The Foreman – BBC Top Gear Australia

How to compair Topgear Australia to a Karoke show. If you like to hear random people sing cover songs and do a bad job at it, then Topgear Australia will be perfect for you. There advise is terriably coppied from th U.K. Topgear and there is noooooo Australian humor. Do they disagree with one another, no it is like watching a boring chat show. Every car to them is great. C’mom it is ok hate a car for the sake of it. There challenges were lame and the presenter’s were bad at showing it. I can a better job at them put together, and that is saying somthing.

Will they ever test cars that 90% of the world can afford no its only super cars.

They haven’t done a monster truck speacial or even a hot rod show that would be interesting and imaginative for them so it isn’t poosible for them to think outside the box.

Steve, you are a sad, sad man… And you can’t spell.

A mate at work is a pom (he’s been here for 10 years) and can’t get over how slow we all drive. And apparently we’re all very bad drivers. what can I say to that? Maybe it’s the environment, maybe it’s the bloody poor training.
He told me the freeways in the motherland had originally no speed limits. Not now though.
I agree with you. Why build and over engineer a piece of road and only go 100km. The best road to drive……New Zealand has some cracker twisty stuff. Pity I was in a Korean hire car.
Oh and Steve, your a dick. Why come on here if you don’t like it?

I agree with fb, if you hate Top Gear, then why the hell are you even on this website!!!!! (I also agree that you are a dick.

i live in WA and have done for the past 20 odd years. Perth has hills and a few good twisty bits you just need to know where to look. But on the down side WA has the “Hoon” law (still yet to find a car with 3 strikes so it can be crushed) and lots of tight ass cops.

Corby, if theire’s no space for Steve2385 on the show, you should hyre him for the mag. I bet he can a better job at you, too!

Having said that, I feel that people should be allowed to express their opinion on the show even if they think it cox, sorry, sucks. One just wishes people would take the time to express their opinion in a way that helps to improve the show, and in accordance with basic English grammar rules.

couldnt agree more i have been driving tour coaches around europe for more than 5 years now and i love driving over there but driving here in australia is a joke it drives me mad now!

Yes I agree too, Steve2385 you are a dick. At first I thought your name referred to the postcode of where you live, but unless my list is out of date, there is no town with a post code of 2385. Maybe you got that wrong too?Hmmm, you are a dick.

totally agree in Melbourne the government makes anyone driving slightly over the speed limit to feel like an axe murderer. They’ve placed so many speed cameras on roads that a driver’s attention is solely on the speedo and not looking out for anything else. How about increasing the limit to 150 on big 3-4 lane freeways? How about instead of turning drivers into robots why don’t we train drivers to be able to drive at higher speeds?

Oh hang on, the topic! This one is made for me, as I drive two days a week on Melbourne’s stupid road system, one day a week in Canberra, and three days in Sydney.
Every single day I spend driving in Melbourne sh!ts me to tears. The roads there really are very badly organised. Now I don’t want to go all Sydney versus Melbourne, coz I know Sydney has some bad spots with awful traffic too. But seriously Melbourne is totally rooted.
In no particular order, here’s some reasons why:
1. Above ground train crossings. Still! It’s 2009 and major intersections still have trains running through them. Grade separation needs to be implemented many many years ago, but NOW will do. Bottom of Toorak Road for example, any Melburnite reading this, just imagine how much better that intersection would flow if you got rid of the frickin’ train!
2.MAJOR dips and bumps in the road surface. VicRoads can install new speed cameras hidden under bridges, but they still can’t fix these huge dips in the road that literally get you airborne at 102kph! Victoria easily has the bumpiest roads in any Australian city. There is no excuse for that. Even when they redo the bitumen they keep the huge bumps and dips.
3.Totally over-competitive drivers who insist on getting in front of you, esp. when lanes are soon to merge. And people who totally refuse to take anything on the chin. It’s all personal to them, and they’ll get you back at the next possible moment. Why not save your energy for something important?!
4. Unmarked cars with mobile speed cameras attached to the front bumper, parked on the side of the road. What the?!
5. Traffic lights that are not synchronised at all, and have literally no idea where the traffic is. Major intersections stay void of cars for long periods of time, while everyone sits waiting for the lights, on set times, to change.

