Apologies if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you haven’t read the article; the quota was saying at least 95.5% of roadside breath tests must be below the legal 0.05% blood alcohol concentration limit.
Such a bizarre quota discouraged police from catching drunk drivers (and if anythign encouraged pointless tests of people at times & places unlikely to catch drunk drivers), making us less-safe.
I was in Sydney in early December, and got on the M2 at about 12:30am at Lane Cove on a Sunday morning heading west. I noticed that at every exit the police had setup road blocks to random breath test everyone. I got off at Old Windsor Rd just after it turns into the M7 and got tested there. I reckon that the road blocks probably continued the entire length of the M7 and probably onto the M5 all the way to the second Campbelltown exit. The NSW Police certainly we’re not slacking off that night/early morning.
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When your stuck in a traffic jam caused by an accident and the traffic report comes on the radio - “we’re clear of any accidents or incidents this afternoon.”. 
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worst i saw was here in Brisbane when Barack Obama was in town and spoke at UQ they closed one major road from the west to the city (for his motorcade) which casued traffic chaos as there was only one other direct road.
the cops decided to set up an RBT on this road. it was just insane. I had to take my child to the ED at the children’s hospital near the city and i had to deal with the traffic chaos (she’d split her chin open, but not enough for an ambulance)
we pull up for the RBT, my wife in the back holding a bloody rag to my daughters chin and the cop still insisted on testing me!
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That’s disgusting.
It appears too many police enjoy the power rush of (unnecessarily) inconveniencing people/making people miserable (or even bullying), along with an apparently pervasive assume-everyone-is-guilty attitude, and a lack of compassion/basic human understanding from many is appalling (and sad).
This is not a surprising revelation.
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Yes that was an interesting read and a bit depressing. I think Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are all similar though.
Sydney currently has 15 toll points (with 6 more to come of course). But even Brisbane has 11 toll points in it’s current toll road network. That’s pretty extreme for a city of 2.5 million. Does anybody know about Melbourne?
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Melbourne has only two toll roads at present: Citylink & Eastlink. Across both toll roads, they have 21 toll points; 8 in Citylink & 13 in Eastlink.
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CityLink (by itsself) and EastLink (certainly combined) have the largest volumes of traffic however, by far.
Many of Sydney’s toll roads are (or were until recently) only two lane carriageways and/or serving as connections between other roads/tunnels.
CityLink stretches much of the north-south corridor in the suburban centre (Essendon Airport to the West Gate Fwy at South Wharf, some 30km I think). There’s also the seperate section connecting the Burnley and Domain Tunnels & Toorak Rd and the Monash Fwy.
EastLink stretches the entire north-south corridor to the east, connecting the Eastern Fwy & Frankston and Mornington Peninsula Fwys.
Though the M7 is tolled by distance, and it has 14 entrances and/or exits including both ends all with toll points. Depending on how you count the toll points it could have more than double that.
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I think for Transurban (Australia’s largest toll operator) that Sydney and maybe followed by Brisbane generates greatest toll revenue, due to the number of different tollways.
Although CityLink is the single biggest money maker for them by a mile, simply due to the amount of lanes in each carriageway, demand and volume.
Sydney makes up nearly 40% of Transurbans toll revenue, 30% from Melbourne
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Was driving on the Tulla on Sunday late night and they’ve got some “speed limit trial” as advertised on the overhead gantries, using the variable speed signs (80km/h now during day time due to no emergency lanes because of the recently finished upgrade with extra lanes, but was 100km/h when I was on).
I like the idea.
Bathurst, NSW is due to open its 4th Tesla Charging Stations very soon. We currently have a station at our local Shopping Centre, one in the CBD, one at Abercrombie House and the 4th one, by far the largest is opening at our Tourist Information Centre.
How many are in other towns/cities?
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There’s Tesla or at least generic electric car charging stations in a number of local shopping centre car parks. I’ve only once actually seen them in use, but it’s better to have them there in advance of higher demand.
One thing maybe interesting to people here is the new continuous flow intersection between Swan Street and Punt Road in Richmond. I’ve now been through there a few times both driving and as a pedestrian.
Driving, I found that I think I was waiting at the lights a little longer than normal - going straight through from Olympic Blvd to Swan Street - but I’m not too annoyed at that given how small a fraction of traffic goes that way.
The biggest issue I’ve found was more that drivers just don’t prepare for it - so there are a lot of last minute lane changes as people realise their lane is about to become a U turn lane, or is actually the turn lane. I thought it was clearly signed - but I’m glad I’d seen ads for the change before hand.
They slightly improved the tram stop, but pedestrians seem to be generally an after thought and the much busier tram stop in front of Richmond station isn’t improved at all.
Certainly not the horror story some of the reporting made it out to be.
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Had to google to find out what that was.
Looks interesting, I was stuck in a traffic jam today. There were 3 cars at the lights, so frustrating. Was in Hobart last week and travelling in from the Eastern Shore, has been a while since I’ve done that but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. Took about half an hour from the Airport into the City in morning peak hour, was expecting much worse considering what’s all been in the media all the time about Hobart’s traffic woes.
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It looks like an innovative concept, but can’t help but think that’s only going to move the congestion / bottleneck issue to another choke point, as I could see travelling east along Olympic Blvd could be a nightmare with all those extra cars having to use that little stretch to complete their P turns from Swan St onto Punt Rd.
There is also a potential issue of trucks jacknifing when doing a P turn.
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