Lewis Hamilton Shall Now Be Known As Hurricane Hamilton.

Can you hear the stupidity in the air? Can you smell the ignorance on the wind? You can? Then it must be Thursday, and you all know what that means.

Column: Snarl, you're on nanny camera: a cynical lurk to drive us crazy.

Don't Melbourne police have worse people to arrest than the formula one driver Lewis Hamilton? 


Not matter the what the crime, there is always somebody worse to arrest. That person? Miranda Devine.

His "crime" was to smoke his tyres while doing a bit of a fishtail as he left the grand prix circuit at Albert Park.

It may seem insignificant but what Hamilton did was still illegal. If there had been somebody on the other side of the street tossing hand grenades around willy nilly and the police decided to arrest the bloke doing a burnout instead,  then I'd be a little concerned. 

But detaining him? Impounding his Mercedes C63? Charging him with "improper use of a motor vehicle" by "deliberately losing traction"? What a joke.

No, if all that had happened and the Ashton Kutcher had run out and said "You got Punk'd," that would be a joke. 

Hamilton is one of the safest, most skilled drivers in the world.

Miranda Devine would like to propose a new system of law. Each person in Australia is granted an area of expertise for which they are permitted to perform illegal acts without being charged. 

Lewis Hamilton has driving, I'll take punching Miranda Devine as mine.

So now, instead of a handful of onlookers seeing Hamilton's antics, the whole world knows, vastly increasing the number of copycat admirers, if that's the concern. You may as well arrest the entire cast of Top Gear.

Actually the latest episode of Top Gear to screen in Australia featured it's host being pulled over twice by police in America. So don't worry Miranda, it's not only Australia that punishes people for driving illegally. 

The latest attempt to hammer NSW's beleaguered drivers into submission is the introduction in July of mobile speed cameras operated by the Roads and Traffic Authority with the usual ruthless efficiency government instrumentalities reserve solely for revenue raising.

Miranda, get a new routine we all know you hate speed cameras with an unrivaled passion, but they're not the hardest things to avoid, I'll even talk you through it. Look out the car window, see the signs with the red circle and black numbers? Now remember that number and look at the speedo, when the needle on your speedo reaches the same number as what was on that sign, you are doing the speed limit. If the needle goes any higher than that number you are speeding.

Pretty simple isn't it?

We are heading into another double-demerit Easter in which driving 11km/h over the speed limit or not wearing a seatbelt will lose you six points a piece. Do both at once and you've lost your licence.

And the problem with this is? It's not as if we aren't warned when it double demerit points, and if you're stupid enough not to wear a seatbelt while speeding then you don't deserve a licence.

In December, the RTA even dropped the speed limit on the Newell Highway from 110km/h in places to 100km/h, prompting the NRMA's regional director, Graham Blight, to claim it was part of a hidden agenda to drop the limit across NSW to 90km/h.

The speed limit on one highway dropped, of course it's a precursor to state wide change. The pub I work in recently raised beer prices to $4 a schooner, you know what that means then? That's right, state wide price fixing by all licensed premises.

Police have been largely cut out of traffic enforcement by technology and have lost any discretion to apply the sort of commonsense which makes our roads safe - the sort of discretion which would have given Lewis Hamilton a slap on the wrist rather than create an international incident.

You don't want it to be a huge incident? Stop writing about it. All the police did was book somebody who did something illegal, the media who reported it made it into an international incident.

Of course, as we get into our cars this Easter we need to take road safety seriously, especially on slippery roads. But driving safely means being competent behind the wheel, and paying attention to the road conditions, not making the speedometer your priority.

That pesky speedo, sticking to the speed limit only makes you late. You know what also makes you late? Stop signs and red lights, so ignore them too.