Are traffic fines in Victoria
'This is not a road safety strategy, this is a budget strategy, and this Government has now become completely dependent on windfall gains from Victoria's motorists'Robert Doyle, leader of the Victorian Opposition'If you get fined [and] lose your licence, you should actually consider yourself lucky, because you could have lost a lot more'Andre Haermeyer, Victorian Police Minister During the last Victorian election campaign, the Liberal Opposition suggested that a 10 percent leeway should be restored in speed-camera prosecutions. In other words, that if the speed limit were 70km/h motorists should only be fined once they exceeded 77km/h. The Government's leeway of 3 percent was said to be too low. In November 2002 Mr Doyle stated, 'Our concern has been that the speeding fines that this government has come to rely on to prop up their surplus is not about road safety, it's about revenue collection.'A similar claim has been repeated several times over the last twelve months and has been taken up in a more subdued form by some representatives of the RACV.In September 2003 Mr David Cummings, the RACV manager of government relations, stated, 'While we recognise the need for enforc
This is a serious matter, as if the public at large comes to see speeding fines as no more than another tax and an unjustified one at that then informed adherence to speed limits as a means of preventing accidents and preserving lives is likely to decline. As of September 2003, Victoria was on track to record its lowest road toll ever. In Victoria in1965 the number of traffic offences subject to on-the-spot fines was eleven. It may ultimately be necessary to reintroduce magistrate's hearings for traffic offences in order to remind motorists that they have in fact committed an offence. In New South Wales a driver not wearing a seatbelt would be fined $237. The Victorian Liberal Party is strongly opposed to the current operation of 'on-the-spot-tickets' for traffic offences in Victoria. In Victoria a driver running a red light is fined $200. The Government has extended its campaign against speeding, phasing in reduced speeds in the vicinity of schools. Whether one should be fined for travelling at a few kilometres above the speed limit in a 70 kilometre an hour zone is beginning to provoke the same order of debate as whether books should attract the GST. This places the penalty imposed in Victoria in the upper range for this offence, however, Victoria is clearly not the state with the toughest penalty for this infringement. The Opposition claims that if the location of speed cameras were known this would achieve the primary objective of causing drivers to reduce their speed at these spots. It is almost as though the decision to fine those who travel above a certain speed in a given area has come to be seen as equivalent to whether certain items should attract a particular tax.
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Acceptance Essays
