Repeat offenders

The Advertiser: ROAD FOOL :

"A 20-YEAR-OLD Adelaide motorist has been branded a road menace after having his licence suspended seven times in the past three years."

Well, yes,I suppose it does merit the huge headlines. We are living with a group of people who do not respond to penalties. It means we are going to have to create harsher and tougher penalties because some people have this notion they may do as they please. It needs a good sociologist and a clinical psychologist on the scene as well as those experienced with road traffic offenders. It really has reached a silly state here and not because we are not trying. We have tried to be reasonable, then we brought in the hoon laws and then there are people who are still engaging in anti social, dangerous driving. The police must be getting beside themselves. Community probelm so we need a community approach and changing the headsets of these people is what needs to occur. I can hear myself thinking these sorts of drivers need to be tracked and monitored because they are just so blatant in engaging in reckless driving and that is always dangerous for them and us. I never used to think like that. I have never believed upping the ante is how you solve a problem but somehow the pain level of these drivers needs to be raised so that there's a change in behaviour and there needs to be some kind of understanding as to why they constantly flaunt what used to be pretty reasonable laws. I can also hear myself thinking we are all going to pay because there are a few people who think they are driving invincibles. There used to be a great little cartoon series about how people changed into driving maniacs as soon as they got behind the wheel of a car.As cartoons can, it made people laugh but it made the anti social driving person a "cartoon" than no one wanted to be. I can remember it had quite an impact at the time.That's why we need some behaviour experts involved in this too to try and see if we can come up with a creative solution.