Oh but wait, there’s more! I spent five hours driving in Melbourne this morning, and I’m not happy.
6. Having to follow stupid trams at 30kph, plus constant stopping. Trams might be Melbun and a tiny bit romantic, but they’re totally inefficient to mix on the roads with cars. They could at least attach proper brake lights on the back of them, so you know when they’re about to stop AGAIN, and hold everyone up.
Large groups of people loiter in the middle of the frickin’ road, waiting for the next slow tram. So dangerous. And the tracks do nothing for your tyres. AAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!
7.The M1 motorway, which has been in a semi-permanent state of roadworks ever since it was built thirty or so years ago. Why, oh why couldn’t VicRoads have worked on widening one long section at a time, or even one side at a time. Instead of the entire 40 or whatever kilometres all at once! Unbelievable. And they just never finish any of it!
8. The idiotic ‘one car per green’ traffic lights they have on the motorway on ramps. It does nobody any good slowing down cars from entering a motorway. Why not direct efforts at getting them to their exit, and OFF the freeway?! Like by co-ordinating some of those traffic lights on the main roads.
9. Turning arrows at traffic lights. You get the initial green arrow, say to turn right. Then a red arrow, and a green for the traffic going straight ahead on each side. Now in Sydney, the red arrow would then disappear, and you’d probably get another two or three cars turn right before the sequence goes to red and the cross-road has it’s turn. But not in silly Melbourne. The red arrow stays defiantly on, holding any turning cars there. Just think how many more people could be on their way, rather than just pissing people off?!

I’m so glad to be back in Sydney now for a couple of days. Where, if you avoid peak hour, traffic flows so well. Won’t be back in Melbourne till Friday night, when I will arrive in a good mood, but quickly get dragged into a road raging abyss by the time I leave on Monday.

Yep, with you all the way little bits.

Have driven in all cities in Australia and most regional centres, and yep Victoria is a special case. I’ve been in Melbourne 22 years, and now trapped here because of my partner’s occupation…sheesh! How the locals let the nanny State develop is beyond belief.

Again, yep with you all the way little bits.

obviuosly didnt come to Perth, worst drivers ever !

I’m flying down to Melbourne on Wednesday, actually, to spend five weeks there. And I will NOT be driving in that time. The few times I have driven in Victoria, I’ve made every effort to steer well clear of the CBD. Sharing the roads with trams and suicidal pedestrians is bad enough, but adding hook turns to the mix is sheer madness. Melbourne is just not a driver’s city. It’s built for public transport and pedestrians.

That said, Victoria does have some absolutely amazing roads. I took a 335i out along Black Spur Drive late last year, and it was just spectacular.

Geez, Lil’ Bits, I bet you’re glad you got THAT off your chest! And in perfect English too! Me haces feliz, hon!

I thought i’d chuck in a lil something for SA.
driving from one side of Adelaide to the other is the quickest way to make a cars fuel tank go from F to E. Stops, starts, continuous and frankly useless changes to speed limits along the same ‘uniform’ road, and best of all, learner drivers.
Some people have the brilliant idea to introduce their sons/daughters to the world of driving by smacking them in a car in the middle of a busy city at rush hour. it not only causes the driver of said car to have numerous heart attacks as they come to grip with a million angry tired motorists, but it clogs up the traffic system.
Im from about 60km north of adelaide, where this $500million northern express way is coming to. i fear this will be the last of the big projects undertaken in south australia, as we just do not have the population base to sustain and maintain the quality of our road system.

Little Bits, how could you leave out hook turns? I’m glad someone else mentioned them, because they’re possibly stupider than the “road safety camera” policies. Possibly. I’m going to Melbourne tomorrow, for five days, and I’m not even bothering to organise a car to drive because it’s just not worth it. I’d rather crawl around town, over broken glass.
And yep, fbholden, sad but true, but even Pommy land is a better place to drive. They basically allow you to do 90mph in a 70mph zone, as long as the traffic is clear. I’ve been past cops at that speed and they just wave their silly hats at you.

Melbourne is rubbish, so is QLD. NSW is the worst of the lot. WA is the only place to drive, no traffic, few speed cameras, It’s awesome

W.A. the place to drive. You have got to be kidding.The roads are ok, but the idiots on them? That’s another story. People over here in W.A. have no idea of the road rules or what courtesy is. They are ignorant, selfish and downright dangerous. Hardly any of them use thier indicators & then if they do they will put it on halfway round the corner. Or they change lanes right in front of you, into a gap that isn’t big enough for thier car, with no indicators, making you slow down so you don’t get your car wiped out. They have no idea how to merge, everyone is racing to be in front of each other and the result is traffic doing 20kmh, when if they all just slotted in behind each other traffic would flow quite nicely. 99% of West Aussies will block a road at a busy T-intersection or driveway instead of leaving a gap for other motorists to continue through the intersection. It seems everyone is on thier mobile phone and struggling to stay in thier lane. And the moment you give them some open country road they go and have a crash coz’ none of them have proper driver training. The road toll over here is appalling with twice as many deaths on country roads. Then you have the monkey drivers that pull out of intersections in front of you and you have to jam on the brakes to avoid hitting them while they accelarate at the speed of a snail. And that lot is just the tip of the iceberg. Bottom line, If you were born in W.A. your a terrible driver. Tom McInulty, you must have been born here if you think this mad lot can drive. Thank christ I learnt to drive in country Victoria dodging rabbits on the road. It helps me avoid you maniac West Aussies.

