It's not about the money - bogus taxes disguised as 'road safety' (again)

Living in America I learned one important fact - the moment someone says "it's not about the money", they might as well go to the nearest whiteboard and write up in blue marker "actually, it's all about the money".

I've written before (perturbed of Port Melbourne?) about the money being made by the advertising and media industry from bogus anti-speeding advertising campaigns developed to allegedly prevent people speeding on Victorian roads (as opposed to cleansing the obvious tax raising nature of the speed cameras). Now the Victorian opposition have outed some further facts on the road safety impact of the massive increase in speed camera installations across Victoria (from a story by Clay Lucas in the Age, September 29, p3):


That would be nothing then.

$437m will be raised this year by the Victorian Government from speeding taxes, up from $397m last year. That buys a lot of government salaries and screwed up IT projects (don't even get me started) for Mr Brumby and his village improvement committee.

I suppose we should be delighted someone in Australia (other than the mining industry) can manage to grow their business in the Global Financial Crisis.

Click on the article to read the whole sorry thing.

Go forth and make your voluntary tax contributions, Victorians.

"I'm inclined to ride"... famous last words.

What's 80 cents between iPhone apps anyway?

Nigel: "Hey Matt, I'm interrogating BOM* as we speak - I'm inclined to ride unless utterly shite. Are we not men?"
Matt: "Yeah, I'm inclined to ride come what may. I'm Welsh ..."
Nigel: "...and I grew up in NZ mate. Rain and wind - meh."
*BOM = Bureau of Meterology website

Cut to following scene:

Pensive, bovine expression from Nigel - pics by Matt Cashmore

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The weather forecast had been optimistically interpreted as windy but not that wet for the day's planned motorcycle outing to Yea and back through Kinglake. Slight hiccup at the start of the day when I mistook the Hume Freeway for the Hume Highway, so our meeting with Jamie was fortuitously delayed while we leap-frogged to a Shell station in Craigieburn, about 35km North of Melbourne.

On the horizon was a purple-black cloud bank, traveling at 60km/h and preceded by some vigorous gusts of wind, so we gassed up and retreated to the servo to wait for it to blow over as the trusty iPhone BOMradar application said it would. We knew the front was due, but winds behind it were showing as mild, and the rain front was in theory, a one-off. Clear skies behind! Not ...


Back inside and another half hour later one of the 3 IT amigos decides to check another source of data for some insight on the seemingly non-stop rain and wind... whaddya reckon, can you spot the difference - my $1.19 BOMradar iPhone app on left; Matt's $1.99 Oz Weather on the right.

Home James, and don't spare the Suzuki. I'm pretty sure there's 80c rattling around the pockets of my wet weather gear somewhere.

The Best Things in Life - Riding with your mates

In a week of firsts, the GSXR-600 got the shock of its life suffering continuous operation for more than the 11 minutes it takes me to get to work each day.


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Matt Cashmore, motorcyclist par excellence and social organiser set the route for he, Jamie and I to spend Saturday morning in the Victorian high country foothills, chasing the perfect toasted sandwich and loads of continuous well-cambered corners.

Here's Matt's Flickr slideshow, ending with us back in the city after nearly 300km and the discovery of what might be the perfect cheese, ham and tomato toastie at the Red Parrot cafe in Noojee - sitting by a roaring log fire after 90 minutes of chill winter air. It doesn't get much better than that.