Posts Tagged ‘fines’
The Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) [otherwise know as the Revenue Transport Agency] is proposing plans to reduce the amount of tolerance it allows for speeding motorists down to only 4 km/hr. Now obviously me and 2million other motorists will no doubt be “Not Happy Jan” if his gets approved. I substantiate my concerns using logic, evidence and common sense (that appears is not so common after all!):
The 4 km/hr tolerance is far to draconian for the following 4 good reasons:
- Some European cars display speedometers marked 50,70 and 90 km/hr so a 60 zone could see drivers not viewing accurately the needle position between the lines
- The width of some speedometer needles is equivalent to 3 km/hr position
- Parallax error – where an instruments read-out differs depending on the angle at which it is viewed
- A new set of tyres or fitting of different diameter rims can effect the speedometer accuracy by around 2 km/hr
I’m certainly not advocating driving your car on its door handles but given the increase in fine costs, license points demerit systems, variable speed limits on the same road, 40 km/hr school zones – it breeds drivers watching their speedos at the cost of being visibly aware of other dangers on the road.
Currently the NSW Police use an 8 or 9 km/hr margin of error in a 60 km/hr zone which seems fair so the question is now raised: Why would the RTA want to apply a standard to the general motorist that they cant possibly comply with!