The key is never to even visit WA. McInulty is a sandgroper for sure, he’s an idiot, too.

The problem with Queensland is that most of the population is either a) in the grip of dwarfism or b) one spin of the double helix short. We know this because Warwick Capper is considered an articulate and well-read state treasure, and rugby league is popular. Plus, it’s difficult to tell the difference between their female folk and the local crocodile population. It would be best to lay heavy rows of dynamite at the borders, break off the landmass, and tow it to New Zealand, where the gentle folk will probably eat their brains. Or something.

Graeme76: very little of that is unique to WA.

Merging, in particular, appears to be a lost art wherever you go.

Pommyland is indeed a far better place to drive. You only get banned if doing 30 MPH over the limit (MPH not KPH)…I did however find out to my cost that 111 MPH on the M6 Motorway in Cumbria wasn’t really acceptable – 400 quid and 28 day ban! Speed camera’s in the UK are only put in places where there have been several accidents over the previous 2 years – Not just random everywhere.

Also, a bit of politeness over here would be appreciated. After driving in London for 8 years where traffic is about as jammed as the western world gets, at least people acknowledge when someone lets them in…Over here no-one bothers to raise a hand – very rude.

So, can someone please explain the logic of hook turns?

I’m a sensible girl. I like to know how things work. I like to know the reason behind, um, stuff. (I learnt exactly how a speedo works today, and no, I don’t mean what Thorpe wears, I mean a speedometer. And I learnt how a tacho works too. And it finally clicked how clutches & gearboxes go together, just fell into place and now seems so logical. Yep. Big day at work for Malibu.)

If I don’t understand something, it usually only takes someone who DOES understand it to explain it to me, and then it becomes clear.

But since Un-MOS blog drinks in Melbourne last November, I’ve been losing sleep trying to figure out what mental giant thought hook turns are more efficient than having a right-hand-turn lane on the right-hand side of the going-forward lane.

Is it just me? Is there some advantage to turning right from the left, & having to cross (at least) 2 lanes of traffic going in opposite directions? Is it about trams? It’s the kinda thing I’d expect of Queensland, frankly.

At risk of combining topics (at least I’m not off-topic… yet), after the weekend I’ve just had around here, I would suggest that any road carrying a cityslicker in a spotlessly clean 4WD who stops dead to take photos in the middle of an obviously busy main street of a country town should take number 11 on the list of the worst places to drive.

If that was you, if I told you politely to take your goddamned toy off-road where it belongs, and out of my bloody way when I’m trying to get from A to B, and take your inbred dipstick Virgil-like family with you… I don’t apologise.

All these speed cameras and there’s still no proof that they reduce fatalities…

…In fact some studies suggest that they hinder the improvement of road safety. I can’t remember the statistics exactly but in Germany (with their de-restricted autobahns and lack of speed cameras) the road fatalities have been steadily but consistently declining over the last 20 years (one could assume advances in safety technology such as airbags would contribute to this trend). While in Britain where speed cameras are common, the road fatality rate has leveled out starting the year they were introduced (around a decade ago).

An interpretation of this would be that speed cameras kill, as they negate any improvements in the cars themselves. Put into a small scale example, say you have 100 road fatalities but improvements to car safety reduce that toll by 2 every year. 98 fatalities the next year would mean that 2 lives were saved and the next year 4 are saved, that’s Germany. However with speed cameras the fatalities stay around 100 every year and no lives are saved, that’s Britain. 5 years after the 100 road toll and there would be 30 Germans able to live another day. In Britain at the very least 20 of them would be dead…

see: http://www.safespeed.org. uk/ for more info

ha ha ha Queensland is full of Queenslanders. In the last 10 years everyone from Victoria has moved up here. So it’s Queensland full of Victorians. It’s not hard to pick out the Victorians either. And when you see a Victorian plate on a vechicle you avoid them like Volvo drivers.

One of the loveliest guys I know got killed yesterday on the road. A trailer from a truck came adrift and he ran into it. 6.30am not speeding or texting or being a hoon. SA are on a big thing this year getting the deaths under 100 and not only is it already at about June last years number but the roads took a gorgeous guy like Col. Oh and Melbourne roads suck and hook turns suck and speed cameras suck and none of it is going to fix really bad sucky luck!

Reading through some of these articles it seems to me that there are alot of challenged drivers on this planet. You should all have your liscences REVOKED and made to walk untill you all stop your whinging.

