The Australians are still arguing about the events in Melbourne on Friday night involving Lewis Hamilton, who spun the wheels of his road car while passing fellow F1 driver Bruno Senna. This was seen by a local policeman and Lewis had his car impounded and was declared to be a pariah.
The few bemused Formula 1 folk who are still in Melbourne are STILL wondering what the fuss is all about. An Australian pal of mine had an interesting theory on this: there is not enough happening in the state of Victoria and so the focus is put on things that in other places do not regularly warrant coverage. This is certainly true if you listen to the end-to-end radio babble in Melbourne. The news is constantly about the road accidents going on. These can be quite extraordinary. I was in a cab last night, going to the Audience with Joe event and listening to one such story which involved an under-age, drunken, naked girl. Obviously the youth in Australia is having a great deal more fun than Lewis and Co…
There is, of course, a serious issue in all of this because one cannot laugh about road accidents. It is right that we try to reduce the numbers killed and injured on the roads but how does one do that best? Putting stickers on the F1 cars is one way to raise the profile of the FIA’s road safety activities, but I am not sure that it is the right thing you want when the F1 cars involved are being smashed to pieces. The Kamui Kobayashi, Sebastian Buemi, Nico Hulkenberg accident on the first lap of the race (below) was on the cover of the Herald Sun newspaper and such was the mess that the only visible sponsorship was “Make Roads Safe”…
Having said that Herald Sun’s headline two days earlier had been a rather weak “Donut King Flops” which attacked Hamilton after his qualifying went wrong and he ended up 11th on the grid. The whole Lewis-Road Safety debate moved quickly on after Mark Webber attacked the Victorian Police saying that Australia is becoming “a nanny state”. This resulted in Webber being attacked by earnest police chiefs and politicians and Hamilton being called “a d*ckhead” by one of these types. The reason for this was that there is a new publicity campaign being launched which aims to talk to the kids of Australia in a language that they understand and calls on them not to be d*ckheads.
I decided that I would check out the road accident statistics of Victoria to see just how bad the problem is and whether the police response is out of proportion to the statistics. It seems to me that impounding the car of someone who burns a little rubber is a tad excessive but it is justifiable if it is a society where serious lessons need to be learned. In statistical terms this is the kind of place that has road accident deaths in excessive of 100 per million of population. The OECD average death-per-million figure is currently around 90. The United States is not doing well with a figure of 136, while Poland is particularly bad at 147. The trend across the world is downwards and the results have been spectacular in the last 20 years. According to stuff I found on the Internet Australia’s figures have come down from 137 per million in 1990 to around 77 per million in 2007. This is on a par with France and Ireland and slightly less good than Denmark and Finland. It is still a long way short of places like Switzerland, Sweden and the UK which have got the number down to around 50.
However Victoria is doing better than the rest of Australia, or at least I think they are, because the state has 5.5m people and according to the statistics published over the GP weekend the death toll on the roads has reached nearly 80 people this year. So the death-per-million statistic thus far is 14 for the first three months of the year. Multiply that by four and you get a likely annual toll for 2010 of about 56 per million. This is about the same the safest places in Europe and they are achieving the numbers without the need for such overtly “Nanny States” activities. Or to put it another way, the police in Melbourne could be accused of being a little excessive… If the French can get their numbers down to these sort of levels and still enjoy the lunacy of the traffic around the Arc de Triomphe, then the Australians could probably be a little more relaxed when the F1 crowd comes to town.
After all, Melbourne does not want the world to think it is a police state. Does it?
It’s a ‘revenue’ state.
First and second offenses, large fine and car is impounded.
Third offence, they confiscate the car, sell it, and keep the cash.
I bet they wished Lewis was in town for long enough to give up one of those
I do have issues with your opinions on this particular post.
However, I do not have the time to respond.
I will rethink your submission, and respond appropriately in the near future.
Maybe then, you can respond to your objections to my posts in the future.
Thanks Joe.
Further to my post above –
http://www.police.vic.gov.au/content.asp?Document_ID=16502
And I was incorrect, they can apply to sell your car on the first offence if it is deemed serious enough.
Oh yeah, and please ‘dob in’ your mates.
Pity Albert Park generally has great races!
It is unfortunate that Australia is well on it’s way to being as letigitious as America
They are quite progressive on their Health & Safety legislation though
Are the two combined?
Joe,
Your logic is impeccable, save that the world doesn’t vote in Victorian State elections. And Victorian politicians have it in their minds that the local populace favours political candidates with the “strongest” stances on “law and order”. Hence Victoria’s Nanny-State-ism. The real reason for the attention given to Hamilton’s Friday-night-exploits is another local phenomenon – the “tall poppy syndrome”. And the headline on the Sunday Herald-Sun was just a good old fashioned piss-take. Some of us found it mildly humorous. When its all said and done you’d be doing Australians a grave disservice to suggest that we really give a tinker’s cuss about Hamilton. You see, most Australians see him only as the rather self-absorbed young lad who lies to stewards and is not averse to having a whinge in the finest English tradition.
