Under 25? Road user?

[yungatart]

Following on from the Safe As meeting in Hastings on the 8th and realising that these meetings are designed to totally turn young people away in droves, another one has been arranged for young people only. This meeting will be youth orientated without the unnecessary beauracracy. The atteendees will be your age group! It will be a nonthreatening place for you to air your views on road safety issues and the things that affect you and your mates.
Provisional date is Sunday August 19, probably 1pm start. I will post more details as they are confirmed. Feel free to PM me with any questions.
This is a great opportunity to have your say
Tell all your mates, they don't have to be riders. Watch this space for more details.
Mods, feel free to move this if necessary, but I want it to be where it will be seen!

[MSTRS]

The following shows just why we need to take an interest in this matter
Deane Jessep
Tonight I attended a 4 hour community work shop in Hastings called "See you there... Safe as". Parts of the workshop showed promise but like most government sponsored consultation initiatives it was relatively ill conceived and is likely to be nothing much more than impotent in the results it achieves. Firstly the consultation is focused on getting the government feedback on three key areas; Alcohol, Speed, and Young Drivers. A great place to start if you are planning on alienating and scapegoat all of the young people you desperately need feed back from, but not so good if your goal is to actually encourage them to participate.
From there it goes progressively downhill, the consultation went out to "Stakeholders"... Everything I hear that word I shudder as it essentially means all of the people who spend the money and make the rules in a particular sector but seldomly the people who are most directly affected, as predicted the room had about 80-90 people in it; most from organizations like the police, local government (me included), ACC, lobby groups... Etc... and lets not forget the 15 odd young people who turned out (most brought along by their school leaders).

The first order of the evening was a parade of various polititcian and bureaucrat introductions that covered most of what we already know about why we were there. Then we watched a silly montage video of people doing good things on the road (Hooking up a trailer correctly, indicating right, wearing helmets etc...) Frankly it was boring, not well made and made me feel like I was wasting my time; looking around the room and discussing it later I was not alone. Next we finally separated off into groups of about 9 and workshopped question one:

What are the specific problems related to speed, alcohol and young drivers that you believe are negatively affecting road safety? If you believe other issues are equally or more important what are they and what are the specific problems associated with those issues?

What the ****!! We are here for this... Oh well lets get into it then... suprisingly my table had great discussion, we got on very well and came up with loads of problems, however we all agreed that the problems we came up with were all no brainers and really were very obvious... Confirming our belief when it came to present all of the other tables came up with similar stuff... "Oh well I suppose the bureaucrats in Wellington must find some of this new" I thought to myself, well hey the problems would not be there to identify by us if they new them... Right?

After dinner (fatty but not too bad, quite yum actually) we hit question two:

What ideas do you have to resolve the problems identified in question one and how could these be implemented in ways that would achieve broad community support?

I guess after quesion one we had this one coming. From my point of view discussion started and stopped at a lack of money on the ground... I observed that we all could see the problems and the solutions to them the only real obstacle was having the money/resources to implement the change we all knew was needed. (my table had three parents, two council youth coordinators, two police officers and a representative from ACC). It was pointed out that a good start would be using the money earned on roads from fines for education involving road safety instead of dumping it into the consolidated fund.

I am not going to rant anymore... In fact I am going to put my time where my mouth is... I am going to organize my own Safe As workshop in the next couple of weeks and it will be attended by no one but the targeted youth drivers and a couple of guidance staff... Watch this space!

Afterthought: The previous rant is by no means an indictment on the local Roadsafe HB staff who organised the workshop under the government provided framework, and all things considered the outcome was pretty good... it just did not come from the under represented young drivers

[MSTRS]

Hi again, I have decided after my attendance and scathing report of the Hawkes Bay workshop to go on an run my own for just young drivers... after some comments on my blog I have decided that as a short lead up to it I will ask on this forum for ideas to modify the basic workshop to be more suitable for young drivers only.

I am on top of the obvious such as, no silly DVD, no formal bureuacratic speeches, and a laid back environment with Pizza and Drink, what I am really looking for is the benefit of other people workshop experiences regarding things that were suggested by the young people who they attended with etc...

I am a 27 year old Napier City Councillorand our councils representative on Roadsafe HB
But more importantly I am the concerned father of two young boys, and active experienced road user, and a (long time ago) reformed boy racer.

Deane Jessep

And 2 responses...

AKILLA said...
Dear Deanne,

We completely agree with your commentary. The Wellington Safeas workshop was conducted in the same manner. Looking around that the summaries of other workshops, loading the questions to Speed, Alcohol and Youth worked for the MOT and LTNZ. Fatigue and Drugs rarely appeared.

It is a great idea, to set up an independent blog, drawing in commentary on road safety issues. We expect that once the workshops have been completed the Safeas road safety workshop will dissappear - with a lot of great ideas and great people going with it.

We are AKILLA, New Zealands' first private road safety campaign on "drowsy driving". Our website can be located at www.akilla.co.nz
You will find a number of interesting postings on the Safeas website by AKILLA, wich will most certainly be relevent to your area.

Best regards,

Martin Jenkins
NZ Sleep Safety Ltd

Anonymous said...
The ideas on the safe as website however revolutionary will not disappear. A full back up copy of the road using experts input has been made for just such an event. Which many site users are predicting.

