Speeding??????

**Lou Girardin** · 4th November 2003, 14:57

The main difference between NZ and many countries with lower road tolls is driver attitude and training. It's so difficult and expensive to get a licence in the first place, that people respect and value it. They also tend to be more aware and considerate, you have to be when you have cars closing at 250km/h +. Their road laws are more sensible too. You won't see trucks in the faster lanes of an Autobahn, for example.
Whereas, in good old NZ, the LTSA is talking about doing away with actual licence tests.

**wkid_one** · 4th November 2003, 19:00

Originally posted by marty
since when has being a world class high speed driver saved anyone? with full respect, it couldn't save possum bourne when (another) trained high speed driver (allegedly) was somehwere that he shouldn't have been

god help us at 200kph (or any speed for that matter) with johnny 15 year old out with farmer joe learning to drive the family falcon/tractor/landcruiser

Look at Ron from Superbike Magazine, raced in the TT, raced in the BSBK and then crashes a SCOOTER in to the back of a car and dies.

Training isn't the option to fix it alone - money also needs to be poured in to the roading infrastructure in NZ. Our intercity 'highway' - consists of a two lane road, patched in a million places, stock crossing all over the place, a ditch on each side, concrete culvets and bridges everywhere, non-shear up lamp-posts strategically placed every 20 metres, no median barrier, nothing on the edge of the road but a fog line, driveways entering and exiting the 'highway', city centres on the highway, a minimum tolerated speed of 40kph (yes - this is all you need to be able to sustain to drive on any NZ road), farm equipment on the road, potholes and they wonder why people are dying on NZ roads.

Rossi et all speed because the K N O W the condition of the road - how many of these guys fall off when there is oil on the track - shit loads why? cause they don't expect it.

Training will make good drivers on still shit roads.

Also - there is the law of diminishing returns - we are experiencing INCREASING numbers of vehicles on the road and increasing numbers of miles being done by drivers - HOW THE FUCK CAN WE EXPECT THE TOLL TO COME DOWN??? this makes no sense. There is and has to be a statistically accepted number of fatalities based on the number of drivers and miles done - they however are plucking a stupid figure out of mid air - it is ridiculous.

I speed, I drag my knee on the road, I overtake when I probably shouldn't, I RISK MY LIFE - however I choose to do this. The Government in NZ is risking all our lives by neglecting the part the roading conditions have.

Imagine a Utopian roading situation like this. You have a motorway - 2 lanes each way between Auckland and Wellington and Wellington and Invercargil. There are no cities on the route - you take off ramp of secondary motorways to other cities. There is a median barrier which is safe to ALL road users (not like the cheese grater barriers that are in vogue at the moment), and a barrier to the edge of the road preventing ingress from traffic off the road, all crossing are completed by under or over pass. There are no lights, it is all done via off and on ramps - HOW MANY FATALITIES WOULD BE EXPECT??

We seem to be happy to spend money of adverts, and POLICING traffic but a fucken government REFUSES to INVEST money in the future by designing SAFE roading infrastructure.

Sorry - this is a bugbear of mine.

**Redstar** · 4th November 2003, 20:23

When I was 21 back in..never mind I went to USA for a month plus and met..never mind.. but in california they rewarded good drivers with a gold licence. that entitled the holder to discounts on insurance and if you got stopped for a mista mina (is that latin for little offence?) your were more likely to get a butt kick than a fine or demerit. It was worth looking after. The whole system we have is punative and punishment based and does 25 years of clean licence count for Jack sh*t no! but it should.
the residavist offender has so many demerits and fines the whole process becomes a joke but if we rewarded the average joe it might turn a few around?
I would write to Paul Swain and suggest it but he wound'dt reply nor would Rick (I got a bonnie)Barker so I wont waste the postage or maybe I just might.

**SPman** · 4th November 2003, 21:09

The crap road north from Wellington really gets me. Roundabouts and traffic lights in the middle of what appears to be a Motorway???? Followed by a single lane no passing zone for 10k, with a further 50k of mainly single lane "highway" populated by doddering incompetents!

