I live in a very small place where there's only one stretch of bitumen that is the main road through town (and I live right in the middle of it). Now when I say small, I mean the 50kph limit signs are about 600m apart into and out of town. To put it in perspective, 500m further on from the exit of town at one end there is a T junction onto the main Highway.
What I hate is the bluddy road trains carting grain through here to the silos on the highway and not bothering to slow down on the way through. I get 80-90tonnes of road train flying past my front door at 80-90kph, and sometimes more, constantly from sun up to 11pm at night some times, right through harvest and all the way through to Easter some years.
Now I, and others, have begged, pleaded and generally harangued the local cop for over 3 years since he got here, to come out here periodically, and at random times over a week or two, and ping some of these cowboys so they'll slow down. He'd only have to do it a couple of times a season and the trucks wouldn't know when to expect him so theoretically they'll slow down "just in case", at least that's what I reckon.
He came out once last year and did exactly as I'm about to describe for exactly the same result.........so....
..... This morning as I'm backing out of the driveway to take the kids to school, I finally see him sitting there with his speed gun. YAY!, FINALLY!, thinks I for about 2 seconds till I realise he's still sitting in his drivers seat and has parked himself in such a position, just like he did last year, with the nose of his Landcruiser pointing out onto the road, so that anyone approaching town from either direction can see him at least 500m before he can lay eyes and speed gun on them,
., instead of moving the vehicle back a bit and getting his backside out of the car and standing in front of it so he can
actually see the trucks coming and
actually book a couple of them. Right now they see him first, slow down, then get on the UHF to all the other cowboys and it becomes a totally wasted effort even being there because as soon as he leaves, (having not caught one single vehicle), they radio that he's gone and it's back to business as usual.
There are times I want to just sit out the front and push a spare wheel out in front of some of the worst of these cowboys. There's all sorts of interesting possibilities if it starts to flip over and over under a rig; sump, gearbox, air lines, hydraulics, who knows. Maybe that'll make the rest of them slow down. Unfortunately it probably wouldn't and then I'd just get targeted by them as well.
