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It's no secret that Australia has a habit of making folk heroes even out of people who've fallen foul of the law. Our unofficial national anthem is "Waltzing Matilda" - a song about a bloke who stole a sheep - and one of our national heroes is the bushranger Ned Kelly. We seem to celebrate those who stand up against corrupt authority.
So check out the comments on this story about a Melbourne police officer who has been sacked for using his discretion when issuing speeding fines, because "he thought the posted speed limits in certain areas were too high and he was being 'humane'":
...and so on. Victoria has some of the toughest, most extreme, unsympathetic and inflexible road laws in the world, and I suspect the comments above derive strongly from citizens' frustration with what they see as injustices about which they can do little. Both major parties support the policies in question. Speed limits are set at what appear to be cynically unreasonable levels, leading to strong suspicions they're much more about revenue-raising than saving lives. Fundamentally, it feels like a lie - a lie that has cruel and harsh consequences to many Victorians who depend on their driver's license.
And when a police officer uses his discretion to treat road users "humanely", and is then sacked for it - well, you can see why the punters are outraged at the treatment of him. Will our descendants make feature films about Sergeant Mark Ashton and be singing songs of his exploits in a hundred years? Probably not, but I suspect he'll be being toasted around the country tonight.
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What a load of rubbish. Firstly, as The Age has reported it the police recognised discretionary warnings are sometimes legitimate. What this guy was doing was a) using his discretion so often he was effectively rewriting the statute b) falsifying records by changing the speed zone applying to where they were booked. As a man of the law I would have thought you'd recognise there is an important distinction. Secondly, your comment about our road laws is just ridiculous. I note your linked justification is an article of your own with no further verification for your argument. Ufortunately, drivers tend to become acclimatised to their speed and consider it safe. This does not mean they are driving safely. I drive on Victorian roads all the time and rarely encounter speed zones that I consider excessively low. If you feel they are constantly too low you need to take a good long hard look at yourself and consider the possibility that you are a terrible, impatient driver with poor judgement about safe speeds.
I think they're often too low, and there's a trade-off between safety and being reasonable. Obviously there's a danger at any speed above walking pace, but there's also a community interest in being able to travel reasonably about our cities. I think, for example, that the 50kph limits on straight open roads with good visibility are absurd. They're so much below what is reasonable in the circumstances that they result in nothing more than extra revenue for the government. And whilst I enjoyed your effort to make this about me personally, the post is about the upswell of support for the officer in question, and how it ties in with Australians' history of elevating people who've broken or otherwise fallen foul of the law. |
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