ROAD TO RUIN

OUR REGION'S SHOCKING SPEEDING FINES BILL

LEADFOOTS in Toowoomba racked up more than $1.7 million in speeding fines in 12 months.

A Right to Information investigation has revealed police handed out 9534 speeding tickets across the Toowoomba police region in 2017.

Those fines cost motorists $1,771,985, enough to pay the wages for 26 primary school teachers or 24 registered nurses.

But the figure was significantly lower than the year’s $6.1 million speeding fines in Ipswich and lower than Warwick’s $1.9 million total.

More than 7900 tickets were handed out to speeders driving less than 13km/h over the limit. A further 1411 were caught driving 14–20 km/h over the limit and 147 motorists were fined for speeding 21–30km/h, 23 fines were given to drivers doing 31–40km/h over the limit. Five drivers were hit with a $1117 fine for driving more than

40km/h over the limit, the highest speeding category.

One of the region’s top doctors, Australian Medical Association Queensland west region representative John Hall, said the message. drivers were not getting “Sadly, we have already had eight fatalities in the region this year,” he said. “Emergency, retrieval and rural doctors are at the frontline of trauma care and see the impact speed has every day, with injuries ranging from whiplash, cuts and broken bones through to head trauma and amputations – injuries which can permanently alter a

person’s life.

“Such injuries require longterm care and rehabilitation and the impact extends far beyond the physical, often leading to depression in the patient and their family members.”

Queensland regional road policing boss Inspector Peter Flanders said even doing 10km/h over the limit significantly increased the chance of a crash turning deadly.

“The physics behind speeding are stark. If you are in a 40 zone driving at 50km/h, that extra 10km/h increases your kinetic energy by one and a half times,” he said.

“To put it simply, if you hit a kid you are hitting them one and a half times harder.”

Inspector Flanders said braking also took longer at higher speeds, making it harder to avoid a potential accident. “In that same situation, driving at 50km/h in a 40 zone, it’ll take about twice as long to brake as if you were doing the limit.”