OUR VIEW #2 - Politicalfixit.com
The recent spate of young fatalities on our roads has again resulted in a barage of critcism of "P" plate & young drivers in general, again an unfair generalisation and often driven by government to divert attention away from the real issues. If you analyse some of the more recent incidents, they have no relevance to provisional drivers, and are more to do with law breakers, and law breakers do not take any notice of rules or policies The facts were that in several cases the drivers were un-licensed, hence no change in rules for provisional drivers whould have made a difference.
How many times have you cursed "damn P platers" is that you speaking or have you been influenced by a government mindset that promotes the view that ALL young drivers are "irresponsible hoons" Is it possible that the "P" plate in the window opens them up to more scrutiny and criticism, does it make them an easy target. Imagine if all drivers vehicles were identified with a label in the front and rear window. For example "M"could represent male drivers and "F" for female drivers this would allow us to curse by gender, or maybe an E for English drivers, I for Indian drivers and an A for Australian drivers would allow us to curse by race. P is now more relevant to punishment, which was never the intent.
Comments
Submit Article
Email this article
How many times have you cursed "damn P platers" is that you speaking or have you been influenced by a government mindset that promotes the view that ALL young drivers are "irresponsible hoons" Is it possible that the "P" plate in the window opens them up to more scrutiny and criticism, does it make them an easy target. Imagine if all drivers vehicles were identified with a label in the front and rear window. For example "M"could represent male drivers and "F" for female drivers this would allow us to curse by gender, or maybe an E for English drivers, I for Indian drivers and an A for Australian drivers would allow us to curse by race. P is now more relevant to punishment, which was never the intent.
Why we do not support the harsh laws for provisional drivers
Where does the bad press come from on young drivers, is it possible that governments divert attention to cover incompetance on their behalf or influence community views, is the constant barage of criticism of P plate drivers warranted and is it a true and balanced reflection of young novice drivers or does the images of hoons on current affair shows and then a close up of a P plate which could be totaly unrelated to the incident, unfairly label novice "P" plate drivers.
Are young drivers today any worse than past generations? are there more hoons around today than in previous years or does technology & media capture it more. Are young people today more responsible with regards to drink/driving than past generations, is the high incidence of accidents with young novice drivers a result of stupidity or just simple errors as a result of in-experience. Young novice driver fatalities have always been an issue on our roads, in fact todays statistics show that the young drivers of today are far more responsible that their political predessesors were, when they were teenagers.
The reality is that as at April 7th nearly half of the fatalities on our roads were between the ages of 16 and 24. Since the Rann government has been in office a reversal of a downward trend to an upward trend has ocurred in the representation of young fatalities. Next time you drive to work conduct a simple excercise and make a point of noting the irresponsible drivers that do not have a P plate attached and the number of responsible drivers that do have a P plate attached. This will give you a true perspective of the issue facing young drivers today and it will be you driving your your son or daughter to work as a result of these stupid rules imposed on young drivers. Young kids loving their cars with wide wheels and twin exhaust is nothing new and it does not make them a hoon, older generations tend to have a distorted view of their youth and easily forget very quickly how they loved their first car, yet todays teenagers are scrutinised more than ever before. While it is ok for seasoned drivers such as Tom Koutsantonis to continually flaunt the law and remain on the road it seems that if you are young and in-experienced you are treated much more severly, yet many disqualified drivers in the 16 - 24 age bracket would have a cleaner record than the Minister.This state has amongst the harshest laws in the world when it comes to disqualifying young novice drivers and yet if they simply lived in any other state would be on their full license. A system that allows a person such as Tom Koutsantonis to remain on the road yet disqualifies a novice driver for a single speeding offence greater than 10km, has to be injust.
We remain convinced that this government have got it wrong with regards to their heavy handed laws for provisional drivers and the social repercussions and impact of disqualifying too easy has the potential to actually increase fatalities for young novice drivers due to a disrupted driving experience.This information was presented to John Hill local member for Kaurna, Martin Small director for Road Safety and Carmel Zollo the then Minister for road safety, all of whom chose to ignore the findings in a true display of arrogance that had to be experienced to be believed. There was no sound reasoning from them, they did not quantify their position they just simply said that they knew best. While I offered my free time to assist with the development of a system that could potentially lower the road toll, it was declined.
