By EWAN KENNEDY
24 November 2008

I recently commented that a good driver in an excellent car exceeding the speed limit was far more likely to get booked than a sloppy driver in a bad car travelling within the speed limit.

I’ve yet to find anyone who disagrees with my statement, indeed some people to whom I have spoken are becoming increasingly heated on the subject of their speeding tickets, with hidden cameras being universally hated. But what can be done to make things fairer?

Obviously it is far easier to design a machine that measures speed than it is to have one that checks if a driver is writing SMS messages, or dialing a phone number while on the move. But these latter actions are arguably more dangerous than exceeding the speed limit, so shouldn’t there be a major concentration on a campaign for booking drivers doing it?

Rather than blindly booking all who exceed the one speed limit, it should be possible to increase speed limits when the weather is good and traffic is light. And decrease them when the weather turns nasty, perhaps also at night, though I’m not so sure about that one. It would be tricky, but in these times of smart electronics it’s certainly not impossible.

On the subject of competency, how do you measure a driver’s attitude before giving them a licence? Naturally it would be very difficult because people will always be on their best behaviour during the driving test, indeed during any testing, be it of knowledge of road rules, psychological fitness to drive, or whatever.

None of my suggested solutions are simple. But we are talking about life and death matters, here, so it is worth persisting. Any government that’s serious about the difficult subject of road safety matters may be surprised at just how many extra votes they get at the next election if they take a commonsense attitude to policing.

ewan@marque.com.au