6:45pm Kilby Road, East Kew. Peak hour.
Yet even though there's not a car in sight, and room for two lanes either way, AND a bike lane, the speed limit is only 50 km/h. Anywhere else, as in anywhere "don't gouge the citizens" else, and on a similar road, the speed limit would be 70 km/h. Maybe more.
I think I know that road!! Does it lead to East Balwyn?
It inspired me, though I haven't gotten around to doing it, to researching an article (perhaps for melba times) on why some streets get low speed limits, or speed bumps, and not others.
I actually think there is corruption at play, and I'm being serious here. Is there some pollie living there, or else someone extremely wealthy?
Posted by: Martin Pike | 09 December 2004 at 17:16
The very same, Pikey.
It's funny you mention the corruption angle, because another teacher here at work who lives in East Balwyn said there was a hell of a fuss when the limit was first introduced, and he maintains that a local councillor lives along there.
There was also an article in the local rag about "someone", I don't know who, who lived on Kilby Road who was pointing her hair-dryer at oncoming traffic to get it to slow down.
I'm not sure if that someone is the councillor the other teacher was talking about, but there's certainly a bad smell about the road being 50'ed.
Oddly enough, back the other side of the roundabout behind me in the first picture, the street's thinner, busier and built up and yet the limit's 60 km/h.
Something's off, if you ask me. I just don't know exactly what.
Posted by: Tony.T | 09 December 2004 at 17:26
By christ it's frustrating when you have roads like that. Serious revenue raising action.
Posted by: Adam 1.0 | 09 December 2004 at 20:58
I wrote that comment extremely quickly at work and have realised in retrospect that it looks like one of those irritating vox pops they have in the Herald Sun that make you want to piff the thing across the room even if you haven't paid for it.
Posted by: Adam 1.0 | 10 December 2004 at 01:05
Someone gets a speeding ticket and we dive head first into the fever swamps of paranoid conspiracy.
In NSW we get a bit more leeway, the cameras only seem to catch you if you are going 10kph or more over the limit.
Posted by: SB | 10 December 2004 at 11:36
I would support that road being 50, for lots of reasons. (It's a good looking road btw.) Anyway I guess the residents get enough lead with the FWY running alongside it, just out of the picture.
But I'm sympathetic about your ticket - and think the NSW leeway model sounds more sensible.
btw - East Balwyn? No such place. Unles that's a new real estate-driven name for West Box Hill?
AFAIK it's Balwyn, Balwyn North or Kew East. And I guess they don't call it farkew for nothing.
Posted by: boynton | 10 December 2004 at 12:13
So with you, Tony. I remember that not so long ago Kilby Road was a four-lane, 60 km/h affair.
Thanks to Boroondara Council, the limit has been dropped to 50 and four lanes became two.
It's a rort.
Now the Vic Govt holds motorists to a 3km./h leeway before they get booked - less than the 10 per cent plus or minus allowed under Australian Design Rules for cars.
Motorists are now challenging the govt leeway in court and winning.
Go to it, Tony...
Posted by: The Hack | 10 December 2004 at 14:05
Nothing to do with my fine (REALLY) I'd have no problem whatsoever if the limit was at 60, because all the other similar roads in the area are 60. Including the more crowded, congested and busy-with-shops Willsmere Road which makes up the first part of Kilby Road. It's 60 whereas Bridge Road, for instance, is now 40, but NOT after midnight.
What's more, doing 59 is barely discernible from 50. To go at 50, especially on an empty, wide road, you need to be staring at the speedo the whole time.
There's also the not inconsiderable fact that Kilby Road has a series of steep hills which means your speed is going to vary markedly without you noticing.
With the haphazard and arbitrary patchwork of 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 zones make it almost impossible to avoid speeding somewhere.
The whole system is a fuck-up instituted merely to ping "unlucky" drivers for extra revenue.
Hack, I didn't know there'd been challenges to the "leeway" settings.
There was also a good article in the Hun Motoring section about three weeks ago. To whit, it's not speeding that's the problem, but inattention, carelessness, phones, distractions and plain old idiocy.
It's, as you say, a rort.
Posted by: Tony.T | 10 December 2004 at 15:40
The speed limit in Kilby Road was recently determined by a resident referendum. Full Stop.