All we can do now is sit back and watch more young people die as a result of this governments policies and their inability to listen.
Are young drivers today any worse than past generations? are there more hoons around today than in previous years or does technology & media capture it more. Are young people today more responsible with regards to drink/driving than past generations, is the high incidence of accidents with young novice drivers a result of stupidity or just simple errors as a result of in-experience. Young novice driver fatalities have always been an issue on our roads, in fact todays statistics show that the young drivers of today are far more responsible that their political predessesors were, when they were teenagers.
The reality is that as at April 7th nearly half of the fatalities on our roads were between the ages of 16 and 24. Since the Rann government has been in office a reversal of a downward trend to an upward trend has ocurred in the representation of young fatalities. Next time you drive to work conduct a simple excercise and make a point of noting the irresponsible drivers that do not have a P plate attached and the number of responsible drivers that do have a P plate attached. This will give you a true perspective of the issue facing young drivers today and it will be you driving your your son or daughter to work as a result of these stupid rules imposed on young drivers. Young kids loving their cars with wide wheels and twin exhaust is nothing new and it does not make them a hoon, older generations tend to have a distorted view of their youth and easily forget very quickly how they loved their first car, yet todays teenagers are scrutinised more than ever before. While it is ok for seasoned drivers such as Tom Koutsantonis to continually flaunt the law and remain on the road it seems that if you are young and in-experienced you are treated much more severly, yet many disqualified drivers in the 16 - 24 age bracket would have a cleaner record than the Minister.This state has amongst the harshest laws in the world when it comes to disqualifying young novice drivers and yet if they simply lived in any other state would be on their full license. A system that allows a person such as Tom Koutsantonis to remain on the road yet disqualifies a novice driver for a single speeding offence greater than 10km, has to be injust.
We remain convinced that this government have got it wrong with regards to their heavy handed laws for provisional drivers and the social repercussions and impact of disqualifying too easy has the potential to actually increase fatalities for young novice drivers due to a disrupted driving experience.This information was presented to John Hill local member for Kaurna, Martin Small director for Road Safety and Carmel Zollo the then Minister for road safety, all of whom chose to ignore the findings in a true display of arrogance that had to be experienced to be believed. There was no sound reasoning from them, they did not quantify their position they just simply said that they knew best. While I offered my free time to assist with the development of a system that could potentially lower the road toll, it was declined.
All we can do now is sit back and watch more young people die as a result of this governments policies and their inability to listen.
Indian Students Invading Australia
Go to any bulletin board around the world and you will find organised discussions amongst Indian students in particular on how to gain entry to Australia with a view to gaining permanent residency. Look in the phonebook in any state and you will find immigration agencies that have popped up all over the place, predominantly indian, place an add in any paper in Australia and await the bombardment of Indian applicants who literally drive you insane. A recent advertisement on Seek.com for a cleaner attracted 750 responses of which 730 were indian students or people caiming to be students. It is difficult too understand how you can pass as a student when you look 70 years of age, which was the case with several applicants who were interviewed, it is difficult to understand how someone got into the country on a required skills visa yet has no skills and a poor command of the English language. The lesson learned was that the vast majority lie to try and gain employment stating that they have experience back in India, but when questioned more intensly are inevitably caught out. When you do take the risk and employ some of these students, it can backfire as they bring other people in with them to do the work, without consultation, or they adjust their times to suit their study requirements - our experinece has not been a good one when employing Indian students and while we accept that some out there have had positive results, it has not been the case with us.
Comments
Submit Article
Email this article
While your family members in other parts of the world have to apply and go through a rigorous process costing many thousandsof dollars and a waiting period in excess of 10 years, it seems if you are an Indian student you are treated differently. You do not have to be Einstein to work out what is going on here and again it is related to money. It has now become a billion dollar industry for our Universities who are reaping the rewards of international students paying thousands of dollars to study here with an alterior motive "permenant residency".
This has become an out of control juggernaught that will leave us counting the cost of high population growth for many years to come.
This has become an out of control juggernaught that will leave us counting the cost of high population growth for many years to come.
Indian Students Protesting In Melbourne