Greed kills!

Never before has there been a truer statement when it comes to dealing with the enforcement of road rules in this country. Greed Kills.

I recently made a blog entry about electronic billboards over various highways in SE Queensland and how, instead of traffic information, display mindless & pathetic quotes about speed and how it kills and to rest and such. Did the taxpayers fund such an expensive and ridiculous form of advertising? You bet they did!

So - here are these billboards at maybe 20km (guess) intervals along major highways with their slogans on them when we approach the Gateway Bridge, or maybe I should say "Gateway Parking Lot" as it was a *very* nice view from the top of the bridge as we sat there in wall-to-wall traffic. I wonder if an electronic billboard just before the exit onto the Gateway motorway could have said "Traffic Chaos near Airport - try another route!". Sure - not much help to visitors, but it would help as those who know their way around could use alternate routes.
What am I saying? That would involve common sense - something that Main Roads and Queensland Transport consider to be an urban legend. Their ignorance is boundless sometimes!

Anyway, the reason behind the post... Greed Kills.
I had friends visiting over the weekend and they thought that they would go shopping in Brisbane on Saturday morning and then go down to northern New South Wales on Sunday. Now, while I abhor the idea of venturing into traffic on the weekends in peak hours (ie: while Obliviots are looking for shopping malls and outlet stores to piddle-fart around in), you sometimes make these sacrifices for your friends. Some sacrifices are too great sometimes.

In the entire time I was driving around playing navigator, there was an endless supply of *... what was that term again? "Obliviots"? Oblivious idiots? Yes - that's them! Cruising in the fast lane and flanking any other vehicle beside them so that nobody could get to where they were going at the speed limit. On top of that, there actually were police out and about but what were they doing? Enforcing the speed limit.

Since WHEN was the only road rule that was to be enforced, the fucking speed limit??? What about talking on mobile phones & cruising the right lane? Driving dangerously? It is becoming blatantly evident that driving on the roads is a free-for-all exercise provided that you do not go over that magic number in the red circle!

Utter, utter incompetence and ignorance of their duty of care to each and every user of the roads. People have a responsibility to share the roads with other users but it seems that driving like you're retarded is a part of that priviledge as well.

Do you know what the problem was in the end? What caused the 20-odd kilometres of traffic chaos? A shopping centre.
The exit to the airport cannot handle the traffic that needs to use it at the moment with you often needing to close your eyes and hope for the best in order to come out the other side alive - THEN a dirty great collection of outlet stores open in order to further congest the roads.