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Would we admonish thieves not to steal, and expect that to cure theft? Would we expect football players not to grab each other's shirts or not trip each other if there wasn't a referee on the field with a whistle?

Would we preach to assaulters and rapists about making responsible decisions, and expect them to behave themselves?

Would we post up pictures of the mutilated bodies of sky-surfers and bungee-jumpers and expect that to discourage thrill seekers?

The answer to all these questions is a resounding "no".

Then why should we expect scolding and preaching and real or fake vignettes or posters to alter behaviour on our roads? Our experience shows that for the majority of daredevils, scofflaws and just plain people-in-a-hurry you might as well be "whistling Dixie".

From the sports field to the business executive office, we follow up on the rules of play with enforcement and penalties to suit. So why should it be any different in traffic on our roads?

All the admonishments to not drink and drive, to take personal responsibility for speeding are as useful as Nancy Reagan's "just say no" was in curbing drug use; the calls for abstinence useful in changing out of wedlock pregnancies; the plethora of laws useful in halting the illegal activities of a Richard Nixon or Bernard Madoff.

Somehow, local leaders seem to think they've fulfilled their duty by scolding and preaching, but it's all hot air and wasted words unless it is matched by enforcement - serious, sustained enforcement. It has to be serious and sustained because what has happened so far has been the equivalent of crying "wolf". As examples, the police have several times promised a crackdown of one sort or another, and politicians passed laws and made claims for a point system - neither has worked.

And all the bluster fed us at the time just evaporated.

Here's the formula:

n 1. Set the speed limit. Cease the stupidity of having a legal limit on paper but having the real limit thirty to fifty percent higher.

n 2. Enforce the speed limit. If it means bringing back the cycle squad, then do it. If it means raising the police complement to match the increase in demand for police services, then do it. And if the fuzzy-heads are fearful of a police state, then spend the money on remote cameras (equipped with microphones, perhaps) to automate much of the process - but do it!

n 3. Prosecute the bounders. No breaks. From diddley-bops to Cabinet Ministers, if you get caught speeding or driving while intoxicated, you go to Court.

n 4. There's one more step: publish the results. For enforcement to have a deterrent value, the motoring public has to be informed about that enforcement. If the transgression and punishment occur in secret (deliberate or not) then any deterrent value is totally lost. Worse, if there is no public reporting of the event, the average road user is encouraged to think there is no enforcement taking place, and thus feels free to break the rules. Publish the name. Publish the speed they were caught doing (or other transgression). And publish the punishment they received.

Make sure that potential traffic law-breakers know what befell those previously caught. Buy space if you have to so that every week on the same day each week, we can read or hear or see (CITV) what happened to last week's traffic lawbreakers. That's how deterrence occurs.

The public is tired of the talk. We're tired of the endless moaning and groaning about personal responsibility from the very same people who are abdicating theirs. It's a lame and shameful excuse for government officials to say they have no control over the police.

They have no control over U.S. government actions; that doesn't stop them from hiring lobbyists, spending our money on them and crowing about their efforts. I want to see that same level of effort exerted on the carnage here at home. Lobby the Chief of Police, lobby the Governor, pay for details of convictions to be published; do whatever it takes. But do it!

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