Why? Because I’m more than fed-up with the idiot trend towards policing by camera lens and am quietly enjoying the efforts of those who go out and put a bullet through the nearest speed camera.

There are all sorts of reasons for hating the trend towards policing by electronic eye, not least of which I don’t recall voting for the deskbound numbats who (correctly) decided the cost/return factor of auto fining is spectacular when compared to having ye olde copper equipped with hair-dryer and Commode sitting behind a roadside bush.

To take a slice out of a recent BikePoint.com.au editorial: “You don't have to look far to see that the greedy and mindless concentration on speed limit enforcement is a lucrative (for government) disaster.

“Research from the UK and Australia (see www.cis.org.au for examples) suggests that the anal-retentive focus on nailing people who do a few kay over the limit might actually be punishing the very folk least in need of watching.

Oh and we're punishing them with dodgy machinery that has proven to be hopelessly inaccurate in NSW and Vic, so far.

“Meanwhile a quick glance at the raw stats will tell you the system is failing. NSW's hysterical double-demerit points and jump-on-anything-that-moves policy resulted in ordinary figures for the last Christmas/New Year holiday period.
Victoria is trumpeting its success with lowered fatality stats for 2003, ignoring the facts of higher serious injury rates, a mix of policy changes that muddy the cause/effect relationship and that one year does not make a trend. Sometimes you can get lucky.”

You are welcome to draw the conclusion that I have no respect for our policy makers. And maybe even that I’m getting to hate them with a passion. The term “oxygen bandits” springs to mind.

I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I’m beginning to miss the “you’re sprung, son” moment when someone in a uniform pops up in the landscape and invites ‘sir’ to haul up for a little chat.

There’s something a little comforting about receiving a lecture which, at times during my motorcycle career, I could almost recite. The words “dangerous”, “speed”, “kills” were thrown about with almost absurd abandon but, with a few exceptions, were generally well-meant.

If the speaker had greying hair and three stripes on the sleeve I was genuinely pleased. You knew you were in for a right royal bollocking, and it was an each-way bet on whether the gent concerned would give you the full by-the-book nailing, or moderate with a severe financial sting, plus a robust talking-at, with a discount for being polite and riding an obviously well-maintained motorcycle.

I’m ashamed to admit there were times when I thought this roadside ‘justice’ was wrong, but now I believe its absence is a loss to both real justice and road culture.

It wasn’t all beer and skittles. I’m still stroppy at the bloke who got me at 129km/h on a near new Blackbird in the middle of nowhere and proceeded to hit me with the full mallet of the law. Okay, it was fast. But any reasonable person who knows what a Blackbird is capable of, particularly on a deserted road, would have pinned a medal for restraint on your correspondent’s shirt. Really.

However there was some balance. There were times when I was technically over the licence-losing limit, but upsetting no-one and riding safely on good machinery.

Generally I was verbally nailed to the wall, but booked just below loss-of-ticket level, on the condition I calmed down for the rest of the trip home. Which I did – a promise is a promise. Is this a good time to mention that I’ve also done some pretty feral things without getting sprung?

The camera culture has modified my behaviour to the extent where I’m more choosy about where and how I push the limits (most often on roads where cameras don’t or can’t work), and I’d be willing to argue that this change has not raised my level of safety significantly.

Maturity (which might be code for fear of longer healing times), better traffic skills, and more confident bike-handling abilities through daily exposure over 27 years have done far more to promote the cause of staying out of casualty wards than speed cameras.

In fact the only time I’ve been in a casualty ward (so far) was caused by a recent failed attempt to clamber up a dirt embankment, in thongs, with two blue heelers in tow. Let’s not go into that right now.

Oh dear, it seems I’ve wandered off the plot a little. Much like the fools who reckon speed cameras work. There’s no doubt they raise the general level of paranoia, and spectacular revenue, but this form of blind ‘justice’ is simply as advertised – blind, with no hint of balance.

Replace every speed camera with a grey-haired sergeant, I say. It’s not as cost-effective when your bottom line in life’s accounting is drawn at a nexus of cost versus revenue which any simpleton can understand, but might have greater long-term benefits.

Like developing some respect for the process, rather than encouraging otherwise peaceful folk to vicariously enjoy the use of firearms.

Guy Allen
(Guy Allen is the Editor of BikePoint.com.au and can be contacted via email guy.allen@tradergroup.com.au)