RTA: Increased penalties for school zones from 21 May 2007 (1 Viewer)

[seremify007]

Just thought I'd post this FYI...

Increased penalties for school zones from 21 May 2007
To improve the safety of our children, penalties for many traffic and parking offences in school zones will increase from 21 May 2007.
New fines and demerit point increases include:

• Speeding – minimum fines of $128 and 4 demerit points.
• Approach children’s crossing too quickly to stop safely – $384 fine and 4 demerit points.
• Double parking – $231 fine and 2 demerit points.
• Stopping on or near a children’s crossing – $308 and 2 demerit points.

School zone penalties apply to offences committed in school zones during posted school hours.
Please note: the fines and demerit points outlined above are correct as of May 2007 and are subject to change without notice.
Click here to search demerit point offences.
To view or download a full list of school zone penalties use the document link below.

Source: http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/roadsafety/schoolroadsafety/schoolpenalties.html?hfid=school

... and for those Learner/P1 drivers out there who are already burdened with the new conditions;

A ban on all mobile phone use for learner, P1 drivers and provisional riders.
You must not use any function of a mobile phone while driving or riding. This includes phones in the hands-free mode or with the loudspeaker operating, or sending SMS (text) messages. The penalty for mobile phone use is three demerit points and a fine (or four demerit points if the offence occurs in an operating school zone).

Source: http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/licensing/gettingalicence/200707_restrictions.html

Sigh. I think I'm still a bit bitter from my speeding ticket in a school zone at 2:30 last year (54km/h FYI).

 

[breaking]

that's just bullshit.

 

[CieL]

This is an outrage.

What's this bullshit about approaching children's crossing too fast.. heck, how would you estimate shit like that?!

I knew things would go downhill after they implemented school zones.. everything always goes downhill when it concerns the RTA.. I didnt even think we had a problem in the past.. if it aint broke, don't fix it.

 

[IP_freely]

i reckon its great D

 

[Marquis de Leng]

Might as well run over the child while you're at it.

 

[CieL]

I will.

Since there seems to be no demerits for that. Yet.

 

[Jiga]

I have no issues with making tougher penalties, your an idiot for speeding through a school zone, what I have an issue with is:

* Make EVERY school zone have those flashing lights... becuase they are effective (but its a question of whether they want to spend money to essentially delete their revenue!)
* High schools shouldnt have school zones, by 12 years old + you should bloody well know that roads are for cars
* The times should be reduce, by 3.30pm most schools are deserted, yet the zone is enforced till 4pm

What I think will come from this is cops will set up camp in suburban school zones where the schools themselves aernt obvious and mostly dont have the flashing lights (yet)... and pay day! Ive witnessed it where I am, there is a hill right before the school, the cops set up over the crest of the hill, people are going 50km/h over it and get done before they would have braked to 40km/h and done the right thing as they actually see the school! Now technically the school zone starts before the crest but the school is friggin 100m from it and kids are dropped off right next to it anway - so the cops catch decent people who accidently were speeding 100m from the school instead of the idiots who speed knowengly through it. One such example (I drive alot!) was this IDIOT in front of me doing 50km/h in a 70 zone.... yet when we got to the school zones they kept doing 50km/h when its a 40 zone! An old women suprise suprise, the same kinda person who would say young drivers are reckless because they do 75 in the 70 zone when there is a very low chance of something happening (being a main road) but go 40 in the school zone where the chances of fatal incident are increased...

 

[iamsickofyear12]

I have no issues with making tougher penalties, your an idiot for speeding through a school zone, what I have an issue with is:

* Make EVERY school zone have those flashing lights... becuase they are effective (but its a question of whether they want to spend money to essentially delete their revenue!)
* High schools shouldnt have school zones, by 12 years old + you should bloody well know that roads are for cars
* The times should be reduce, by 3.30pm most schools are deserted, yet the zone is enforced till 4pm

I agree with all those points.
Unless you actually know the area it is easy to drive through them without knowing or even if you do know they are there forget the time or something.

High school students who don't know what roads are for deserve to be run over.