And the Hutt Road. What appears to be a motorway with feckin driveways onto it, which keeps morphing into city streets then back to highway, etc. Christ it was a releif to get to the actual Rimatuka twisties!

Also, because you have the skills to drive at high speeds, doesnt mean you will automatically go everywhere at high speeds. What it does give you is a greater understanding and appreciation of all the factors that make the whole road/driving/riding experience and a better basis on which to make judgements about how fast you can safely travel for any given road/traffic/weather/obstacle situation. (generally)

Also, if you are used to travelling at higher speeds, your automatic drive functions are capable of coping with all the driving tasks at road legal speeds, whilst you can spend more time looking for obstacles etc, instead of coping with the demands of actually controlling the vehicle at 100k! (dont laugh - a LOT of people find just coping with controlling a (car) at 100 k hard work in itself)

**SPman** · 4th November 2003, 21:38

Originally posted by marty
since when has being a world class high speed driver saved anyone? with full respect, it couldn't save possum bourne when (another) trained high speed driver (allegedly) was somehwere that he shouldn't have been

god help us at 200kph (or any speed for that matter) with johnny 15 year old out with farmer joe learning to drive the family falcon/tractor/landcruiser

You just have to remember that with speed comes responsibility. The laws of physics still apply and if you hit something.......! And mistakes will still happen, regardless of skill, experience or whatever. I'm not an advocate for open slather speeding on the highway because there are too many variables and inconsistancies. What I would like to see is a better level of road skills among the bulk of drivers and a more common sense approach to variable speeds according to conditions, etc, not the robotic application of inflexible laws hammering everyone down to the lowest common denominator ostensibly for "our own good" to make politicians look good!

**Lou Girardin** · 5th November 2003, 07:50

Dead right too, wkid one. Put the cages on motorways and leave 'B' roads to us. (and make sure they're swept). Mind you, Euro secondary roads aren't much better than ours. It's just that fewer people use them.
The Targa showed the difference between track and road driving, many of the 'stars' were right out of their depth on unfamiliar roads.

**fritter** · 5th November 2003, 20:26

Originally posted by Lou Girardin

The Targa showed the difference between track and road driving, many of the 'stars' were right out of their depth on unfamiliar roads.

That's the difference - anyone can go fast when they've done the same circuit a million times. The differences between the highest level riders/drivers are down to tenths of seconds and less, since they've all got their own reference points dialed in to (almost) perfection. You can't do that when it's a blind corner which might have gravel/a car wreck/a dead cow/horse shit etc just out of sight.

And the Targa is still far less likely to have hazards like the above...

**fritter** · 5th November 2003, 20:32

and no, before anyone jumps up and down, I am not suggesting that just anyone could be within a hundreth of a second of Rossi's times after getting some decent track time in

but there is a reason why all the TOP LEVEL guys are all so close, and they aren't normally that far above the REALLY good riders, who aren't that far ahead of the pretty good riders who aren't that far ahead of the... etc etc...

**SPman** · 6th November 2003, 06:50

I always reckon riding/driving on real roads is a skill as much as high speed racing! Being able to read the road, conditions, traffic, weather and thenhave that extra intuitive "feeling" for what may be around the next corner, particularly on a new road to you, is what I really enjoy.

Sure, you can go really fast on the roundy rounds, but it all seems so meaningless after a while......

How many top race riders, ride on the roads! Not very many! They all reckon it's too dangerous!

**Marmoot** · 6th November 2003, 21:19

SP: "Steerer" vs "driver"....I like that term

Anyway, also how about acknowledging the risk? Moving things tend to get damaged upon crashes, and if the government doesn't want to acknowledge this risk then we might as well ban all motor vehicles and have the lowest roadtoll in the world, eh?
Frankly speaking, their current goal is not realistic at all. The principle of "this year has to be better than last year" is not realistic considering the diminishing result trend.
Couple that with stereotyping, then we'll have state-victimization.

Officially, according to national statistics, I'm classified either as speed-freak (because I ride plastic bike), or boyracer (because I drive sport car and I'm quite young), or asian driver (because, ahem, I'm asian), or an immigrant. Whether I don't speed at all or I work hard or I pay my taxes, they don't care. I'm just a risk to the ACC as far as they're concerned.