New laws to improve your motoring

[davereid]

Highlights of the Ministry of Transports Safer Journeys plan for you to enjoy


- Further evaluation of extending the learner licence period from six to twelve months
- Further evaluation of compulsory third party vehicle insurance
- Support the future introduction of random roadside drug testing
- Implement targeted programmes of treatments for popular motorcycle routes
- Increase the use of cameras for routine speed control (speed and red light) to allow Police to focus on higher risk drivers
-Rebalance penalties for speed with higher demerits and lower fines and investigate adding demerits and reducing fines for speed cameras
- Investigate the use of point-to-point speed cameras
- Develop a GPS-based speed management system across the network, and develop trials and initial applications for ISA and other emerging Intelligent Transport Systems
- improve the safety of riders who have returned to motorcycling after a long absence and whose skills are likely to have deteriorated
- Employ new technologies to restrict high risk drivers

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Key things here from my point of view... with what I think it may mean

Demerit points from speed camera fines..
This must mean an assumption that the registered owner is the driver, or that he will provide the data on who was driving. For many of us with families, a ticket arriving three weeks after the offence will mean Dad wears it.

This is the current situation with speed cameras and parking tickets, as if you cant identify who parked the car, thats tough, you get to pay the fine anyway. Of course demerit points are a lot more serious than a fine.

* VIC roads has been trying to get motorcycle front number plates for this reason - so they can offer a front on photo to help identify the driver. (VIC roads Front number plates remains "under active investigation with no current solution found")

Point to point cameras..
Same deal - demerits instead of or as well as fines ? with automatic assumption that the registered owner is guilty, with massive penalties even if he is genuinely unable to identify the driver ?

GPS Speed management
Fitted to your vehicle to allow either control of your speed automatically, or periodic downloading so your fines and demerits can be applied ?

Improve the safety of returning bikers
Automatic removal of licence classes if you don't have a vehicle in the class for more than a designated period ? Thus making retuning riders "learners" again ?

Employ new technologies to restrict high risk drivers
Alcohol interlocks ?
GPS speed enforcement technology ?
The equivalent of the prisoners "ankle bracelet" fixed to your motorcycle ?

[duckonin]

None of this will work !! What is needed for all drivers, riders ect is a micro chip with relevant data 'road rules' and the like embeded into the back of their head before they ride or drive....There would still be a few prangs due to corrupt data..

[p.dath]

I'm pretty happy with this. This is what came out of the safer journeys consultation document.

- Further evaluation of extending the learner licence period from six to twelve months
- Further evaluation of compulsory third party vehicle insurance

I support further evaluation of our current systems to see if they can be improved.

- Implement targeted programmes of treatments for popular motorcycle routes

To put this in context, this was to do with treatments of the road - how can the roads be made safer at motorcycle black spots.

- Increase the use of cameras for routine speed control (speed and red light) to allow Police to focus on higher risk drivers

If I recall correctly, there has been an increase on red light runners, and the primary driver was to get more red light cameras. Could have remembered wrongly.

-Rebalance penalties for speed with higher demerits and lower fines and investigate adding demerits and reducing fines for speed cameras

Moving to demerits and away from fines was being pushed hard to get away from the "revenue collectors" image. So this is for everyone who would rather loose their licence for demerits instead of getting a fine and complaining that the Police are revenue collecting instead of just doing their job.

Personally, I think it is a good move. The problem with fines is it affects people differently. A fine could be a weeks wages for one person, and a days wages for another.
Demerits affect all road users equally, with equal consequences.

- Investigate the use of point-to-point speed cameras

This is going to happen eventually, no mater what. It means your average speed will be measured over the length of a road. So slowing down for the camera and then speeding up again won't work anymore. I think it will be a while before the speed camera network are re-fitted to support this.

Demerit points from speed camera fines..
This must mean an assumption that the registered owner is the driver, or that he will provide the data on who was driving. For many of us with families, a ticket arriving three weeks after the offence will mean Dad wears it.

Dad will wear the speed camera ticket now if he can't say who was using the vehicle.
It just means if you are the registered owner of a vehicle you have to be responsible enough to keep a record of who used the vehicle when. Not hard really. And if you can't be arsed to do this simple task then you'll have to accept the consequences.