I’m a Pom living in NZ and, to be honest, if you want bad driving conditions just pop across the Tasman to the South Island.
Forget the clean green, open highway image. You’ve got years of under-investment in roads from the recently turfed Labour govt forcing too many cars onto badly maintained single-lane highways. Combine that with a driver training standard not normally seen outside the Indian subcontinent and you’ve got a lot of angry, ill-informed drivers tailgating each other and dangerously overtaking in processions up and down the South Island. Yet, still, the govt and the police focus on speed as the killer so they can justify all their hidden roadside cameras!!
What constitutes as a “motorway” over here can be driven in less than 10 minutes flat. It’s a joke. And as for rude drivers, just visit Christchurch, boy-racer central, where police stand around powerless while the kids kill each other in illegally-modded $1 deposit Jap imports. Honestly, most South Islanders are screaming out for a car crushing policy like yours, but all that happens (and this is true) is that a kid racks up $20,000 in fines and then gets let-off by the judge in recognition of the fact that he’ll never likely pay it back. What happened to consequences? Or driving standards, or road investment, for that matter? If you come over here expecting driving conditions out of a car commercial forget it. Unless you love taking your life in your hands, get ready to join the procession.

I have lived in Melbourne all my life and I agree wholeheartedly with what this article says. The speed limits in this state are absolute garbage.

Hey ASP, I know it’s kinda off-topic, but I just wondered. . . . have you ever travelled anywhere outside of Australia? Have you ever travelled outside of Victoria? Gasp. Ok, so you are one person and you may answer yes to this pointy question. But I think it is central to the issue at hand.

I hear alot of bagging of S.A. mainly cause Adelaide is such a small place compared to the other capital cities & as Voice of S.A. siad cutting through the city proper can be a pain… That being said I wouldnt move to another state for anything!
Only a couple of years back I stayed in Ballarat for a couple of weeks, Even in that “country” town it was bloody bedlam. It made driving through the centre of Adelaide seem like a drive along the The Great Ocean Rd!!!
It really amazes me how people make driving seem so difficult!

The biggest dickheads in Queensland are all the bloody Victorians, trained to be road-retards through years of driving in and around Melbourne.

I’ve driven in every state of Australia and Melbourne gets my vote as the worst. I’ve received tickets for 103km/hr on a 100km/hr freeway, a number of times. It takes a few weeks for the fines to come in the mail so by the time I’d returned to Canberra, I’d amassed a tidy sum. When the ADR’s say that a speedo is only required to be accurate to within 10% and it was only changed a couple of years ago to only allow the speedo to over-read, it’s f*&%ng rude to ping you like this.

Hook turns, however, are the only real way to mix trams and cars without cars being t-boned, so while it’s strange, it’s about the only thing on Melbourne roads that makes sense.

QLDer in Canberra,

R u a retard? How long does 1 take to learn not to speed at 103kph? u said; “i have done it number of times” well my friend i agree its stupid to be fined at 103kph, but DANG….to do it over and over, uv got issues. if so, better yet get a car w cruise control ay. Plus next time u wanna make a point try not to base it on some retard driving that u r the one to blame.

However i agree the roads r a mayham in melb. specially during morning peak hour…and God forbid if a car breaks down, ” Even on emergency lane” crawls at snail’s pace. as if its not slow enough. Vic Roads/ Vic Police, v r the people who drive on roads v pay off w our taxes….go on these sites and read what Australia thinks of ur roads, and REALLY do something about it!

I have driven all over this big land of ours lived in sydney and melbum even newcastle-

I have also driven in europe uk and India – (if you can survive that you can drive anywhere)

Europe is the best – asia is the worst
the uk is well boring and no where as good as others will have you believe

In oz – how about the road from coffs inland to warialda (timbertown) 68ks of curves and rock walls – or the bells line (blue mountains)
in qld there are heaps – plenty highway,springbrook,old call road,

as far as citys go – well the only good thing to come out of melbun is the hume hwy – sydney is just rediculos – never been to adelaide(gee im upset about that)
Perth and wa are easily the most stress free

But the BEST – TASSIE HANDS DOWN -its like europe and the uk on rainy day ,loved it no cops no cameras.

And to finish BOOBLEDYKE YOU WERE TOLD TO GO AWAY AND TAKE YOUR DRIVEL WITH YOU-YOUR MUM IS CALLING.

Only in Canberra does a traffic light turn red at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon when there is no one else coming from any other direction.

I haven’t found Victorian roads too bad (if you overlook the people who will drive straight through you to gain a place in the queue), but the 2km/h tolerance on speeding is rediculous. Especially when you consider that the Australian Design Rules allow a 10% error factor in speedometers WHEN NEW.. I wonder how many accidents are caused by people whose eyes are glued to their instruments?

