First experience .. Vic law regarding passing emergency vehicle

[EDManual]

DRU842, if you felt threatened, you should have completely ignored the bloke, and driven away to the nearest police station. Ring 000 on the way. Imagine how crazy he would get in his head following you for 20km or whatever! haha.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by roKWiz

Yep, going to be happening more often. .

It will happen less if they get serious about it and start taking licences off those people who don't comply. It really isn't that difficult.

I know my view isn't popular on here but if people drive in a safe manner (2-3 second gap to the car in front for starters) then there really isn't an issue. Unfortunately too many people are all wrapped up in their own self importance.

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by prydey

It will happen less if they get serious about it and start taking licences off those people who don't comply. It really isn't that difficult.

I know my view isn't popular on here but if people drive in a safe manner (2-3 second gap to the car in front for starters) then there really isn't an issue. Unfortunately too many people are all wrapped up in their own self importance.

If everyone followed every rule then there would be no issue. Police wouldn't even have to pull people over on the freeway. Yet cars have been around for more than 100 years and 1.3 million people are killed in road traffic crashes every year. Some how I feel like people are still going to break the new road rules that are introduced and are still going to tailgate.

People need to act based on the society we live in. Not some utopia society where everyone does the right thing and nothing bad happens.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by Ben73

If everyone followed every rule then there would be no issue. Police wouldn't even have to pull people over on the freeway. Yet cars have been around for more than 100 years and 1.3 million people are killed in road traffic crashes every year. Some how I feel like people are still going to break the new road rules that are introduced and are still going to tailgate.

People need to act based on the society we live in. Not some utopia society where everyone does the right thing and nothing bad happens.

If you, or someone you love, is involved in an accident and are critically injured requiring urgent attention, perhaps if the emergency services people refused to operate until they had a safe working environment it might cause you to adjust your view.

Forget about random traffic stops. You can't have different rules for different situations. When approaching scenes with flashing blue and reds, no one knows what is going down from a distance, so it has to be a blanket rule. It really isn't that hard to just slow down, which is the intent of the rule.

[galaxy xr8]

Originally Posted by Ben73

From what I’ve heard off someone who is related to a NSW HP officer, some of the supervisors have words with officers who don’t write enough tickets per hour.

Just show's that there's not enough ticket's handed down in my view, as the amount of idiocy I see on the roads just about every where I go, tell's me that quota's really don't need to be filled these day's, It's just there for the taking.

Maybe the Police in general actually are too lenient when pulling over some driver's and ticket's should be handed out more frequently instead off warnings !!!.

Just saying.

[b0son]

If you're doing your policing on the side of the road, you're probably going to miss a lot of actions that need policing...

[Full Noise]

https://7news.com.au/news/nsw-police...hway-c-1134338

[whitelion65]

Maybe it's time to start delivering E-tickets, based on observed (and recorded) behaviour.
Lights not working, fail to indicate, fail to maintain lane in round-a-bout (grrrrrrrr) etc, ect

[MercuryT]

I think slowing down is fine. Only takes the trip a bit longer and keeps workers safe which is paramount.

Only point I'll make is (which is roadworks not Emergency workers) that in Tas, not sure about other States and Territories, is it's so frustrating when road workers don't remove signs.

My main highway has recently had signs at 40 on a 110 zone on weekends without a worker in sight. Everyone slows to crawling pace for no reason whatsoever.

I think it's a responsibility on drivers to drive slow, but a responsibility on road workers etc to remove signs if not working.

It leads to people then disregarding signs as no idea if people are working or not, which undermines the purpose.

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by MercuryT

I think slowing down is fine. Only takes the trip a bit longer and keeps workers safe which is paramount.

Only point I'll make is (which is roadworks not Emergency workers) that in Tas, not sure about other States and Territories, is it's so frustrating when road workers don't remove signs.

My main highway has recently had signs at 40 on a 110 zone on weekends without a worker in sight. Everyone slows to crawling pace for no reason whatsoever.