Deane I hope you realise that the first thing that needs to happn before progress can be made is a complte overhaul of the current approach. Asking teens to come and comment upon or develop the preset agenda is called "indoctrination".

They need to be given the real facts not just Govt approved spin before their input can be meaningful not a charade.
And the Government is so far refusing to release to us the many pertinent real facts requested in the safe as website.

[Hitcher]

Yee hah! A Movement!

[yungatart]

Well, we are ever hopeful....
BTW, you don't have to be in HB- I don't care where you come from, as long as you get to this meeting!
Free pizza and fizz!
Giveaways!!
Roll up folks!

[MSTRS]

Yee hah! A Movement!
Oops, sorry! I'll close the door!

[Hitcher]

Hmmmm. Pizza...

[Zukin]

I would offer to lend a hand, but I am over 25!! :)

I am currently involved in the Speed Working group (for so called Boy Racers) here in Hawkes Bay.
Now it is funny that they have identified that speed in not the biggest killer, it sounds like this is really starting to get some momentum from all sides.

Cheers and best of luck
Scott

[MSTRS]

I would offer to lend a hand, but I am over 25!! :)

I am currently involved in the Speed Working group (for so called Boy Racers) here in Hawkes Bay.
Now it is funny that they have identified that speed in not the biggest killer, it sounds like this is really starting to get some momentum from all sides.

Cheers and best of luck
Scott
Well, from some sides anyway!
We would be real glad of your help (despite your advanced years) - we want the kids to have useful people there to keep them on the topic...

[yungatart]

*BUMP*
And to think I'm the one accused of being apathetic - where are you all???

[MattRSK]

I have gotten a bit lost, what would you like us under 25's to do?

[yungatart]

Read the first post! Basically, we are running a Safe As workshop/meeting for Under 25's only! No old farts - except those putting on the meeting, of course.
Pm me if you need further information

[MattRSK]

Ok, will be there. Thank goodness its a sunday. Im not sure If I know much about road safety. Apart from the fact that everytime I need a registration I almost go bankrupt.

[yungatart]

Read up on the "Safe As" meetings that have been happening. You don't have to be aware of what the PC brigade want you to know about road safety - as long as you have some idea of what you think would make for better/safer conditions for you as a road user etc
Will update this thread with details as they come to hand
Cheers, Matt
Look forward to meeeting you..feel free to bring some mates!!

[MattRSK]

Ok doing some research over this week then. See you sunday! Most of my mates would not be interested. I will do my bit though. Cheers

[Lou Girardin]

Here's an email I've sent to Annette King, Harry Duynhoven and Maurice Williamson.

[yungatart]

Thanks for that Lou. Every little helps...
Cheers

[R6_kid]

go Lou.

Pity i missed them. As you said, they were so underpublicised that i wouldnt have known they existed if it wasnt for this website.

[MattRSK]

hmm I have just been reading over the safe as website. Seems to me that the following words have been left out. Propaganda, conscripton and Hitler Youth. Makes me a bit tentative as to wether or not I want to turn up. I dont want to be brain washed.

[MSTRS]

Propaganda, conscripton and Hitler Youth. .... brain washed.

You would probably be right as to the original organiser's agenda. However, as intelligent roadusers, who are/will be affected by their bullshit, it is up to us to ensure that our impressionable youth are exposed to all sides of this 'debate'. If only to see the bullshit for what it is, and to make them (the youth) think for themselves.

[MattRSK]

Hey since we are making so much damn money off of speeding tickets. Why not convince people that speeding is the devil and people must be punished with large fines for doing. Lets call it the Schutzstaffel Policy.

[yungatart]

A better idea is to take what is paid in traffic enforcement and put it back into roading or better still, driver/rider education, rather than the general slush fund to pay for MP's junkets

[yungatart]

Meeting postponed - due to the wheels of beauracracy grinding ever so slowly! Why am I not surprised? Will probably be on the 27/8 but I will post it in here as soon as I know.

[yungatart]

This meeting is on Sunday 27 August
Venue Taradale High School Library
50 Murphy Rd
Taradale
Napier
Time 2.00pm
Refreshments provided
PM me for further details.
Lets make this thing rock people, 'tis your opportunity to be heard!!!!

[yungatart]

*bump*.....

[yungatart]

Just got home from the under 25 Safe as workshop in Napier. it was well attended 35 -45 younguns there, all boi racers apart from one lone KBer - thanks Speights_bud, for your support.
It was interesting to see that these guys have the same concerns as we do re road safety issues... and not necessarily the demon speed as the gubbmint propaganda has us believe.
They had a strong belief in more driver education, extending even to free compulsory refresher courses every 10 - 15 years for all drivers/riders!!
One thing I found interesting was they believe that the blood/alcohol level for all L and R class licence holders should be zero and that fines should go down and demerits be increased...
When it came to road engineering stuff, a lot of them suggested that those on PD do the work, as it would cost the country less...
An interesting way to spend a Sunday avo!
One other thing worthy of note.. the approximate cost of running the gubbmint sponsored workshop in Hastings a couple of weeks ago, was $5000 plus the cost of flights and accomodation for 4 boffins from Welly. Compare that to the cost of running todays one - $171!! Thats your hard earned tax dollars people!!!!!