AY
As the saying goes, don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story !
Yes Joe, a storm in a teacup.
Don’t forget that Lewis Hamilton is a ‘pommy’ though, and given our obsession with the Poms in Australia this is probably one reason for the mass coverage of Lewis’ tyre screaching. If it had been Mark Webber I expect we would have laughed it off as ‘Larrikin behaviour’.
Of course this makes a mockery of the well-used ‘Aussies are so easy-going’ thing. Anyone who lives here knows that is very far from the truth.
“After all, Melbourne does not want the world to think it is a police state. Does it?”
:rolleyes:
F1 runs events in police states, so maybe Lulu should try burning out in Singapore and see what happens.
And, maybe you could get a lil tipsy at one of your “Evening with Joe” events there, and urinate in public and see what happens. Hell, just try littering or spitting on the sidewalk and I’ll bet you’d wish you were in “The Police State of Melbourne”
I’d add that the line about an underage girl, who was drunk and naked was having more fun than Lewis is lame.
15 and drunk and stupid, is a far cry from 25 yo LH burning rubber right next to a cop. WTF did he think was gonna happen???
Upon returning to Australia after five years in the UK, the first thing I thought was “thank god for the weather”. The second thing was “who put up all these ‘drink, drive, bloody idiot ‘billboards?”. I happen to agree with Mark, Australian Governments at all levels are taking freedoms away from citizens because they cannot be trusted – and it stinks.
Hamilton’s shenanigans were lauded in some sections of the sporting press – at last a racing driver who does what they are supposed to do. He was foolish enough to do it in front of policeman so he had to be stopped. And given the law, the police had to impound the car. It was too public to allow discretion. Of course, the law is probably excessive, but you can’t blame the copper on the beat for enforcing it.
The police should not be blamed for taking Hamilton’s car away. They were only enforcing the law, it’s not up to them to ensure it’s a good law.
In Australia, not just restricted to Victoria, there are too many laws created that are there to appear like something is being done. These hoon laws are an example. They stop you doing burnouts, but make no difference to the young driver carrying more passengers than allowed, over the regular alcohol limit (and the driver was on a 0.0 blood alcohol requirement) and speeding (by over 50km/h over the limit). One minor offence, and there’s no recourse if the police say you did something and you hadn’t, and you have no car – even if it’s not yours.
Recently there was a police chase, resulting in the car being chased crashing and killing a family in another car. The backlash went completely against the police and calls for all police chases to be canned.
Before I start properly ranting, I’ll just say that there are too many attempts to stick a band-aid solution onto a problem’s arm where the leg has fallen off. There are issues with young drivers and all solutions revolve around restrictions and fines, but none around teaching and learning and skills.
The impounding of cars is not a police decision; it is mandated through legislation that certain (usually relatively minor) road traffic offences bring automatic impounding of vehicles. It is a knee-jerk reaction by politicians who want to look ‘tough on crime’.
The proper way to reduce crime (all crime, not just road traffic offences) is to properly fund police so that the chances of getting caught is prohibitively high. But that costs money. The cheap alternative is to introduce ever more restrictive legislation so that on the rare occasion someone is caught the mandated punishment then often greatly exceeds the offence committed. At the same time, discretion is also taken away from sentencing judiciary with legislated minimum sentences.
So the police are under-funded and judges’ hands are tied. The real problem here is politicians who pass draconian laws, and plenty of them, because they think it makes them look tough. This is what Mark Webber was railing about when he commented that there are now a ridiculous number of rules to follow due to the nannying influence of politics and bureaucracy.
So you are right to think the impounding of Lewis’s car was an overreaction but you need to put the blame where it belongs which is in parliament, not at the door of the plod who stopped Lewis.
Joe, it’s not just Melbourne that’s a police state. I’m an Australian living O/S and go home once a year. I’m stunned how the countries changed over the last 5 years I’ve been away. I’m just echoing Mark Webber’s POV here.
But road rules, internet censoring, restrictions on how/where we drink alcohol (including police requests to stop serving alcohol on Australia Day), etc etc are all out of control.
I think the Police in Australia need to wake up to one thing. It’s not their job to set policy or comment on laws or people breaking them. It’s their job to enforce the (in my POV – draconian) laws set by state and federal governments. Nothing more. They have too much power right now and that’s being reflected in the changes to our culture.
We used to be a country recognised globally for our “larrikin” behaviour and sense of fun and mischievousness but we are now a place where a couple of guys (ironically cops) have been fined – with public calls for their sacking – for getting drunk on a bucks w/e and doing some naked laps around a mini-bus at a set of traffic lights. What the hell happened is what I’d like to know.
