Liberal Democrats agree with Mark Webber – we are in a nanny state!
13 August 2010
“When Mark Webber remarked that ‘we’ve got to read an instruction book when we get out of bed – what we can do and what we can’t do’ he never spoke truer words,” said Glenn Druery, NSW Senate candidate.
“Australia is a nanny state and the aggressive approach of the police to Lewis Hamilton’s burnout during the Grand Prix in Melbourne proves it. Having a bit of fun in a car can’t be tolerated.”
The Liberal Democrats believe too many traffic laws are based on subjective views of policymakers and reflect a ‘nanny state’ mentality.
In a nanny state, the objective is to save people from their own choices. This is said to be valid because it might save their life. But it ignores the fact that, in relation to traffic laws, the public accepts a level of risk as a trade-off for efficient transport. If the public wanted zero deaths and accidents, they would support reducing the speed limit to something like 20 km/hr.
“In fact, the overwhelming majority of drivers routinely exceed the speed limit. This shows that the policymakers who set speed limits, plus other rules such as burnouts which cause nobody any harm, do not reflect community values,” Mr Druery said.
“When the vast majority of the public exceeds the speed limit, it is perfectly obvious the speed limit is too low. Current speed limits lack community support. And based on Peel’s principles of policing, the police should not be enforcing such laws.”
The Liberal Democrats believe the National Road Safety Strategy should adopt the 85th percentile rule in relation to speed limits. This is an internationally accepted means of setting limits that are acceptable to the public.
The Liberal Democrats also believe the police should stick to enforcing laws that have community support, especially those in which there is likely to be an innocent victim. It regards burnouts by Grand Prix racing drivers as youthful exuberance and motoring fun, and should not be crucified by over-bearing public officials and politicians.
“We agree wholeheartedly with Mark Webber’s comments and believe he was speaking for many in expressing frustration about traffic laws and government encroachment on our basic freedoms,” said Mr Druery.
As Mark Webber, “It’s a great country but we’ve got to be responsible for our actions and it’s certainly a bloody nanny state when it comes to what we can do”.
The Liberal Democrats have a comprehensive traffic policy on their website: www.ldp.org.au
Yeah!
And we should rip out all of those authoritarian traffic lights while we’re at it!
“In a nanny state, the objective is to save people from their own choices”
Actually I’m pretty sure the penalties for speeding are to save people from other people’s choices.
Which is probably why the press release doesn’t argue for not enforcing speed limits. It simply argues that the current speed limits on a lot of roads are lower than prevailing community attitudes to those roads would indicate they should be.
Not just that Gabriel, but in some places speed limits are higher than community attitudes indicate they should be!
Looks like some study of international road safety initiatives would go down well here, limits under what would be achieved by the absence of limits, are proven to be dangerous, fact
im against the status quo on this one. the transport/road management/whatever council are completely stupid. every thing i see them do is just so incredibly short sighted and thoughtless. their speeds are almost always off, they never get interesections right, even after the 4th try, and just don’t know about engineering of roads..