I think it's a responsibility on drivers to drive slow, but a responsibility on road workers etc to remove signs if not working.

It leads to people then disregarding signs as no idea if people are working or not, which undermines the purpose.

Be careful with that comment as it might be ok if the road condition allows the normal speed to resume when workers not at location but sometimes the roads condition can be still unsafe hence the speed limit remains low until the roadworks is completed.

[MercuryT]

Originally Posted by Officemanager

Be careful with that comment as it might be ok if the road condition allows the normal speed to resume when workers not at location but sometimes the roads condition can be still unsafe hence the speed limit remains low until the roadworks is completed.

No no.......the workers doing gardening/slashing etc not where road unsealed etc

Sorry if not clear.

[M&Ms]

Originally Posted by galaxy xr8

Just show's that there's not enough ticket's handed down in my view, as the amount of idiocy I see on the roads just about every where I go, tell's me that quota's really don't need to be filled these day's, It's just there for the taking.

Maybe the Police in general actually are too lenient when pulling over some driver's and ticket's should be handed out more frequently instead off warnings !!!.

Just saying.

Reality is that 95% of the focus is on speed, which actually only causes <5% of fatalities. It creates paranoia, angst, and hatred to governments and cops. Yet the wonder is why the standard of driving is so low and the number of incidents is so high. The idiot in the Corolla in the clip above proves it.

The amount tail gaters, right lane hogs, high beam driving or no headlight driving I see LITERALLY passing cops proves that.

All the hwy boys want is someone coming by at 130+, so they can pull chase at 200 down the motorways to lecture them about how speeding is bad, or better still, take a photo and post it on their Facebook page and gloat about it. I wonder if they fondle each other after their shift in the shower too, talking about the wog they clocked in his M3 at 140, or the Asian they pulled over in his Evo at 150 and took their licences away.

The hwy patrol needs to be disbanded. Those serious about making the states safer need to join the real cops, on the beat dealing with real crime.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by M&Ms

. The idiot in the Corolla in the clip above proves it.

.

If you're referring to the link by fullnoise, that's a dead straight bit of road with reasonable visibility, so you don't think the guy in the kenworth just wasn't paying attention (and those around him)?

Hard to judge from that clip how quickly the cars in front slowed, but fair to say it's pretty poor driving by the truck, and I'm not an anti truck person.

[Citroënbender]

If it was a tipper and dog that shunted old mate in the tilt tray, standard quality driving for Sydney.

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by prydey

If you, or someone you love, is involved in an accident and are critically injured requiring urgent attention, perhaps if the emergency services people refused to operate until they had a safe working environment it might cause you to adjust your view.

Forget about random traffic stops. You can't have different rules for different situations. When approaching scenes with flashing blue and reds, no one knows what is going down from a distance, so it has to be a blanket rule. It really isn't that hard to just slow down, which is the intent of the rule.

I never said there should be different rules for different situations. Im not sure where you got that from. I’m usually one of the 50% of drivers who actually slow down for red and blue lights. I have had people get close to my rear and I brake gently. It’s much more risky when a Corolla driver stops for no reason.


What I said was why would you risk your life standing 1m from a highways lane when it’s not an emergency situation. The thought that “well it’s illegal to run me down so that shouldn’t happen” is pretty bad.
Sounds like a guy I work with. If I stop at roadworks on a high speed country road I stop about 10 metres from the car in front and keep it in gear watching the rear view mirror to make sure if someone’s about to rear end me at 100kmh I can at least try to take evasive actions to lower my risk of injury. A guy I work with doesn’t understand that. He stops about 1 metre from the car ahead, puts the car in park and looks out the front window. I have politely suggested he should be more aware of drivers not paying attention and rear ending him and paraphrasing his reply was something like “why? The car behind should stop, they’re not allow to crash into me”
Yeah the people killed last year while stopped at roadworks were in one of those situations where the truck behind was allowed to rear end them at 100kmh.

[Full Noise]

Originally Posted by prydey

If you're referring to the link by fullnoise, that's a dead straight bit of road with reasonable visibility, so you don't think the guy in the kenworth just wasn't paying attention (and those around him)?

