an impound for first offence for 7 days.
The idea is that your phone would be impounded at the local police station where you a caught then you collect it from there in 7 days and pay an impound fee.
As we all know that most of us have smart phones and our lives are in these phones all of our contacts, Facebook and twitter just to name a few things that we use our phones for. Imagine  not having it for a week and not being able to call anyone check any news feeds or check emails.
I think that this would give offenders something to think about and would more likely not to do it again and making our roads safer.

Geelong the 2nd port for Victoria

Geelong is losing jobs left right and centre how can we create jobs for the workers of Ford and Alcoa?

I think that making Geelong the 2nd port for Victoria would help out a lot. 

Announcements have been made that 300 jobs created from a call centre, Coles have created 1000 jobs and if Worksafe moves to Geelong another 500 jobs. That's great news we need theses opportunities for people who are looking for work now.

If we really think about it the types of jobs that are going are hands on jobs how many would go from using their hands to wearing a shirt and paints everyday and answer phones.

These workers are skilled workers and could be easier retrained to drive trucks use earthmoving equipment or forklifts. All of these type of jobs would be created if the 2nd port came to Geelong this town needs the work. 

The location of Geelong also makes more sense 1hr to Melbourne via road or rail, close to Adelaide and you don't have to get through the city to head north to Sydney and beyond.

If this government has its way it will be in Hastings and turn a quiet town into a town over run with b double trucks 24hrs a day to get anywhere you need to go through the city which is about 1 1/2hrs away with no traffic. The roads to get to the Monash fwy would need to be upgraded the peak hr traffic already is bedlam at the best this would only increase congestion make the commute even longer for everyday travellers to get to work.

 The only down fall I see is that the shipping channel would need to be deeper and this is an argument that this government will use. But it finds it ok to take over 100 homes off people to build its tunnel that doesn't need to be built because there is a better option.

Thoughts on better alternative of East West link

The problem with the east west tunnel option is that there is an alternative to the tunnel. What this Government isn't letting everyone know is that 20+ years ago there was provision made and land left free of homes from Greensborough to Ringwood this ring rd would link the east and the west. 

It would not take any homes it would reduce congestion in the city as traffic would go around it and not through it.

The EastWest tunnel will not make our roads safer due to the extra congestion on all feeder roads creating more frustration and drivers taking more risks.

If we want the traffic to flow from east to west the original link should be built.