SA road laws

Isn't called "rubber necking?
Every accident I have passed or been in the opposite lane the traffic has already slowed down to have a look.

Honky

Hi Ian

It is exactly as you have posted and came into effect as of yesterday. Prior to that it was 40 kph. It applies to all emergency vehicles that have their lights flashing, eg Police, Fire and Ambulance.

It came into effect a good number of years ago to protect our Emergency workers while on foot and out of their vehicles. You would be surprised that there are still morons that still do not slow down when they see emergency flashing lights.


Cheers



Stephen

I would like these laws to be brought in across Australia. I have been a SES member for over 38 years and on a number of occasions have nearly been hit, and this is after we have put the prescribed emergency flashing lighting into positions. Some people just don't it. We are volunteers and just want to get home safely after an incident.
On many occasions we are out at night without the police in attendance, and we do not have the right to stop or redirect traffic, this makes it dangerous for us, it is up to common sense for the travellers to slow down when they see the emergency lights. We have distances where we put flashing strobes out to give plenty of warning, note we have had some drivers deliberately drive over these.
The worst situation I had was at a fatal accident, standing next to a female police officer, when a car came thru the scene at over 80 kms per hour , missing the 2 of us by only inches. We had more lights out than a circus with the vehicals parked in the prescribed safety pattern, I've never heard a police woman go off so much, but it all happened so quickly that the motorist was not stopped.
Any way I will keep attending scenes and hopefully laws can be enforced to protect us.

PLEEEASE!!
Understand that vehicles travelling slowly past an accident are not rubber-neckers!
I have been very close behind an accident and what do you automatically do?
You brake/take evasive action!
You don't go "Wow, there's a car that slid out of control and hit the middle post of the highway overpass but I'll continue at 110km/hr because that's the speed limit!" You slow, you check to see if it's safe to pull over somewhere to render assistance, you realise that people are already doing that when you look in your rear vision mirror and you gradually get back to normal speed.
This has had an impact on traffic flow. The people who were able to pull over have slowed traffic even further.
When there is a lot of traffic, that braking is amplified how-many-times because of all the following cars.
Even if it's a gentle nose-to-tail you still have to slow down in case they're not thinking clearly and get out of their car without checking if it's safe to do so.
On a quiet country road, you slow to see if your help is needed and what caused it/do I need to take evasive action/is someone about to step around their vehicle without looking...
When you are the 100th car (or whatever) there is no longer a regular traffic flow and you are in the middle of a snarl (always thinking to yourself "Well, my day is at least better than theirs" of course).
The traffic stays in a demented state for hours afterwards because of rescue vehicles etc and sensible drivers driving slowly when they see people out of vehicles.
Yes, if the traffic is safe enough we have a quick look at the cause (what, you're going to go home and say "Darl, I was caught up in a huge snarl on the Gateway for about 40 minutes but I don't know what it was because I refused to even glimpse in that direction so we'll have to watch the news tonight"?!).
It really frustrates me to regularly read/hear of people accusing you as rubber-necking or "slowing down to have a sticky beak" when all that's happened was caused by the original cars taking evasive action.
I will not read this thread again because I know that there are some who will not be convinced under any circumstances of rational thinking and will have stories to tell of rubber-neckers.
But if I can convince just a few of you that it all happens with the initial braking of the first vehicles, I will be happier when I am next caught up in a snarl and hear on the radio that I am rubber-necking because I have had to slow down with the traffic.
If the traffic is doing 30km/hr I can hardly do 100km/hr past it, can I?

Please drive safely, all of you.
:)

Here is what was posted in our local Childers Chitchat Newspaper (in Queensland) this week.

DO YOU TRAVEL TO SA- NEW ROAD LAW

BEWARE..from September 1st, when you see a stationary emergency vehicle with red or blue flashing lights "you must slow down to 25kph". Whether it is an ambulance, MFS, CFS, SES or Police vehicle, It's your responsibility to protect those who are protecting you and others in the community. So be aware of this new law and tell others.

So it is getting play as far away as Childers Queensland

Ian F (WA)

I read somewhere a couple of weeks ago that it also includes Police booking a driver etc.

Regards,
Bob

what we need in this country is to have Australian drivers license and registration and road rules the same across the board .

be a lot better over all

Here is the problem with this.

25kmh is very slow....are they reducing the speed down to 25kmh because 40 kmh was not slow enough or because people where not slowing down o 40kmh.


There is a very real issue with the over cautious work on roads polocies.

By over cautious they reduce the speed considerably for the slightest reason, and speed very often remains reduced when there is no work or no obstruction on the road at the time.

examples....

Damage to a guard rail or barrier.....there is no change to the road way its self, there is no one working on the road, but because there is damage to the guard rail, speed is reduced.

Road work areas, where none of the roadway is obstructed or reduced, there is no one working on the road its self, there is no construction traffic entering or leaving the roadway AND there are concrete barriers between the road way and the construction area. but the speed limit is reduced by 20 or 40 Kmh.

The above pluss....the construction is actually some distance from the road, there is no construction activity for several days.

and it goes on and on.

traffic flow and speed is reduced where there is actually no additional risk at all.

In the no so distant past, when work was over for the day or when there was no work on week ends the speed restrictions where lifted or reduced.....doese not seem to happen these days.


People are getting frustrated and quite rightly so...people dragging along open unobstructed highway at 20, 40, or 60 KMH under the limit when thet is no reasonable additional risk, because there is no work occuring and no one on the site.

And the stricter, more conservative and rediculous the polocies the less people will comply with them.

AND yess I have work on road works and on the road side, both driving vehicles and on foot.
YES it would be good if people reduced their speed and complied with some sort of speed restriction.....but all to often it is becomming unreasonable.

SO there is an "accident sceen" on an 8 lane road ( 4 each way,)..there is emergency vehicle/s attending to a single vehicle in the far left lane.....there is a bump truck in attendance.....should all traffic be reduced to 25kmh...what are the implications for the traffic flow as a whole...will this stimulate more accidents.


In addition....I don't know if it is this way where you are...but it seems often the police in attendance will make absolutely no attempt to manage traffic at most accident sceens


A bit of common sence and reason on both sides would go a long way.

cheers

Well it looks like you are dammed if you do and dammed if you don't.

Recent clip of an accident on the Bruce where vehicles had slowed past an accident, which is pretty normal and someone who didn't see what was ahead, only maybe what was happening on the side