Motorists should not get too excited by last week’s ruling by Justice Terence Higgins of the ACT Supreme Court that police evidence about speed using a laser device was no more valid than that from the driver’s speedometer.
The driver asserted that he was doing the 80km/h speed limit, not the 101km/h asserted by the police on the basis of the laser device. The driver’s passengers backed him up.
Justice Higgins ruled that the court was not entitled to take for granted the accuracy of the laser equipment in the face of the driver’s uncontested evidence from his speedometer. In addition the driver was with a group of cars which may had added an element of doubt about whether the right car was targeted.
In any event it would be unfortunate if the case were seen as anything but a one-off incident. The sad fact remains that the primary reason for declining road tolls in the past decade has been the technological onslaught by police to send the message that the likelihood of being caught and punished if you speed or drink-drive is very high. That should remain the message.
It is unfortunate that in the past two decades some civil liberties have had to give way in the cause of lowering what had been an appalling road toll; now it is merely bad. Compulsory seat belts and helmets; speed and red-light cameras; laser guns and random-breath testing have their toll on civil liberties as driving cases become harder to defend in the face of the technological advantage of the prosecution.
No doubt a rare few innocent people have been convicted and fined. But we do not convict on the basis of beyond all doubt whatever.
But if the technological edge that increases the chance of being caught were to be relaxed, everything suggests that the core of speeding, red-light-running and drinking drivers would increase.