This year's pre-Budget document, launched by the government last week, has been praised for being less technical and more tangible than last year's. Though only proposals so far, the document seems to be loaded with good intentions - covering various areas that affect people's daily lives.

Two proposals are strange, however. Not because they are being made, but rather because of how and where they are being made.

The first concerns the suggestion to raise speed limits in non-residential areas to 80 kilometres per hour across the board.

On the whole this would be a sensible measure. Ever since the introduction of speed cameras, the imposed limits have been too low because the stretches of road where they are placed are by and large able to handle higher speed; this in spite of the supposedly expert advice on which the speeds were based.

It has also, rather ironically, proved dangerous at times, because after learning the location of cameras some motorists approach them at speed and then brake suddenly without paying much attention to what is behind them, before pressing the accelerator again to continue on their way.

A convincing argument can also be made that speed cameras have been placed in the wrong locations. Never does one see a camera in an area where a road twists and turns - which is where many accidents take place - or in heavily built-up areas where children cross the road. They are instead on straight stretches.

The most recent camera to be installed (so far not in operation), on the St Paul's Bay bypass, is a case in point. Rather than being close to the roundabout which was the scene of a horrific crash just months ago, it has been placed half-way along the bypass.

All these factors have led people to conclude that the installation of speed cameras was conceived not with safety in mind, but to make money for the local councils that are responsible for them.

So, in the pre-Budget document, the government seems to be stepping in (as indeed it should) to remedy the situation.

Yet safety is not the argument being used to raise the speed limit to 80 km/h. No, we are told instead that the measure is necessary because it results in higher fuel efficiency and lower emissions.

Though true, this line of reasoning is a little perplexing, since the only object of speed limits is to make the roads safer while at the same time ensuring motorists can get from A to B with minimum fuss. Fuel efficiency should play no role in these considerations.

The second proposal, also related to motoring, suggests fining motorists who leave their vehicle engines on unnecessarily. Again, in itself this is a sound measure because, as a 10-year-old boy pointed out when asked by The Times last week, "it is bad for the environment".

However, one issue needs to be ironed out before this measure can come to pass: Will our legislators have the gall to approve it?

For the drivers of ministerial cars are the prime culprits - probably in part because the taxpayer pays the fuel bill - for leaving engines running with the air-conditioning on while they wait for their boss to exit a meeting. They even ensure these officials are driven right up to the door irrespective of whether that means going unnecessarily round the block or driving over a pedestrianised area (Merchants Street being a case in point).

These insulting practices must cease before otherwise sensible measures are introduced - hopefully without delay.