POWERS THAT BE WANT "YOU" TO KEEP SPEEDING

Let's get one thing straight - if the "road safety message" which the state government and police sanctioned media reporting bombards us with year after year was totally and genuinely about saving the lives of Queenslanders on our roads, you wouldn't be reading this. 

 But you are, and that's because it's not totally and genuinely about that at all. That's a terrible shame, especially in light of the atrocious road toll in Queensland in 2022, the highest number of fatalities in some years. 

 No, I am not an angelic, faultless driver who never goes a few "k's over the limit". On the very odd occasio I do things like go 105 in a 100 zone to get past a slow moving vehicle, which in that situation, is the "safest option", rather than go 95 in a 100 zone and risk a potential collision with an oncoming vehicle coming the other way. 

To be a pragmatic driver who speeds a little, but not recklessly, in such a situation, doesn't make anyone a speed demon or a dangerous driver. If a traffic cop can't understand the logic of that he or she certainly ain't detective material. 

The last time I got booked, before this went to print, smiley face, was by an Esk police officer, on the very first Queen's Birthday holiday ever celebrated in Queensland in October 2013, a public holiday, not another car in sight down the main drag of Esk, and naughty me sped up a bit too quick in preparation to enter the 100 km/hr zone on the way out to Toogoolawah, and the searg got me. 

Hey, I did something wrong, not high range speeding, but it was still speeding. I accepted it, I took it on the chin, and to boot, the searg let me off at 14 over, he could have got me for 16 over. He offered me two things that no speed camera can - compassion and discretion. 

I still copped a penalty, I didn't get off Scott free, and it made me slow down then and it still makes me slow down, wherever I drive. And what's more, the grace that this cop from Esk showed me by "reducing the penalty" for my indiscretion made me respect the police a whole lot more, especially the local police. 

The huge increase in fines for low level speeding in Queensland, which now means you will cop a whopping and disproportionate fine of $287, with the loss of only "one" demerit point, makes it as clear as crystal that the state government and the Department of Main Roads and Transport aren't about road safety nearly as much as they're about revenue raising and keeping "you" on the road. Even if you speed a little.

Because it doesn't take Einstein to question why speeding fines have been increased so steeply, yet the loss of demerit points for the exact same speeding offences has not been increased. 

Low range speeding is a state government cash cow. The police minister, the treasurer and the chiefs of police within the "road safety command" want you to keep speeding just enough to lose 1 demerit point. Of course they do. 

You can be booked 12 times for low range speeding, losing one demerit point each time, before losing your licence, if you have an open licence and you start off with a clean driving record. 

That is the amount of money in fines which a driver in Queensland would pay in low range speeding fines at present before they would have no demerit points left. 

The powers that be, the powers that keep pushing the road safety message, the "every K over is a killer message", are a lot more interested in your money, than your well-being and safety on the road. Have I convinced you?