Joe,
To quote Adam Cooper, “Local police may have been a little jumpy because this morning a famous Melbourne restaurant owner was killed in a motorcycle accident just yards away from where Lewis was stopped.”
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/la-porchetta-founder-killed-in-motorcycle-crash-20100326-r374.html
I can’t comment on whether VIC is becoming a nanny state or not, but as minor as Lewis’ indiscretion might have been, he did it in full view of the po-po, and that is a cardinal sin.
The media is making this a much bigger issue than it really is but I guess that is one of the down-sides of celebrity.
Joe,
You are spot on. You are treated as a serious criminal in Victoria for road offences. We fixate on total deaths not percentages and they NEVER publish the variable in numbers (e.g licensed drivers increasing within the population).
It is a very one sided argument which many Australians are frustrated with. As you would have heard, the nicknames include the Nanny State or Police State and suggestions include adding it to the licence plates
Using Lewis’s little indiscretion as an example, a punishment to fit the crime on a sliding scale for stealing a loaf of bread should be deportation to a far off colony……………………….oh that’s right we’ve been there. My place for a police force that deals with real crime like maybe drug trafficking, Rape, Murder and such……..but in Victoria they are just petty crimes!
And no I am not a “hoon”.
Whether or not we are aiming for it, our government’s draconian and backward views on many things considered staples of daily life in Europe (uncensored internet/video games, ever so slightly less excitable police, etc.) will likely be made an example of the world over. Also wanted to say thank you for an amazing evening last night, a couple of extraordinary stories you told us outside of “group time” are still rattling around inside my brain! See you next year.
As an Australian who has lived in London for the last 8 years, my annual visits home have always given me the sense of a slide towards a ‘nanny state’. In my view the abrogation of personal responsibility by the state has been much more noticeable in australia than in the UK, although it is a more hotly debated topic here than in Aus. This contrasts with the happy go lucky image that Australia likes to present.
My personal favourite experience is popping out of a Sydney pub to take a phone call WITH MY BEER STILL IN MY HAND. The looks of disgust and fear I saw from a young family walking past was a sight to behold – I thought I had walked outside with my trousers down.
Ultimately, I think Joe’s friend is correct – in a lucky country with little to worry about, the policing focus shifts to areas of human behaviour not considered important in other countries.
Actually I was surprised the FIA didn’t reprimand Hamilton. As an F1 driver he has to set an example on public roads and burning rubber sends out the wrong message. A race track is something completely different than a public road and anyone who doesn’t get that ought to be reminded.
There are mixed reports of the Hamilton incident. Joe is saying he spun his tyres, elsewhere I heard it reported that he did a doughnut. So which was it? If the former it is on a par with the Scottish guy that was prosecuted for blowing his nose in a stationary car. If it was the latter he deserves the flak.
For Sure,
The story is as follows, as far as I understand it. He came up behind Bruno Senna and decided to amuse them both. He went around the stationary Senna and crossed in front of him, sliding a little and putting the car sideways. No doubt Senna will have smiled at the move. No doughnuts.
Let them continue with their fuss and nonsense I say.
If only so we can enjoy their about turn when bumps, cameras and traffic calming come to town.
Come to England. It’s illegal to drive whilst using a mobile phone.
But come to my town and stand on a corner and you will see scores of people driving past with phones to thier ears.
Anyone visiting would think it was legal.
Perhaps what Lewis needed was “a little local knowledge”.
Open and account with HSBC perhaps?
There is something about news coverage( in the papers in particular) in Oz that seems to suffer from the hand of Rupert M – sensation sells. If one subscribes to headlines from reputable Oz papers e.g. on an Internet news feed, it’s hard to get anything that isn’t about gangsters in Sydney, sex or scandal. The Lewis coverage fits that genre very nicely.
your view is debatable. but it is very obvious that the Victoria Police saw a big fish on their line and would like to milk it for all its worth…
Stopping Hami for smoking Tires, fining him and putting him and his team in a humiliating light is a lesson. making those so called hooners aware that it’s strict, it’s serious, and even a world champ on F1 weekend will not be tolerated off the track…
Ronman,
I am well aware that my view is debatable, but it was pretty interesting to see the numbers… Still, I guess that there are lies, damned lies and statistics. I still feel that while Lewis might have been a little more sensitive to local things, the police and local media might have handled it in a more sensible manner. Yes, if Lewis was really doing something dangerous then I would not even think of defending him, but it does not sound like it was like that at all – and there is a suspicion that it more to do with the cops getting a famous “scalp” and some more publicity for their campaigns.
