NEWS OPINION AND ANALYSIS by JOHN RYAN EMERGENCY REPORT
Speed cameras raising dollars, not saving lives
DOWN the bottom of a hill, with no houses on one side, the mobile speed camera that’s often parked behind Apex Oval is a joke.
In 25-30 years of news reporting, I can’t recall ever seeing a fatality or serious crash in that stretch, and the RMS has never bothered to answer my questions about how they came to decided that part of the road was unsafe – but that’s probably because it is safe.
How many speed cameras? Yet again.
ON the way to and from Sydney last weekend I was forced to wonder just how many speed cameras are actually in existence. ‘How big is the NSW state debt?’ I suppose would be a better question to ask.
On the way back I passed two between Molong and Wellington, within a few k’s of each other, and a highway patrol car had also pulled someone over just 100 metres from one of the camera cars.
Talk about overkill – I’m just waiting for the ‘average speed safety cameras’ to be switched onto light vehicles so they can start fining cars.
Amazon scam?
SCAMS are getting so prevalent, and so technical, and all these greedy corporations which harvest and on-sell our data, and so many of our institutions which we pay taxes to protect us (but which don’t) are all culpable in their complicity, where they allow it to happen, or don’t put enough safeguards in place, because, after all, that may cost money.
I got a call this week from a mobile number I didn’t know and when I answered, a disembodied voice told me Amazon would be taking just shy of $100 from my
bank account.
Being a fairy recent victim of identity theft and financial scamming, I wasn’t impressed.
At the time I was busy so when I called back, imagine my surprise when a real human answered, who turned out to be a police officer a long way from here.
So now it seems these scamming swine are harvesting phone numbers from innocent people and piggy-backing off them to carry out their illicit doings. Nice.
Wouldn’t it be great if we had a government who came down far harder on these telco companies that have loopholes in their systems which allow all these sorts of things to happen.
Update: just as I finished writing this I got yet another scam call, this time a recorded message alleging it was from a well-known credit card provider, which informed me I was going to be giving them more than $900.
I called back and it was a genuine person, once again the scammers piggy-backing off a real, and honest, person.
Australians have lost on average $41 million per month in scams in the first six months of 2022 and in the last year more than $2 billion in total combined losses were apparently reported to Scamwatch, Reportcyber, 12 financial institutions and government agencies.
More than 660 million scam
calls have been blocked since the new rules requiring telcos to detect, trace and block scam calls were introduced in December 2020, with recent Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) data showing telcos blocked 110 million scam calls in April to June 2022 alone.
You know what – these companies control the algorithms, they decide who uses their systems, they made billions off ordinary people so it’s their duty to actually man up and fix these problems, rather than just doing enough box-ticking to satisfy a bureaucratic and pretty toothless regulator.
Five cops on every corner
WELL, that’s what it seemed like on Tuesday morning, the only units I didn’t see were the Riot
Squad and Polair.
Here’s the facts: about 10.40am on Tuesday, August 30, police attempted to stop a vehicle on Websdale Drive, Dubbo, to speak with the driver.
The driver allegedly failed to stop and a pursuit was initiated, before it was terminated a short time later on the Newell Highway.
Not long afterwards the vehicle was located abandoned on Myall Street in North Dubbo and with the assistance of the police dog, officers arrested a man inside a unit nearby, while his vehicle was seized for forensic examination.
The 28-year-old man was taken to Dubbo Police Station where he was assisting police with their inquiries.
He was charged with police pursuit – not stop – drive dangerously and drive motor vehicle during disqualification period.
Officers also executed two outstanding arrest warrants for firearm, drugs and traffic related offences.
The man was refused bail to appear at Dubbo Local Court.
Cyclists behaving badly
SOME cyclists are great, and some are not.
Some motorists drive safely and don’t cause any trouble for cyclists and motorcyclists, others seem to be actively hunting them down.
Dubbo Photo News caught a shot of a couple of blokes on bikes totally disregarding a warning sign letting them know a cycling track was closed to all manner of traffic because of the recent wet weather.
Send your news tips to john.ryan@panscott.com.au or 0429 452 245 txt is best