This is the current situation with speed cameras and parking tickets, as if you cant identify who parked the car, thats tough, you get to pay the fine anyway. Of course demerit points are a lot more serious than a fine.

GPS Speed management
Fitted to your vehicle to allow either control of your speed automatically, or periodic downloading so your fines and demerits can be applied ?

No - fitted to the road side to measure your average speed between two different points on a road.

Improve the safety of returning bikers
Automatic removal of licence classes if you don't have a vehicle in the class for more than a designated period ? Thus making retuning riders "learners" again ?

I'd prefer a "suspension" of unused classes, rather than a removal. Then there can be a process to get those riders with a suspended class up to speed. Otherwise you can't identify them from brand new riders, who may need different treatment. Don't know how you could make it work practically though.

Employ new technologies to restrict high risk drivers
Alcohol interlocks ?

Alcohol Interlocks have already been approved. You'll probably find the "new technologies" don't exist yet. There just making provision of things that will come along.

[Scuba_Steve]

Highlights of the Ministry of Transports Safer Journeys plan for you to enjoy

- Further evaluation of compulsory third party vehicle insurance

This will only increase cost with NO advantage. Just look at the Brits they continue to have trouble with it not only getting people to comply but also a lot of insurance fraud (purposely causing at crash for the pay out) and last AA study into it showed 96% are insured anyways and of those that weren't 84% cant be.

- Increase the use of cameras for routine speed control (speed and red light) to allow Police to focus on higher risk drivers

These are shown again & again & again to increase accident rates. They make roads more dangerous NOT safer

-Rebalance penalties for speed with higher demerits and lower fines and investigate adding demerits and reducing fines for speed cameras

This would have more affect than current, moneys money you make it you lose it but demerit points have an effect

- Investigate the use of point-to-point speed cameras

again contrary to the objective

If they want to make the roads safer scrap speed scams and any "speed" related offence should come under dangerous driving meaning we can get on with driving at a safe comfortable speed & only those who ARE dangerous will be charged! also stop giving dangerous old people a free pass "because they're old" & re-offending drunk drivers NEED to be dealt with!

[gazmascelle]

im all for cameras at intersections. Almost been hit a few times by people running red lights lately

[Banditbandit]

People people people .. they are infringing on our freedom ...

In a typical authoritarian style those im power are coming up with what, on face value, appear to be good reasons to impinge on our freedom ... but these are NOT good reasons to do so ...

There are many comments in this forum on how PC and controlling and stupid our OSH laws are ... but the same people want these road rules ... ???? Can't you see where this is leading ???? We will have a totally controlled road environment ... Frankly I'd rather walk ...

In Europe many roads are open speed limit - or much higher than in Godzone ... (Yes, I know our roads are not that great ... but many here have opened the throttle and done those kind of speeds on our roads ... what does that say about our roads ???) and most European countries don't have the high death toll we do ... despite the higher speed limit) Education is the key - not words on a bit of paper or mechanical limiters ...

I, for one refuse, to give anyone claiming some spurious authority any power over me at all ...

(Some watery tart distributing swords is no mandate for executive authority)

[DEATH_INC.]

im all for cameras at intersections. Almost been hit a few times by people running red lights lately

Me too!
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[p.dath]

People people people .. they are infringing on our freedom ...

In a typical authoritarian style those im power are coming up with what, on face value, appear to be good reasons to impinge on our freedom ... but these are NOT good reasons to do so ...

I hope you expressed your opinion to the Government when they asked for the Safer Journeys submissions. The Government does not contain mind readers.

The Government does what the people ask for, and in this case, this is what the majority of the people asked for.

[Genestho]

Indeed - the public consultation was well publicised last year, this was the chance to get in amongst it.

Anyway the summary of findings from the public consultation are attached...http://www.badd.co.nz/files/SaferJou...ubmissions.pdf

And first actions...http://www.transport.govt.nz/saferjo...%20Actions.pdf

[duckonin]

I hope you expressed your opinion to the Government when they asked for the Safer Journeys submissions. The Government does not contain mind readers.