I’ve driven all over Australia and parts of Canada. Without exception Victorie is the most frustrating and annoying place to drive. I have no issue with people doing the speed limit, as a matter of fact I prefer that you do, but Victorians take the biscuit. They have two particularly bad habits. 1; they will crawl past you in the right-hand lane on a dual-carriageway doing 101kph to your 100, instead of doing it quickly and reasonably and 2; when they have passed you, they chop across the front of your car and into your braking area. Both habits I saw displayed ad infinitum on the trip to and from Philip Island to Melbourne recently, they just don’t seem to be able to help themselves. The quality of the roads left a lot to be desired as well. No wonder they all move to QLD, just a shame they bring their bad habits here…

I live in nsw and i can agree with the speed limit on the f3 being to low and aslong as you have cars infrount of you to give away where the police are hiding (due to syncronised brake lights comin on) you can cruise at a higher speed and usaly get through unscathed, but somthing i have noticed about nsw is the shocking condition of 80% of the roads pot holes you could lose a b double in!
have to agree with comments on tassie took my M3 down there last year, there is a strech of road along the west coast called 99bends beautiful, amazing, i cant say enough good things about it and i have never come across a police officer that sees a cams licence in your wallet and thinks its a good thing.

Being a former West Aussie and now based in NSW, also, like Stephen, just returned from Melbourne (again), and having spent time enough in QLD, all states have crap drivers. No indicators is the biggest.
Speed cameras in non dangerous spots, running red lights, no lights synchronisation to ease traffic flow, tailgating, swapping lanes at the last minute, ridiculous speed limits for no reason, government refusal to teach better driving, no continuity state by state for the laws, p platers having simply no clue whatsoever, mature age drivers having no clue whatsoever, inability to understand the concept of roundabouts, merging, and something peculiar to NSW, no going over the line in a turn lane witha green light to make it just that much quicker to get across when there’s a spot or the opposite traffic gets their amber/red light.
And Stephen, there’s plenty of reasons to visit WA.

You know, most of your complaints could be solved by being a little bit more patient. Most of you make legitimate and reasonable complaints but really, do you get to your destination faster by driving like a maniac? No, you don’t. You might feel faster but it isn’t actually faster.

And for those people complaing about getting booked at 103, are you sure that it wasn’t 105 but they took off 2kph for possible error?

I put my hand up and admit that I sometimes speed and I also think that this idea that we can achieve a zero road toll is as much a waste of time and money as the war on drugs but really, build a little bridge and get over it people.

Well done Cyberloaf. You hit the nail right on the head. People are simply too impatient these days. How many times have some of you lot raced ahead of the pack, just to have them all pull up next to you at the very next set of lights? People should simply leave for thier destination 10 minutes earlier, then they would have time to spare. As for the appaling road toll, teach people how to handle a car, not just drive it. Mandatory advanced driving courses, including skid pan time, would teach people what to do when something does go wrong. We will never have a zero road toll, that’s just simple fact. Sometimes your gone no matter what you do. People need to be taught actual car control & thier cars limitations as well as thier own. Otherwise they are just going to keep drifting along in thier own little world where they think they are always right & can’t be hurt in thier car.

Cyberloafer and Graeme76, you should stop making excuses for people. A modern efficient city is full of busy people, and they deserve a modern efficient transport road system. Every little twenty second extra you have to wait at a dopey traffic-light controlled intersection in Melbourne adds twenty seconds to your journey. Now if you’re trying to do one and a half laps of Melbourne in a day, as I do when running my business, the inefficient traffic system costs me valuable sleep time at the end of my already very long day.
Just three points I made in my first post would speed things up considerably:
1. Major intersections should be co-ordinated with sensor pads in the road and radio controlled traffic lights that ‘talk to each other’. Richie Rich Sydney has had that system for years and it works a treat. An intersection is an unavoidable delay, because two busy roads cross each other. But the intersection itself should be constantly busy with cars, not sitting empty for huge periods of time.
2. Put the frickin’ trains underground or over the road, when crossing major roads. Melbourne gov’t have been talking about this for years, but it still hasn’t been done! Stupid Melburnites for not demanding it I reckon!
3. Let the right-turn red arrow disappear when the regular green cycle is on, not at all junctions but certainly at some where you have clear line of sight. If there’s nobody coming the other way, why should you not be allowed to turn right? Coz a stupid friggin electrical light is stopping you!

Little Bits you might have a point with the turn lane signals & maybe even the sensor traffic lights(we have them in Perth), but sinking the entire rail network is not going to happen. It would cost hundreds of billions of $’s & I doubt you would be very happy with the tax increases to cover it. The delays caused by the roadworks would be a nightmare as well. I used to drive a truck around Melbourne all day and never had any great problem with the trains. Maybe you should just work out if your day being half hour longer is worth someones life. Be honest now, you lose more time out of your day because of all the idiots that are impolite and discourteous on the road than you do out of the traffic system. If your on the road all day, ten minutes shouldn’t be that big a deal to you as well. I wonder how you would feel if someone hit your child because they were trying to make up 20secs at a traffic light? Leave earlier, do the limit. You might just save someone.

Hey Little Bits, who am I making excuses for?

The roads are crap the system doesn’t work, what else can I say?

