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Issue No. 290 | 18 November 2005 |
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The Long March
Interview: Public Defender Legal: Craig's Story Unions: Wrong Way, Go Back Industrial: WhatChoice? Politics: Queue Jumping History: Iron Heel Economics: Waging War International: Under Pressure Poetry: Billy Negotiates An AWA Review: A Pertinent Proposition
The Soapbox The Locker Room Culture Parliament
 Driven to despairWhat lucky countrySwimming with SharksSave Our Culture
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Letters to the Editor Driven to despair
It's about time the labour movement raised the issue of (increasingly) poor driving wasting time and petrol, increasing petrol prices and costs to businesses, and giving the employing class another excuse for attacking working conditions. But look at who the main offenders seem to be; the best drivers in my experience are professional drivers such as ambos and Sydney buses, but the worst are the arrogant and selfish well-to-do. We pay for their complacency, while their attitude to simple and easy to follow road rules ("protected by law"?) indicates how weak that "protection" will be under new industrial rules. Please find below one of my two submissions to Senate enquiry, which deals with this issue: There's one developing menace in modern society which must seriously affect business efficiency and productivity, which if properly addressed (primarily, by people taking responsibility for their own actions) may obviate the "need" to unfairly reduce labour costs. The fact that it has not yet arisen in debates, let alone been any announcement that it has been the subject of a Govt study, tends to prove the move to cut labour costs (as if humans were commodities like any other) is driven by a dangerous underlying ideology, where business efficiency and productivity is not as important as enslaving working people. The menace to which I refer is the increasingly poor driving ability of modern urban motorists (most businesses today rely on road transport directly or indirectly). In my daily experience the main offenders appear to be trades vehicles (ie small business operators), cars driven by people who appear to be from the management strata (some of their cars even have "executive" marked on the outside), and SUV/4WD operators (especially mothers dropping off/collecting children from private schools) - those the Liberal Party represents and for whom the new laws benefit. Workers' pay and conditions will be driven down to sub-standard while these people continue to endanger life and limb, waste other motorists' time, and waste everybody's petrol. The sort of poor driving practices that are becoming increasingly prevalent include: * using mobile phones (I add to this point - this practice is illegal; what hope have we for a fair go from employers when clearly they have difficulty complying with even the simplest laws?) * non-use of indicators * non-use of head-lights (especially dark and grey or silver cars at dusk) * inability to stay wholly within a lane (causing unnecessary delays for those behind them) * too great a distance between cars when stationary in traffic * not paying attention to what's happening on the road around them, especially when first in queue at a red light * driving too slowly (a major cause of traffic jams) * disregard for most traffic laws so as to not wait their turn in traffic like everyone else (pulling out then butting in, crossing double lines, disobeying road signs, etc etc) * stopping in prohibited areas to drop off/collect people/things, or just to look at a street directory, or take a phone call * queuing across intersections * sadly, the list goes on The whole attitude of these drivers seems to be that either the law does not apply to them, or they've made a commercial decision to risk the penalty for non-compliance (an indicator of their attitude to the paltry "protections" in the industrial law). I believe it has arisen in recent years because it follows from an increasing arrogance amongst the employing class. I don't see any reason why attacks on working conditions should even be considered until these people start taking responsibility for their own actions draining on the efficiency and productivity of the rest of the community. Jon Shapiro
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