Tickets for 4km/h over the speed limit this Queens Birthday weekend

[quickbuck]

i find this road rule to be good for the road toll but not good for over taking.

Nope, not even good for the road toll....
See, these games of Cat and Mouse can end up in two dissimilar vehicles tangling together....

[miloking]

This has already happened - as expected:

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-sto...r-54-year-low/

Alas, the police hierarchy will always use statistical blips to justify further draconian revenue gathering.

There will always be occasional bad weekends on the roads. One crash involving a People Mover or SUV can add several bodies to the weekend toll. But at the end of the year, it will all balance out. Yet again, police have used such statistically high figures to justify this move. As expected, this weekend's holiday toll is lower, and they have triumphantly declared that this measure has reduced the road toll. It's crap.

When the next statistically high holiday road toll occurs, there will be no admission that the changes didn't work. It will simply be an opportunity foist further revenue gathering nonsense on the public.

Reducing the tolerance to within 4% of the limit will simply result in many accidental breaches and subsequent infringements, due to normal speed fluctuations which happen on our roads. Gleefully pinging Mr or Mrs Lawful for negligable infringements at the bottom of dips in the road or at the end of passing lanes, will do NOTHING for road safety.

The real speedsters (those travelling at over 110km/h) are not affected by this change. They took the risk of being caught before, and that risk hasn't changed. They will continue to speed as before.

I am usually law-abiding on the roads, choosing to generally travel at the speed limit. But this illogical transfer of blame is pissing me off.

Well thats good for me as i like to travel bit faster than 110 sometimes, so while our almighty fuzz is busy giving that 56km/h ticket to Mrs."Never had ticket her whole life" once they chased her down in her people mover or VeeDub Beetle...at least they wont pay as much unwanted attention to me.
Otherwise yeah the campaign must have been complete success because there cant be any other reasons why there wasnt enough people on the road this weekend....yeah right!

Considering how much they lie to us i wouldnt be surprised that there isnt some car rolled in ditch full of dead people, covered with tarpaulin waiting to be "discovered" on tuesday morning...but i guess that would make me conspiracy theorist and there are much..much easier way to fudge stats (ehm...ACC...)


And one more thing even this lame quiz from stuff explains this weekends low road toll clearly but our retarded police still believes their 4km/h tolerance saved the world!

[MSTRS:Me]

So...one fatality (apparently).
How many crashes were there, compared to 'normal'? And what kind were they?
Easter's carnage was mostly down to head-ons. Dropping 10kph collectively wouldn't stop the deaths. As we've said, that was a statistical anomaly. And so was this weekend. Normal service will not resume shortly, because it was never interrupted.

[flyingcrocodile46]

I think we are perhaps missing the point a little ourselves.

I don't believe that anybody (police incl) think that a 4-5kph speed reduction is going to save lives. It is more likely that the objective is to simply drive home the message that exceeding the speed limit by any amount is unacceptable and they are simply attempting to make us fear the consequences of speeding (via fines and demerit points) because we haven't responded so well to the advertising campaign aimed at making us fear the death and damages consequences of speeding (in their opinion).

Not that I agree with their approach. Just voicing the possibility that the logic behind their moves is not founded in the belief that 4 or 5kph speed reduction in itself is the answer so much as the need to change our perceived (in their opinion) ignorance of the consequences of speeding.

[Ixion]

The telling news report in Auckland is the one that didn't happen.

Normally on a holiday weekend there are reports in the press of the giant traffioc jams, usually with pictures of motionless queues of traffic.

No such reports this time. presumably becasue there was no congestion. Q. E. D

[oldrider]

It appears there was much less traffic on the roads over the weekend, mainly due to the crappy weather!

Those that were out and about were able to use the road much more clearly and get to their destination without undue hold up or delay.

Clearer roads less need to speed so improve the roads.

Broad (overweight) Howard and his claim that the closer margin of speed error and closer attention to it by police would have been a fail as a test over that weekend because nothing was normal!

They will grab it like a dog with a bone and manufacture all manner of statistics to back up their claims and their field staff will have to wear the brunt of the public backlash once again!

Bullshit just breeds bullshit whereas respect has to be earned.

[duckonin]

So...one fatality (apparently).
How many crashes were there, compared to 'normal'? And what kind were they?
Easter's carnage was mostly down to head-ons. Dropping 10kph collectively wouldn't stop the deaths. As we've said, that was a statistical anomaly. And so was this weekend. Normal service will not resume shortly, because it was never interrupted.

Just read the news, there was still 332 crashes over the weekend to investigate, compared to 374 last year for the same
period..

[slofox]

I think we are perhaps missing the point a little ourselves.

I don't believe that anybody (police incl) think that a 4-5kph speed reduction is going to save lives. It is more likely that the objective is to simply drive home the message that exceeding the speed limit by any amount is unacceptable and they are simply attempting to make us fear the consequences of speeding (via fines and demerit points) because we haven't responded so well to the advertising campaign aimed at making us fear the death and damages consequences of speeding (in their opinion).

Not that I agree with their approach. Just voicing the possibility that the logic behind their moves is not founded in the belief that 4 or 5kph speed reduction in itself is the answer so much as the need to change our perceived (in their opinion) ignorance of the consequences of speeding.

Perzackerly. The effectiveness of this campaign is solely that of a "special one off" type scenario. Speeds may well have been lower and driving was perhaps safer - certainly it was probably more thoughtful. The one off nature of this campaign brings home the point to drivers that they are at greater risk than usual of getting pinched. So they are, for once in their lives, driving with their brains turned on instead of turned off.