You make some valid points but who is going to pay for all of this? The whole public transport system needs an overhaul and if that happened then I’m sure that there would be less traffic on the road to interfere with the people who need the roads for work (deliveries, repairs etc). No-one wants to pay for public transport upgrades because, as a society, we are a slave to the car. All of your ideas are killed at inception by the bean-counters who say, “$50 million to put the train underground and save the motorists 2 minutes per trip or $50 million to spend on hospitals and schools where the votes are” but tell me this; how do we “demand” the government put rail underground? We vote for the government that makes this promise but none of them follow through.

Turning left on a red light when safe to do so, I agree with completely but don’t hold Sydney up as a beacon of well managed traffic. We all get used to our own local environment and work around local problems (like trams and hook turns) and Sydney is no better than Melbourne or any other capital city if you don’t know your way around.

The problem with the roads is that they were laid out a hundred years ago – we need to knock it all down and start again.

Cyberloafer, you don’t get there any faster? I bloody do. I made it from Cooma to Balmain last night in four hours, just by sitting on 111km/h. Take that.
(Also, sorry, I’ve been away,in the country, far from the internets).

Hey Magnet,

Yes, I’d be retarded if I knew what was happening and not changing my behaviour.

But when I’d made a few trips up and down the Freeway – oblivious to the Victorian obsession with speeding – and returned to Canberra to receive the fines in the mail many weeks later, I hardly had a chance to make a change from my display of reckless abandon at 103kph.

And that’s my point – hidden camera’s with stupidly tight restrictions don’t help visitors at all, just leave a warm and fuzzy feeling about Victoria.

On reflection, years of this Victorian speeding-fine obsession and a tamed population should provide the basis for proving that it doesn’t actually reduce the road toll – but what would they do then?

I completely agree with Little Bits. Melbourne has the worst roads and traffic rules that I have ever encountered – partly because the state governors primarily rely on fines to contribute towards the Victorian budget and in turn, their incomes. Further more, I suspect that the adulteration and utter corruption of our roads helped suppliment the public transport sector, which was heading for bust before things on our roads started to get bad. Funnily enough, it all began with Steve Bracks. Incidentally, when Bracks’ son had an alcohol fueld bingle a few years back, Stevie secretly became the hypocrite, then promptly resigned from his position. I say, good riddance to him. Unfortunately, his son got off with a slap on the wrist. More than what could be said for us should we be involved in a similar circumstance. Beurocracy at its finest.

The Victorian driving culture is completely screwed and I currently focus the blame Tim Pallas, our pig headed, idiotic, traffic minister. Yes, I am a Melbournian and I wont even begin to point out all of the flaws with our roads for fear that I will wear out my keyboard. The sad thing is that I dont expect a resolution, namely because everybody just buys into it all…

Another point that I wanted to make – Not once did TG Australia act as an advocate for the rights of Aussie drivers – even through expression of oppinion. We have A Current Affair constantly impinging on our freedoms on the roads, yet we do not have anybody on the other side of the fence to balance out all that dribble. Surely, a little contention and contraversy wouldn’t do any harm. Take it from JC…

Doesn’t this show have any Queensland viewers? If it does alienating them with off hand tar-them-all-with-the-sam e-brush insults is probably not a good idea, not to mention just plain rude. You may wish to acquaint yourself with some statistics. I must admit I haven’t looked them up for over a decade but when I did Queenslanders had less accidents and less deaths per capita than N.S.W. or Victoria and on much more poorly maintained roads, due in part to decades of federal under-funding (less than half the dollars per kilometre on federally funded roads).

Insulting any percentage of your audience is not good form, insulting any percentage of your audience when your ratings aren’t exactly brilliant is not exactly good business sense either.
I can understand the desire to attempt a local recreation of an internationally successful show, after all that’s what makes up a large proportion of Australian TV but in this case the creators have done a really poor casting job in giving us presenters that are seemingly characterless and not the least engaging. There is no on-screen rapport or repartee between them and the reviews seem designed to not offend manufacturers.
I was very surprised to see the show back for a second season. I will be watching to see if any of the viewers criticisms have been acted upon or whether the show will die quietly.

I live and work in Melbourne…

Melbourne has gone to shit in terms of driving, firstly I commute about 48km from the Outer suburbs to the CBD every day and need the car because in I.T I might need to drive to one or more datacenters during the day and public trasport just doesn’t work.

It takes me ‘on average’ about 1 hour and 45 minutes to make the 48km drive to work!!! On a bad day I can leave at 6:30am and struggle to get to work by 8:30.

If so much as ONE accident or breakdown occurs on the Monash or Westgate bridge outbound… Melbourne goes into gridlock.

I just got a speeding ticket for 102 (105 detected) in a hundred zone.. 102!?