All schools with school zones need to synchronise their start and finish times so school zones can last 30 or 45 minutes instead of an hour and a half.

 

[CieL]

I have no issues with making tougher penalties, your an idiot for speeding through a school zone

But the issues here aren't only about speeding..

It's about stuff like "Approach children’s crossing too quickly to stop safely" .. what speed would you consider as "too quick"? What if I was going 40, and saw that there was clearly no-one at or near the crossing.. and went straight through at 40? Is that still too fast? Or would I have to slow down to 10-20kmh for it to be "legal"?

It's too ambiguous and I'd feel so shat if I had 4 demerits taken off me for the cop's version of "too quick"..

 

[Captain Gh3y]

Well my mum's a crossing supervisor o) and apparently most parents at schools are fairly ignorant of road safety when they're paying attention to dropping their kids off, particularly they feel the right to park wherever they want.

So the only way to get them to not park in places that make the crossings more dangerous is to threaten them with fines (the only thing they understand).

Parents also drive pretty erratically for similar reasons, you only need to go past a school at 3pm to know that.

@CieL, I'd imagine it means 40, and less if there's clearly a bunch of kids about to be crossed.

 

[Azamakumar]

"Approach children’s crossing too quickly to stop safely"

That is going to be abused so GODDAMN hard, and if you ask them to define a "safe speed" at which a crossing should be approached, you're probably better off "picking a number between 1 and 10". Any small to medium, and even some large cars could knock 40-0km/h out in about 10 metres, so I don't see how they can enforce or justify that ridiculous law.

But that doesn't mean to say I WILL take any crossing I see at 40, I mean how many of us slow down at level crossings when you can clearly see that there's noone there to cross.

All I have to say is LOL, I love it when ministers rollout brand new laws aimed at 'teaching young drivers' and 'saving lives'.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

They're aimed at everyone, genius. That said, p-platers speed through crossings most frequently

 

[j_davo24]

I will.

Since there seems to be no demerits for that. Yet.

I wouldn't expect you would hold a licence at all for quite some time after an effort like that. Look at all the shit that hit the fan after the poor old guy hit the Delezio kid...

 

[Serius]

Sounds like revenue raising to me.
1. Stopping at the crossing thing. What a crock of shit law.

2. Double parking. Parents wouldnt do it if every school had decent parking. There recently was a huge public backlash in wollongong over this, with one school there is nowhere to park, the only place is on the otherside of a very very busy, fast road, and no parent wants to drop their kid off there, so they have to park even further away in a dodgy spot so they can walk their kid accross the road.

3. Stopping on or near a crossing? nfi what this means, wouldnt that just be covered under parking laws?

4. Speeding. Highschools shouldnt even be school zones. Old enough for high school, old enough to know to look for traffic imo. School zones are too long and they fuck up traffic in busy areas. In one part of Wollongong theres a speeding camera at a school zone on the main road, sometimes it takes 15minutes just to get past that stretch because of that. The kids at that school are even BANNED from crossing that road or even being near the road on that side of the school[they have to wait for the bus on this little special platform with a teacher]. The speed decrease fucks up the flow of traffic bigtime there, change the laws and change them now.

 

[Marquis de Leng]

I wouldn't expect you would hold a licence at all for quite some time after an effort like that. Look at all the shit that hit the fan after the poor old guy hit the Delezio kid...

That child has death written all over her like the movie Final Destination. Someone or something out there, somewhere wants her dead. How many times do they have to revive her?

 

[j_davo24]

That child has death written all over her like the movie Final Destination. Someone or something out there, somewhere wants her dead. How many times do they have to revive her?

Long enough for her parents to parade her around some more obviously...

 

[veterandoggy]

High school students who don't know what roads are for deserve to be run over.

i'd say that too until it was my child on the floor. then i'd be blaming the hoon that was behind the wheel (of course i'd be too old to realise that i would have hit the kid if i was driving )

 

[CieL]

I wouldn't expect you would hold a licence at all for quite some time after an effort like that. Look at all the shit that hit the fan after the poor old guy hit the Delezio kid...

Sigh true.

Thank god I dont drive at school zone times anyway.