Make the 4km/hr tolerance permanent and within a month it will have become the status quo and everyone will go back to driving with their brains off again with the predictable return of dorky driving practices and all their concomittant effects on crash rates...

[BoristheBiter]

Bullshit just breeds bullshit whereas respect has to be earned.

Looks like KB is here to stay for a very long time.

[riffer]

from Stuff:

A single "needless" death marred what looks set to become the lowest Queen's Birthday Weekend road toll since records began.
Police said the low toll was partly due to their "zero tolerance" blitz on speed but also because holiday drivers had policed their own driving.
Up to 4pm yesterday, there had been 292 crashes, police roading national manager Superintendent Paula Rose said.
"Last year for the same time period we had 341, so it's a considerable reduction, especially given the nasty weather across the country."
Last Queen's Birthday Weekend, 10 people died and 159 were injured in road accidents, and 12 people died during Easter weekend this year. "Easter was just awful – so many families with whopping great holes left in them," Ms Rose said.
Police did not have figures on how many people had been injured this weekend, but the number was likely to be lower, she said.
She put that down to a tough stance from police on speeding, with marked cars out in force and drivers caught travelling at more than 4kmh over the limit ticketed.
"It's dramatic the difference it's made. We've targeted the slow drivers too – they can be very problematic."
She would not say if police would consider making the temporary 4km tolerance limit permanent.
"Like any holiday weekend, we'll review our tactics afterwards to see whether the things we did worked or didn't work."
Drivers had done their part, she said. "They've policed their own driving – they're the ones that have made the choice to slow down, to travel at the appropriate following distance, to drive to the conditions."
The "catch rate" at drink-drive checkpoints throughout the country was also low, Ms Rose said.
Wet weather had not deterred people from travelling, with plenty of traffic on the road during the weekend. Police hoped more rain expected overnight would not add to the death toll before the official holiday period ended at 6am today.
This year was the first time since 1956, when records began, that only one person died on the roads during Queen's Birthday Weekend.
Early on Sunday, Aroha Ormsby, 28, the mother of three young children, died when the car she was in veered off the road at Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast after a from a party.
The car hit a boulder and Ms Ormsby, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was catapulted from the passenger seat.
The male driver was not seriously injured but Ms Ormsby, the only passenger, died at the scene.
She and the driver had both been drinking and police said they were disheartened that speed and alcohol were both factors in a "needless loss of young life".

[riffer]

Perzackerly. The effectiveness of this campaign is solely that of a "special one off" type scenario. Speeds may well have been lower and driving was perhaps safer - certainly it was probably more thoughtful. The one off nature of this campaign brings home the point to drivers that they are at greater risk than usual of getting pinched. So they are, for once in their lives, driving with their brains turned on instead of turned off.

Make the 4km/hr tolerance permanent and within a month it will have become the status quo and everyone will go back to driving with their brains off again with the predictable return of dorky driving practices and all their concomittant effects on crash rates...

I agree with you 100%

[Hawkeye]

from Stuff:


"It's dramatic the difference it's made.

Wet weather had not deterred people from travelling, with plenty of traffic on the road during the weekend. Police hoped more rain expected overnight would not add to the death toll before the official holiday period ended at 6am today.

Yeah!! Wet weather didn't deter travelling - Tui moment. No 2-3 hour queues trying to get north from Welly on Friday. No 2-3 hour queues trying to get back through Otaki on Monday. No reports on the news of massive traffic jams up north etc etc.

from Stuff:

The car hit a boulder and Ms Ormsby, who was not wearing a seatbelt, was catapulted from the passenger seat.
The male driver was not seriously injured but Ms Ormsby, the only passenger, died at the scene.
She and the driver had both been drinking and police said they were disheartened that speed and alcohol were both factors in a "needless loss of young life".

So both had been drinking, the passenger was not wearing a seat belt, but it must have been speed that killed her. No one deserves to die like that but unfortunately she made her choices. She choose to get in a car where the driver had been drinking. She choose not to put her seat belt on. But speed must have been a contributing factor.
No! the only contributing factor was the dipstick that got behind the wheel of a cage whilst over the limit and killed someone. It could quite easily have been a pedestrian or a biker coming the other way taken out by this guy.

[Max Preload]

No! the only contributing factor was the dipstick that got behind the wheel of a cage whilst over the limit and killed someone. It could quite easily have been a pedestrian or a biker coming the other way taken out by this guy.

Now you're just being a silly boy. You know as well as I do that had the drink-driver been driving under the speed limit nothing would have happened regardless of her wearing her seatbelt or not. Or haven't you been watching the TV ads?

[scumdog]

The one off nature of this campaign brings home the point to drivers that they are at greater risk than usual of getting pinched. So they are, for once in their lives, driving with their brains turned on instead of turned off.

Make the 4km/hr tolerance permanent and within a month it will have become the status quo and everyone will go back to driving with their brains off again with the predictable return of dorky driving practices and all their concomittant effects on crash rates...

Very true the first part - nothing like a 'hazard' that was previously unnoticed to get peoples attention and make them focus.

Sadly also very true the second part.

So what needs to happen is to rotate the perceived 'hazards' regularly so people are always focussed.!

[flyingcrocodile46]

Very true the first part - nothing like a 'hazard' that was previously unnoticed to get peoples attention and make them focus.

Sadly also very true the second part.

So what needs to happen is to rotate the perceived 'hazards' regularly so people are always focussed.!

Now you are on to it. Make it so Mr Scumdog.