And to make it worse we have left wing, inner city hippies who want to turn all of Melbourne into some bloody bycicle nirvana, ban cars from the CBD etc etc…

Melbourne drivers are stressed, aggro and fed up with the way we are being treated.

Last week, whilst swapping over to new car i had to use our ‘public transport’ system… but that is another rant for another day

-John

John you say you average the 48km in 105minutes? That’s not too bad I reckon. I now work on a guesstimate of 1 km per 3 minutes, and I still usually run late for all my commitments. That’s seven days a week, day or night. And as you say, throw in an accident or breakdown, and you may as well throw your appointment book out the window.

I thought of a good analogy to describe what it’s like to drive in Melbourne today, for anyone who hasn’t tried it.
The lights go green, the cars in the right lane move off slowly (that’s Sydney traffic). But the left lane has a red arrow for turning left cars, and sure enough the first car wants to turn left. Waiting waiting waiting, the ten cars behind it. Finally the pedestrians finish wandering across the intersection, plus the two stragglers. A cyclist scoots up the left of everybody and charges into the intersection, everybody in the left lane waits a bit longer. Finally the first car does it’s left turn, and a couple of cars behind it get to go before the red goes again. Yep you guessed it. The left lane is typical Melbourne traffic. Although in Melbourne you might not even get to the junction, coz a tram probably stopped just before the green light and put it’s little signs out, so you can’t even drive round it. Or the train crossing might activate, so you wait anything from 2 to 5 minutes while one or two trains eventually appear and cross the intersection. While traffic gradually develops virtual gridlock in all directions around the intersection. Hmmmm. Really smart stuff, really efficient. Not.

The goverment wonders why Eastlink was such a financial failure. It IS the cheapest toll road in Victoria and maybe Australia. That is until you add the 50 SPEEDING TICKETS you recieve from driving 10metre’s down the road at 0.0000000001m/h faster than the speed limit!!!!! I do agree on speed camera’s, but to a point. There claimed to be there to rid our streets of the hoons, a reason the majority accepts. However, the obsession of speed killing is not. Eastlink could easily cope with a speed limit of 120km/h, 150 even, and I would be more than happy to pay tolls to use it. But the Goverment’s tatics to take on congetion by lowering speed limits and closing lanes leave me looking for an alternative route.

Interesting ChaosMaster, and perhaps innovative? I wonder how addictive toll-roads might become if we were allowed to drive ABOVE the national speed limit on them. Maybe 150 is a little above the average Aussie boguns ability, but perhaps even 120kph in lanes other than the left might be attractive enough to provide a major boon to the toll road operators.

Rather than continued moaning, how do we effect change? How do we get a plebiscite to arrest this Melbourne Road monotony? While we enjoy so-called democracy in Victoria, road laws are set by regulation. How do we get our point to the regulators? Even the respected RACV campaigns for fair and sensible road management yet remains ignored.

Best I know, the Melbourne-Geelong Road (Princes Freeway) was denied a raised limit to 110kph (like the Hume Highway) because of the VOLUME of traffic.

Try driving in Adelaide. It seems that if you own a 4WD or a Commodore, you have the God given right to drive in the right lane at all times, even when not overtaking.
And is it just me, or are females becoming more ignorant of the road rules and feel that they have the right to block intersections?

Mind2Mind, the first step in effecting change is to accept that there is a problem. Then we move on to solutions. It can be hard for some Melburnians to accept that their traffic system stinks, because when you rarely, if ever, travel away from Melbourne to another large city, so as to have something to compare it with, you just don’t realise how bad it is.
Even if people experience a better system, after only a couple of days back into home, a well-adjusted person is likely to merely accept a poor situation, rather than whinge and moan about it any more.
I am in the unusual position of driving in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and country towns between every week. It is plain for me to see that Melbourne roads operate what is basically a country town traffic system, applied to a city of almost 4 million people.
It’s all about those intersections. Those junctions where roads, or trains, or trams cross. They need to be kept busy!

Finally, some Melbourne people firing up, you poor bastards.

Mind2Mind, the Melb-to-Geelong road is a good one. It’s not all that long either. To raise the speed limit, you’d probably need to simplify it mentally for drivers. From the bridge overpass and 80 zone on the outskirts of Geelong, that bit needs to become a standardised freeway-looking junction. And the bit at the Melbourne-outskirts end needs to be better sorted. At the moment you end up with a bunch of trucks and cars that are doing 102kph, or 110 on their speedo, pressing in the right lane, plus a bunch of cars doing 95, or 102 on their speedo, effectively dawdling in the middle lane, plus a third bunch of cars joining the race from on-ramps on the left. One more speed camera should sort that out. Ha ha.

I don’t see a problem with the rest of it being 110, although it does have a significantly higher volume of traffic than the Hume, which means you’ll have to clear out the traffic at each end better or else have stationary traffic on the ends of the highway, which people don’t expect.