Hard to judge from that clip how quickly the cars in front slowed, but fair to say it's pretty poor driving by the truck, and I'm not an anti truck person.

I know that you’re not an anti-truck person and this is not directed at you.

I’m just going to point out a few things that I’ve observed from the footage from this crash. I’m not going to get into a would have-could have scenario, I’m only interested in the facts. I haven’t been there for a while but I did travel that stretch often in a previous job.

1. The M7 is not a straight road, it has many curves and undulations.
2. The speed zone at the time was 100 kp/h. (variable limit)
3. The HWP (in my opinion) pulled this car over in a very dangerous place.
4. I wish I was joking here but there is a breakdown bay 320 metres ahead of where this crash occurred. There is also a large truck parking bay just past Chandos Road.
5. The white Corolla had NO REASON WHATSOEVER to STOP in the left running lane of the motorway.
6. Traffic was moderate so there would be no reason to not be able to maintain 100 kp/h at the time.
7. The tow truck with the dash cams only just avoided hitting the red car himself. If the tow truck had any load on whatsoever, he would have hit the red car.
8. DET, SUP Paul Glenn’s comment was “there was open visibility for probably around 200 metres, and ahh some people managed to stop” this comment alone shows that he is an utter moron.
9. Out of all the traffic, there was only one B-double in the group.
10. There was a white 4WD utility directly beside the B-double.

Note: The exact location of the crash is approximately 160 metres from the Saxony Rd overpass on the M7 northbound.

I don’t expect anyone here who has never driven a heavy vehicle to understand the dynamics of a semi trailer or B-double, but hear me out here.

I’m going back to DET, SUP Paul Glenn’s comment regarding the 200 metres visibility.

At 100 kp/h, you travel a distance of 27.78 metres a second. It would take 7.19 seconds to travel 200 metres.

So consider this.
Let’s for argument’s sake, say that the B-double driver had a quick glance in his mirror at the white ute, there’s 1 second gone. Then he looks ahead to assess the situation and by the time it’s registered (his reaction time) and he’s moved his foot to the brake pedal, that could be between 1 and 2 seconds. That leaves him with LESS THAN 5 SECONDS to bring a 60 + tonne vehicle to a COMPLETE STOP FROM 100 kp/h. Does anyone else see a problem here?

For those here who may not understand physics, try this little experiment.
Find a safe place with no traffic in a 100 zone and get to 100 kp/h in your car. Then get your mate to tell you to stop and time how long it takes you to come to a complete and (unexpected) stop. There will be two points. A reaction zone and a braking zone. The total stopping distance of a vehicle (Car) is made up of 4 components.

Human Perception Time
Human Reaction Time
Vehicle Reaction Time
Vehicle Braking Capability

So when it takes you at least 4 seconds to stop your 1600 kg car, how long do you think that it would take to stop a 63,000 kg B-double, regardless of the extra axles it has to assist with braking?
With a heavy vehicle, the load carried has to be added to the equation. Also consider that the two trucks involved may not have automatically expected the Corolla to stop in the running lane, hence why the tow truck nearly ran up the ar$e of the red car.

My opinion, for what it’s worth which is nothing.

I believe the B-double driver would have braked (obviously not hard enough) as soon as he saw what was going on and was probably hoping for the white ute who was beside him to maintain his speed and opening up a gap that would have allowed him to change lanes and narrowly miss everyone. The camera footage shows that this was not the case leaving the B-double with nowhere to go. There is a possibility that the B-double driver’s vision of the cars could have been obscured by the tow truck.

The simple fact that the B-double stopped where it did shows that he did indeed brake earlier, regardless of what the NSW police and the fake news media tell you.

The law of physics does not change just because someone from the NSW police wants it to.

There were many NSW police members who were against this stupid 40 km/h slow down law and that is one of the main reasons why the state government changed it.

