Yes, that big tube you see coming out of the sky and going directly into your purse/wallet/pocket or all three is the giant Hoover connected to your state government and to their pals at the vehicle monitoring and enforcement services company Redflex.
In Victoria, where motorists get hit with the toughest speeding fines in the known world but where the road toll was up 15 per cent year on year, 55 speed cameras caught a virus. But you know the government’s reaction? Justice and Regulation spokesman Michael Newhouse told the Herald Sun all infringement notices issued will remain. Of course they will, Mick.
Two days later more than 550 fines from the crook cameras were withdrawn. A few hours after that a piece of good news when acting Deputy Police Commissioner Doug Fryer said the cops would stop issuing fines on all fixed red light and speed cameras. Doug said as many as 8000 speeding and red light tickets would be frozen until the accuracy of the cameras was confirmed. “We have had a foreign body, a virus introduced in to our system, and that is not good.” No, Doug, it’s not.
Now, if you don’t live in the People’s Republic of Melbourne you think I am making all this up. But no, the next episode is even better. A few hours after Douggie let the foreign body drop, Police Minister Lisa Neville said she only heard about the problem after reading the Herald Sun. At least I think that’s what she said. Anyway, she did say both her department and camera manufacturers Jenoptiks and Redflex failed to report the issue when it first occurred.
Then we learnt that Neville’s department will be paying Redflex $4 million this year to service and maintain 120 fixed cameras with foreign bodies. And in better news, Victorian motorists donated over $356 million to Neville’s department because they drove by one of Jenoptiks’s or Redflex’s cameras.
The NSW government this year will pay Redflex $13 million to Hoover even more money out of the state’s cash cows (motorists).
Surprisingly, for a business that generates $120 million by taking photos of cars, Redflex’s share price has dropped from $4.15 to 41c. In its outlook for the year, the company said “continued negative public sentiment means that the US photo enforcement market continues to be a low/no growth market”. Clearly the Yanks are a lot smarter than us.
Now back to our usual programming: Introducing first, fighting out of the blue corner, this man stands 1.74m tall, weighing in at 68kg, he holds a record of 196 bouts and 56 wins and was the 2008, 2014 and 2015 world champion. Fighting from Monte Carlo, it’s the Hertfordshire Heavy, the Mercedes Mauler … Lewis Hamilton.
Fighting out of the red corner, this man stands 1.75m tall, weighing in at 62kg, he holds a record of 187 bouts and 45 wins and was the 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2103 world champion. Fighting from Switzerland, he’s the third highest paid sportsperson in the world, he doesn’t get out of bed for less than $5.2 million a bout, it’s the Red Bull Rioter, the Feeza Enforcer … Sebastian Vettel.
Yes fans, last week you saw the first clash between these two lightweights in the little known but picturesque city of Baku, which is in Azerbaijan and which is famous for having the F1 race, Mariah Carey’s concert at the end of the F1 race and three pointed skyscrapers covered with LED screens showing the F1 race.
When the safety car came out for the second time Seb stayed close behind Hamo but all this meant was that when the race restarted Seb not so gently ran up the back of the Mercedes Mauler. Seb felt Hamo had braked just to cause a problem. Hamo felt he slowed a little and caught Seb by surprise. Then the real fight happened in what had been a pretty ordinary bout till then. Mr Vettel came up beside Hamo, yelled something naughty and steered his Ferrari into the side of the Mercedes. Even though they were going slowly this didn’t end well with both having to visit the pits with minor damage.
In what was a finish reminiscent of Steven Bradbury’s well deserved gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics, Daniel Ricciardo won with Mercedes’ Valterri Bottas second and Williams’ Lance Stroll third. Hold on, Lance who? One of the youngest drivers to gain a podium and only the third Canadian, Lance is the one that Jacques Villenieuve called “the worst rookie ever”. High praise indeed, Jac.
Anyway, Lance’s Dad made himself a multi-billionaire in the schmutter game, bought classic Ferraris, bought a Ferrari dealership and bought his son an F1 seat with $100 million. So, the race finishes and Lou issues the challenge: “If (Seb) wants to prove he is a man he should do it out of the car face-to-face”. It promises to be small but perfectly formed mano on mano at the Grooser Preis Von Osterrich tomorrow week.
Here is a photo, above, of Aeroboat S6, a 20m yacht which is plainly not a car and where you can take your friends and enjoy al fresco dining amidships, with sun loungers located either side of the wide passageway leading aft to the passerelle. Yours for about $10m including two Rolls Royce V10 engines each pumping out 11,200kW.
This is a shortened version of the original article – read the rest at The Australian