100 or 110kmh isn’t going to make more than a few minutes difference on a run from Melb to Geelong. Dunno that I agree with the limit being raised on that stretch of road, but I could be byas, my cousin & his partner were killed on that very road in a head on by some idiot that swerved into oncoming traffic. Put a concrete wall up the middle of it first.

The RTA (road & traffic authority’s0 think people can’t handle a car at 150km/h on a straight road. (Perhaps it’s those stupid unaware drivers that never look, almost carsh into you for no good reason(stupidity) tyhat let us down. Why doesn’t the RTA make more strict driver skills requirements so only good drivers can drive? Have U ever seen idiots doing Uturns on an intersection then the poor drivers almost collide with those selfish idiots then a million other cars a now stuck in a great big mess because some selfish idiot doesn’t care if other drivers are in danger. This is how these stuff happen.

lol ha so you don’t like a bit of critazim who cares about spelling i don’t teach english so it isn’t inportant and if i am a dick well i guess so are you

actually the real and getting on topic hear error is those damanable speeding cameras seems the only police work done anymore is catching people for speeding its petty and statitcly speacking it has created more accidents rather than stop them not to meanchine road rage for example old man driving his car not watching his speed then flash he has such a shock that he has a heart attack and dies at the wheel crashing into someone else and dieing or yong man driving same delio not watching speed flash Arr he saids can’t see can’t see smash and he hits a light pole and dies if you ark me and i know your not but to bad anyway all speed cameras are a menace and be removed permently one way or another

Firstly, hooray for the Steve bashing

Secondly, as far as speed cameras go, Vic is shit… However, for thos of use who are a little more willing to push the law makers, it’s bearable
It still doesn’t compare to any of the other states.

Nevertheless, I have to say, the driver/rider training in Australia (not just Vic) is abominable, and the government is too happy to revenue raise (with speed cameras) rather than investigate ways to better educate the public.

I love you stephen and I want to have your babies

Hooray!

Yep, I have to agree with everybody. Driving in most parts of Australia, (especially Melbourne and Sydney Metro areas), with country areas being mostly fine, is absolutely THE most horrendous experience! I have lived in Melbourne and Brisbane, driven in Sydney and Hobart and have once or twice driven elsewhere is this great country, and have reached this conclusion. People it seems, have two personas. Their normal self that friends and family know and love; and their ‘driving’ persona.

This is a phenomenon that is possibly world wide, but however, Aussies do have a really strange way of getting around. It seems that a lot of peoples ‘driving persona’ is just them, minus their common sense and powers of reason and deduction. Also their mota skills and general ability to think laterally are severely impaired or non-existent behind the wheel of a car or anything really with wheels and a motor.

Now I don’t want this to become a racial debate, because this thing transcends racial profiling, however: Asians, (when taught to drive by other Asians that is) are definately a cause for much concern…… as are muslim women, aka ‘kamakasi princesses’, most old people, (especially those of Greek, Italian, Sri Lankin, Indian etc descent) really either have no idea at all or are just too arrogant and selfish to care about anyone else.

The Victorian Govt, and maybe it should be federal also, should introduce testing laws that make people over, say 60 take a written test every 5 or so years and a driving test every time they renew their license. (The above mentioned groups possibly should be included also in this concept). Otherwise, we’re going to end up with all these old farts(again, not all elderly drivers are culprits here), slamming on their brakes for no reason ’cause they ‘thought they saw something on the road’, or slamming into cars whilst merging, parking, etc, or as has happened quite frequently in the last few weeks, slamming into buildings, down into car parks, thru barriers etc etc.

In fact, it was an elderly driver who slammed into that pre-school a couple of years ago and injured all those kids………

Just a couple of random thoughts…….

deit41 you realy are showing your IQ again,you are ageing every day your body is deteriorating every minute,you will be old soon,then you will do a complete backflip and sing a different song.For every one elderly driver crash there must be at least 1000 crashes in the”i do everything perfectly age group”,.one of the most important driving skills is to take note of the type of drivers that are around you and take the necessary action.you should take a advance driving course.

Um, gee spandau, thanks man; you really have a knack of putting of positive spin on things don’t you? Firstly, EVERYBODY is aging, second; you’re almost definately older than me, or at least your writings seem to indicate as such.

Third, whilst a lot of younger people do have the majority of serious, injury inflicting accidents, you would hope that age would make people better drivers, simply because they have been driving a lot longer……this sometimes is just not the case at all. And finally Mr “I think I know everything, (but clearly don’t), I do look at the drivers around me genious…how do you think I came to those conclusions in the first place??!!! and yes, an advanced driving course is a great idea, many more people should take them…….in fact, it should be compulsory within the first six months of obtaining your P Plates in this country……..ie: the gov’t should pay for it.

Thanx for nice post. But I had difficulty navigating around your site as I kept getting 502 bad gateway error. Just thought to let you know.