I’m going to add the link again and have a look at a couple of details here.
I believe that this footage will work in favour of the B-double driver.

https://7news.com.au/news/nsw-police...hway-c-1134338

From 0.27 to 0.29 there is a white heavy vehicle that appears (in the distance and not the rigid) from the curve in the roadway, this is the distance that the B-double had to react in.

This is just me picking on some details here but when DET, SUP Paul Glenn describes how the officer involved narrowly avoided being hit, the way he describes it at 0.42 to 0.50 is not what the video shows at 0.55. This is only a minor detail, however, when you’re in court arguing against these people and your freedom for the next ten-years is on the line, remember this. They can’t even get their bloody story straight when there’s video footage of what “really” happened.

Here’s a youTube link without all the fake news garbage in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...ature=emb_logo

[Romulus]

Originally Posted by prydey

If you, or someone you love, is involved in an accident and are critically injured requiring urgent attention, perhaps if the emergency services people refused to operate until they had a safe working environment it might cause you to adjust your view.

Forget about random traffic stops. You can't have different rules for different situations. When approaching scenes with flashing blue and reds, no one knows what is going down from a distance, so it has to be a blanket rule. It really isn't that hard to just slow down, which is the intent of the rule.

Typical. Take the most marginalised case and make out like it's a common issue to justify your argument.

Perhaps if Police were to anticipate the great risk they're putting themselves and other road users at when attempting to pull over a vehicle on busy road with limited space then incidents like this wouldn't happen.

I feel sorry for all those involved in the accident, except for the Police. They should have seen this accident coming and are entirely responsible for creating this situation.

[zilo]

@FulNoise....mate you are spot on...police 100% at fault for stupidity.

WTF...it's a breakdown lane, not a speeding finetax collector lane.

They are endangering all road users with their pedantic ego behaviour.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by Romulus

Typical. Take the most marginalised case and make out like it's a common issue to justify your argument.

No, my argument is, as a motorist you have no idea what the flashing lights are for when you are approaching. Generally when you first see lights you are some distance away. There is always the possibility that it could be the scene of a critical situation.

My argument is about intent. For the most part many drivers have no intent to actually slow down. The other argument is safe following distances.

[Bossxr8]

One thing I have noticed is if you are in a long lane of traffic, especially with trucks in that group, that your forward visibility to a car parked on the left is dramatically reduced. Sometimes you won't even see the pulled over car till your are right up on it.

Too bad if you slam on the brakes at that point to avoid a potential fine. Some people would be silly enough to do it too.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

One thing I have noticed is if you are in a long lane of traffic, especially with trucks in that group, that your forward visibility to a car parked on the left is dramatically reduced. Sometimes you won't even see the pulled over car till your are right up on it.

Too bad if you slam on the brakes at that point to avoid a potential fine. Some people would be silly enough to do it too.

At 100kmh a 2-3 second gap to the vehicle in front is around 55-80metres. Do you leave that sort of margin when you travel?

It was mentioned earlier, a lot of these situations could be improved if the police focussed less on speed and more on the beach of all the other road rules.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by prydey

At 100kmh a 2-3 second gap to the vehicle in front is around 55-80metres. Do you leave that sort of margin when you travel?

It was mentioned earlier, a lot of these situations could be improved if the police focussed less on speed and more on the beach of all the other road rules.

If you are behind a B double, even a 2-3 second gap significantly reduces forward visibility up the road.

[FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

If you are behind a B double, even a 2-3 second gap significantly reduces forward visibility up the road.

Yes, but the b-double should also be slowing down. You're not going to run into the back of it just because you can't see what is going on up in front, are you?

[Ben73]

Originally Posted by prydey

No, my argument is, as a motorist you have no idea what the flashing lights are for when you are approaching. Generally when you first see lights you are some distance away. There is always the possibility that it could be the scene of a critical situation.

My argument is about intent. For the most part many drivers have no intent to actually slow down. The other argument is safe following distances.

If you do any sort of OHS type training you will see the first step is to remove the hazard if possible. If you can’t remove the hazard move on to step two which is put in procedures to mitigate the hazard.

