I don’t believe police are better at using phones while driving than anyone else. I think you can train to improve your driving skills while you’re fully concentrating on the driving task, but I highly doubt that you can effectively train someone to be as good a driver while using a phone.
Having the police regularly using their phones while driving doesn’t sit right with me. In that recent case on the Central Coast, the police van had two police officers in it. Why couldn’t the other officer have fielded the call, or at the very least held the phone or put it on speaker? I have seen photos and videos where the police are obviously using phones for frivolous purposes (e.g. taking photos/video while behind the wheel). I think the exemption is OK for emergencies, but the police should be using them extremely sparingly.
Just because they’re exempt from the law doesn’t mean they shouldn’t refrain from using them.
As revealed on the front page of Herald Sun today, Victorian Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has vowed to build the East West Link as well as honouring Labor’s plans to finish North East Link and West Gate Tunnel, if his party wins the state election on November 24:
While the Coalition’s plans to build all three tollways are welcome, its other plan to grade separate more than 50 intersections across Melbourne is excessive and waste of money. While some major intersections like Springvale Junction (Princes Highway / Centre Road / Springvale Road) and Moorabbin (Nepean Highway / South Road) needs to be improved, this grade separation plan will only move traffic congestion elsewhere and discourage people from using public transport.
Why on earth should $30 Billion be spent to create a toll road?
The public should only spend money on roads owned and operated by the public - I’m okay with user charges if it’s needed to assist funding, but this is inevitably going to be another payout to Transurban with never ending tolls.
Toll roads should be on public borrowings, and become free to travel on once paid off - imagine Melbourne’s congestion if the West Gate Bridge was still a toll road - and significant numbers of people decided to just keep taking the arterials.
The original Western Distributor project is the one that should have been built - far more achievable and targeted at trucks, not accommodating more people commuting by road.
Queensland is about to run out of unique number plates (all combinations of 3 letters and 3 numbers will have been used). A new pattern will soon be introduced that includes an extra number (over time the number will shift position to the left).
According to today’s Sunday Herald Sun, a stretch of Racecourse Road at Flemington has become a blackspot for trucks hitting rail bridges and bringing down tram wires. In the first half of 2018, there were three accidents at Newmarket rail bridge (Craigieburn line) and eight crashes Boundary Road rail bridge (Upfield line), both of which have 3.7 m clearance. https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/crashcourse-rd-flemington-revealed-as-citys-blackspot-for-trucks-bringing-down-tram-wires/news-story/e3f889a2fe75f38b2779e3321eb5e55f
Racecourse Road is part of a major bypass route linking the western suburbs to Eastern Freeway, bypassing the CBD. Even with the increasing number of warning signs, these hits are unacceptable. The Boundary Road rail bridge is adjacent to Moonee Ponds Creek and a section of Citylink (sound tube) and its modification (elevation to 4.6 m clearance) should have been included in the initial construction of the elevated tollway. The Newmarket rail bridge should either be elevated to minimum 4.6 m clearance or rebuilt to a rail underpass.
Melbourne’s Tullamarine Freeway will have its speed limit increased from 80km/h to 100km/h for an extra three hours a day during off-peak times as part of an existing speed limit trial. The speed limit was cut to 80km/h during the CityLink Tulla Widening Project.
I believe the limit is at 80km/h due to being no emergency lane.
A section of Calder Freeway between Melton Highway and M80 Ring Road was also upgraded with ramp signals and overhead gantries installed during the CityLink Tulla Widening Project. However, they did not build additional emergency lanes on both sides of the freeway, so the speed limit will stay at 80 km/h for the forseeable future. What a missed opportunity.
Which is completely stupid at 11pm when you have an almost empty freeway with 5 or 6 lanes open, but the speed limit is still 80km/h. Might as well close the left hand lane off
It’s impossible to expand Citylink to six lanes each side (5 travel lanes plus emergency lane) when most parts of the tollway is sandwiched between Moonee Ponds Creek and residential areas. It’s either more travel lanes with a lower speed limit or less travel lanes with the 100 km/h speed limit.
Absolutely. There’s no possible way they didn’t realise they were on the wrong side. There’s been a spate of these incidents lately, one resulting in an innocent fatality at Eight Mile Plains.
Why the F wouldn’t they just stop? Are they mentally deranged? There’s plenty of room to turn around in the median strip and they are in a jacked up ute. Madness.
It just seems to be an elderly disorientation thing. They go back to a time when freeways didn’t exist and being on the left side of a dashed line = A-OK