It seems from the statistics that the age group involved in the most crashes are rather younger than the F1 demographic and so perhaps a police force in the world somewhere might do well to devise a computer game where the cops are the good guys and you win by driving safely, rather than letting kids rip with the crash-and-chaos games that they are used to playing… There could also be money in that!
I learned all I need to know about the Aussie attitude to law and order when I overheard some cops searching a dodgy looking character at about 11pm somewhere in the Sydney CBD.
“We’re going to search you.”
“Aw mate, mate, I have ONE block of ice on me [that's crystal meth in australian], just ONE…”
“Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that”.
Homer Simpson
That is the worst name for a campaign ever. Full stop end of story. Has it got so bad they have to insult their own people? Good for Mark Webber for standing up to them.
And well said F1 Kitteh….facts are boring
Great photo.
Good Analysis.
Yup. Hamilton is definately a dickhead.
People spend lots of time complaining about how boring the current drivers are, and how short-changed the fans are. Lewis decided to cheer them up a bit, and this happens. For the first time, I think, I’m entirely on his side.
You have to remember that the First Fleet contained at least as many jailers as jailed. Half the population of Australia thinks they’ve been pt on earth to put the convict types back where they belong. Always been like that, always will. Why were Keith Miller and Shane Warne never captains of Australia’s cricket team ? And how did Richie Benaud ever manage it ?
Firstly Mr Sayward I must thank you for the many{not to many} years of work.Though it does seem to be a labor of love for you.As an Australian,67 model,with very limited acess to any information,Motorsport news came along in the early 90′s,then soon after your work made sure that I never missed a copy.
The guests at close dinner parties,crying with laughter{really}whilst I am reading your article to them.Made a few convert’s to F1. A couple come to mind.Your theory of breakfast related conquest,leading to the many British colonies.And the unforgetable”Professional Drinking and Amature Engineering”.Again Thankyou.
This country has[Unfortunatly] gone way beyond a “Nanny” state.And could well next denounce “Inernational Jewery”.This Country has become “The democracy you have when,,,you are not having a democracy”.I am ashamed.
I like that idea for a computer game, Joe. A game that not only encourages responsibility and could teach people what to do in situations that are difficult to simulate in real driving lessons, but would be attractive to a segment of the gaming community previously uninterested in driving games.
With the increase of force-feedback controllers, there could even be bonus points for driving smoothly, conserving fuel and giving passengers an easier ride.
Unfortunately I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting Melbourne, but I did want to make one small point about a relationship you were alluding to.
You said that because Victoria would seem to have a fairly low road death rate that the police were over reacting, or, “the police in Melbourne could be accused of being a little excessive.”
I’m not defending the police, but logic would require one to consider that it is possible they have a low death rate BECAUSE of the “excessive” condition of the law enforcement.
Just a thought.
Unless I am missing the point, it appears the everybody wants to “knock” the Vicoria Police Foce – why? Regardless of how fair or unfair the laws may be they are the laws. The phrase when in Rome do as the Romans do springs to mind.
I have no problem with LH, but as a person in the spoltlight he (and any others like him, regardless of sport) have a duty that we mere specators have placed on them to be figureheads. As such we place on them a great responsibility to fulfill their roles as role models. They may not like it, but that is the price of “fame”. We may have our 15 mins, but real personalities have a lot longer.
Whenever an LH or simlar visits a country they are ambassadors not just for their sport, but for the people who follow that sport.
The laws of a country may be unjust and they may be reprehensible to some others, but at the end of the day they are laws; just or not.
Imagine what would have happened if this incident occured in – say China; well I doubt it would have happened…..
In any country is a dounut performed on a public highway “safe and reasonable” driving? – no; is “driving around the stationary Senna and crossed in front of him, sliding a little and putting the car sideways.” safe and acceptable on the M1? no.
It both cases when on the public highway they are examples of wreckless driving – however skilled the driver.
I am not passing any judgement on the laws, the law enforement offices, or how laws may be changing just that – as I said when in Rome do as the Romans do.
A childish prank, may be but why could it be defendable when LH is the driver. Would the debate be the same way if it was me? (or you) – don’t think so.
Sorry, throw away the keys don’t make excuses from America to China via the UK, India and all places, the local law (fair or not) is the law.
I try to live in a color-blind world, so when I raise the question “Why are Lewis Hamilton and Tiger Woods so alike?” the answer is, as I see it, that both are: a) perhaps the best in the world at what they do, and b) prone to an annoyingly high degree of petulance.
Are we giving Lewis a free pass on his radio remark that went roughly like “Whose crappy idea was it to bring me in?” Maybe I missed the discussion somewhere.
Show some respect, son. Or at least save it for the garage. It strikes me as unlikely he would have been storming to the front the way he did on a set of 40-lap-old tires.
I hope Alonso eats his lunch all season.