I'm sorry you got a ticket. I'm expecting one myself any day now. Possibly two.
BTW - I suspect they hide the camera in a trailer bearing the insignia of a franchised mowing service.
Posted by: Nora | 10 December 2004 at 17:07
Your boofhead contemporary, Grant Dorrington, was on the 6:00pm news just then crapping on about speeding, so obviously the first thing I thought of was this post. This is what the clown said, after the relevant Minister had her 5c worth at a roadside media release:
"Speed DOES kill, speed WILL kill. We can't let our community go faster."
Gee. Zuss. Christ.
What he was really saying was, "I'll get my serious mug expression fully charged and say ANYTHING to the cameras, as long as I can keep my cushy, do-nothing, $100K per year, taxpayer funded job. How 'bout it Minister? Huh, huh? Did I do good, huh? Did I look gruff and serious enough? Did I, huh?"
What an effing tool.
Posted by: Big Ramifications | 10 December 2004 at 22:44
Of course, when the Cain-Kirner government introduced speed cameras to Victoria in the late '80s, they faithfully promised the cameras would only be used in accident blackspots and would be signed so motorists knew they were in the area.
Naturally, when the revenue raising power of the cameras became evident, suddenly cameras were placed everywhere and were hidden from motorists with all sorts of ingenious disguises.
Of course, Labor only dipped its toe in the water. The Libs went mental with speed cameras when they got in and Bracks is even worse.
Now they hide cameras behind trees, in specially modified bins and in all manner of locations.
And if you criticise the rampant misuse of speed cameras, you're just a hoon or someone with some kind of weird bloodlust for roiad carnage.
And we'll never be rid of them.
But we can make it hard for the bastards.
* Each time you get snapped, request the photography. It will cost you an extra $10 but will choke the Traffic Camera Office with a workload it can't possibly service.
* Challenge every minor fine. I'm battling one now.
Smash the state and all that...
Posted by: The Hack | 11 December 2004 at 09:43
In fact, Nora ... The speed limit in Kilby Road was recently RATIFIED by a resident referendum. Some council jerk put the idea up for the vote and these tools can get these type of votes to go any way they like. Rort!
Big, I don't know one person who thinks speeding is the be-all and end-all of the issue, but it's virtually impossible to argue against if the relevant authorities stick to their guns.
Solidarity, Hack. I'm with you. I sent off a request for the photo on Friday. Revolution, brother!
You also raise the point that's closest to the heart of it for me ...
they faithfully promised the cameras would only be used in accident blackspots and would be signed so motorists knew they were in the area.
The natural extention of this kind of surveillance is a camera on every road / street / lane in Victoria then in EVERY ROOM in the state. It sounds extreme, but as the insurance / legalities / media continue to clamber all over law and order issues the only way to keep the public in line is to keep an eye on them AT ALL TIMES. Orwell was right.
But you're right, we'll never be rid of them.
Posted by: Tony.T | 12 December 2004 at 12:07
I know they aren't legal down there, but buy a damned radar detector. Or send me the money and I'll ship you one. Jeeze.
Posted by: Andrew | 12 December 2004 at 12:44
Yeah, but do they work, Andrew? Do they REALLY work?
Posted by: Tony.T | 12 December 2004 at 12:52
Do challenge the parking fines. Both my brother and I recently challenged our parking fines in court, and were successful because the parking officer failed to show in both cases. At least in NSW, I suspect it costs the authorities more if they have to take the parking officers off the streets for even one day.
Posted by: Clem Snide | 14 December 2004 at 22:40
I still haven't heard back from the photo dept, hopefully my request will send them into system overload.
Posted by: Tony.T | 14 December 2004 at 22:55
An update, Tony. Got a letter from the local cop shop yesterday advising my charge (failing to wear a seat belt) had been dropped.
Apparently, there was a lack of evidence. The cop said I wasn't wearing it. Caroline and I swore blind he was wrong and that I was wearing it (and I was, too).
The moral of the story? Challenge every fine. Don't let fascist traffic copper cunts and their omnipresent cameras intimidate you.
Posted by: The Hack | 18 December 2004 at 17:01
Top shit, Hack. Notch one up for the good-guys.
All hail The Hack.
Posted by: Tony.T | 19 December 2004 at 00:27