You can keep saying “you don’t know what the red and blues are for So just slow down” but that has nothing to do with what people on here are saying. I agree slow down to a safe speed when seeing red and blues on a motorway but police are just skipping step 1 and not removing unnecessary hazards.
The lower the number of emergency vehicles stopping on highways the lower the chance of something going wrong and ending like that video

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0

Yes, but the b-double should also be slowing down. You're not going to run into the back of it just because you can't see what is going on up in front, are you?

That's not the point I was making. i didn't say anything about running into the back of it.

The point I was making is if the truck doesn't slow down, yet I see the parked emergency vehicle and decide at the last second to do the right thing, then i'm causing issues for the cars behind (not that I would bother slamming on the brakes in that situation, just that some people might).

Same applies if coming round a tight bend, or with corners where there are trees etc blocking line of sight. It's not always possible to see these pulled over vehicles until you are right up on them. And that's the type of situation where you cause more problems than the rule solves, cause you get people panicking and slamming on the brakes.

[FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

That's not the point I was making. i didn't say anything about running into the back of it.

The point I was making is if the truck doesn't slow down, yet I see the parked emergency vehicle and decide at the last second to do the right thing, then i'm causing issues for the cars behind (not that I would bother slamming on the brakes in that situation, just that some people might).

Same applies if coming round a tight bend, or with corners where there are trees etc blocking line of sight. It's not always possible to see these pulled over vehicles until you are right up on them. And that's the type of situation where you cause more problems than the rule solves, cause you get people panicking and slamming on the brakes.

Gotcha, Sorry, I didn't get that as being your point from your earlier posts.

I can't see your scenario as being realistic tho. If the traffic is light enough that the truck is not slowed by traffic in front of it, then you're most likely not going to be travelling that close to it that you won't be able to see signs of an issue up ahead.

There will always be scenarios where laws don't make sense, but to argue that we shouldn't have a law at all because it doesn't apply in all circumstances is flawed logic IMHO.

Fact is the law requires you to slow down to 40km/h (in Vic). Either you comply or you pay the resultant penalty if it is applied. Pretty simple. If neither of those are palatable, then you have the option of taking it to court to argue your position. Then the court will determine if your scenario is reasonable or not. Yes, I get that process is expensive and time consuming, but that is the process we have.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0

There will always be scenarios where laws don't make sense, but to argue that we shouldn't have a law at all because it doesn't apply in all circumstances is flawed logic IMHO.

.

This.

[Full Noise]

Originally Posted by FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0

Yes, but the b-double should also be slowing down. You're not going to run into the back of it just because you can't see what is going on up in front, are you?

But there's an enormous difference in preparing to slow down and preparing to come to a complete stop when you're in a heavy vehicle, especially at high speed. I think that I can say with about a 100% surety that the two 4WD vehicles that were in the right lane of the motorway at the time of the crash would have hit the stationary vehicles as well. In this situation, their vision was not obscured by other vehicles and they would have had no chance of stopping in time. Even slowing to 40 if this had happend in Victoria would have been difficult for the two 4WDs here.

As the old saying goes, you can't fix stupid and the level of stupid here between the Corolla and the HWP are off the scale.

if there ever was a video to show how stupid this law is (in places other than NSW) then this is it.

[hayseed]

Originally Posted by Full Noise

5. The white Corolla had NO REASON WHATSOEVER to STOP in the left running lane of the motorway.

^^^^^^^^^This is in My Opinion is Where the Buck (& each & every Insurances Claim for this Incident) should Stop....

[Syndrome]

Originally Posted by prydey

It will happen less if they get serious about it and start taking licences off those people who don't comply. It really isn't that difficult.

I know my view isn't popular on here but if people drive in a safe manner (2-3 second gap to the car in front for starters) then there really isn't an issue. Unfortunately too many people are all wrapped up in their own self importance.

If people drove in a safe manner there would be no need for seat belts, air bags, etc. However we live in the real world so have to plan for the lowest common denominator. People make mistakes. People drive carelessly. Incidents and accidents will always occur.