Book 'em Danno!

Warning, this post contains a rant from a middle aged woman!

As you know we were on a road trip last week. Usually the Signigicant Other does most of the driving in the covertible, however for safety and comfort we try and divyy the driving up on long trips. This is the story of how I got my first speeding ticket for 9 years!

I did the drive from Albury after we stopped for a coffee and a snack. It was a wonderful day for driving, 19 degrees, warm and sunny and the road was not too busy.  (Are you getting the drift here?..)

Anyway I was rationalising with myself that the highway patrol were probably concentrated more around the Canberra exit to catch the skiiers coming home from the weekend, so I took a little liberty with my speed. I am pretty careful and usually know the sort of places they like to hide and can adjust my speed accordingly, however, on Sunday all my rationalising came to nought, when I got "pulled over".

I did not get upset or cranky,  because I did the crime so I would have to pay the fine.  But Ouch!

that's $248 big ones, and I am not sure how many points, lucky I have a full complement!

Anyway I was thinking about it while I continued to drive (at the limit this time) and the poor Significant Other was party to my ear bashing about the stupidity of some of our speed limits.

So here is my rant....

On divided motorways, highways and freeways with at least 2 lanes the maximum limit is 110km/h. On a single lane secondary road outside the metropolitan area with no divided road the maximum limit is 100km/h and I think in parts of WA it could be 110km/h as well ( based on a road trip we did to Albany in 2001).

Anyway, I got to thinking as I am wont to do and thought how do they decide what the speed limits should be. I seem to recall as a child that the speed limit in open roads may have been 60mph ( 105km) and we are talking here in the 60's and early 70's, no seat belts, no ABS, no airbags, no power steering etc etc... fast forward to today and our cars are much better built and equipped, indeed one of my very dear friends when buying her last new car said it had so many  airbags they would probably the thing that killed her!

So I want to know why our speed limits have not been adjusted to reflect the better cars and (sometimes) better roads we now have.

I find it amusing ( and annoying) that I was in Hungary a number of years ago and my friend wanted me to drive for a while, so there I was in an unfamiliar car ( nice Mercedes, thanks for asking..) driving on the unfamiliar (wrong) side of the road, in an area that I did not know and I felt quite comfortable driving at 170km/h, indeed everyone seems to drive a lot better in Europe to my mind, they come up, overtake and move over again as quick as they can ( Unlike most of the fast land hogs here!)

Even in USA I can drive faster than I can here, I did a quick check on the font of all knowledge, Wikpedia and this is what they had to say..

"The highest speed limits are generally 75 mph (121 km/h) in western states and 70 mph (113 km/h) in eastern states."

So your honour, I rest my case. 


An amusing aside to my rant, the place I got booked was

Hume HIghway, Bookham!  Poetic Justice.

What about you, do you think our speed limits need to be reviewed?