The Government does what the people ask for, and in this case, this is what the majority of the people asked for.

Do you actually believe the shit you write ???

Mind readers !! do they even have a mind ?

[davereid]

Indeed - the public consultation was well publicised last year, this was the chance to get in amongst it.]

Yes, I made submissions on various areas. As usual, the government are proceeding with business as usual regardless of submissions.

For example, submitters said, speed enforcement was less important than skill levels.

The government appears to have listened to the bits it liked by making licences and training harder,

but ignored the bits it didn't like by introducing stricter and harder penalties for speeding, and adding an extra layer of automatic electronic enforcement.

Which submitters precisely were clamouring for demerit points on speed cameras and the introduction of automatic number plate recognition cameras ?


I await the cries when a speeding ticket for the family car rocks in, 6 weeks after the offence, and everyone in the household denys it.

So the owner cops the points.

Lets not worry about proof or any of that crap.

This is way to important to require that !

Someone has to pay, even if its just because they didn't know who was driving !

[Genestho]

Yes, I made submissions on various areas. As usual, the government are proceeding with business as usual regardless of submissions.

For example, submitters said, speed enforcement was less important than skill levels.

The government appears to have listened to the bits it liked by making licences and training harder,

but ignored the bits it didn't like by introducing stricter and harder penalties for speeding, and adding an extra layer of automatic electronic enforcement.

Which submitters precisely were clamouring for demerit points on speed cameras and the introduction of automatic number plate recognition cameras ?


I await the cries when a speeding ticket for the family car rocks in, 6 weeks after the offence, and everyone in the household denys it.

So the owner cops the points.

Lets not worry about proof or any of that crap.

This is way to important to require that !

Someone has to pay, even if its just because they didn't know who was driving !

Well I have to say, I personally don't know which submitters would have focussed on this area, how to find the info - maybe an OIA request to MOT - 20 working days - which would further depend on which submitters want information released to the public.

I guess it would have to boil down as to what the submitters size representation is, relevance and reasoning would be - which needs to be researched and shown as successful.
Also as to how many submissions were mirrored and therefore made into 1 submission - there was a bit of that going on here...

All I could suggest is to make another submission through select committee and request to produce an oral submission as well?

[davereid]

Well I have to say, I personally don't know which submitters would have focussed on this area, how to find the info - maybe an OIA request to MOT - 20 working days - which would further depend on which submitters want information released to the public.

I guess it would have to boil down as to what the submitters size representation is, and reasoning would be - which needs to be researched and proved as successful.
Also as to how many submissions were mirrored and therefor made into 1 submission - there was a bit of that going on here...

All I could suggest is to make another submission through select committee and ask to produce an oral submission as well?

Actually, I don't really think that it matters, or at least that our submissions matter.

Automatic number plate recognition, electronic number plates, GPS tracking etc are really driven by money, not safety, although governments clearly like to be able to pin it on safety.

The submitters would have been government organisations, ANPR and intelligent roading systems are coming to allow the abstraction of money, for tolls, congestion, carbon, whatever can be used to justify it. So they will arrive in time, regardless of any safety cost benefit.

Motorcycles just present a particular challenge, as they don't seem to work well with electronics tolling systems, lack front number plates etc etc.

The future will be toll roads, and public private partnership toll roads. Its not a matter of if you get a front number plate or electronic tag, its when, and what local road will force it on you.

[Genestho]

I'm not sure I can believe that our submissions don't matter, as I know the reality relating to lack of data behind lowering limits did appear to matter.

Did you have a squizz through the regulatory impact statments? I only looked through the alcohol related changes one myself..

[PirateJafa]

I await the cries when a speeding ticket for the family car rocks in, 6 weeks after the offence, and everyone in the household denys it.

So the owner cops the points.

Someone has to pay, even if its just because they didn't know who was driving !

Boo fucking hoo if simply putting a clipboard besides the keys to the cars is too difficult for you. It would take two seconds for someone to scribble their initials and the date/time as they grab the keys from the hook.

If a ticket arrives and there is nobody recorded as having used the car, and nobody is willing to 'fess up, then remove the privilege from everyone with access to it.

Some of the other points in the OP I'm a bit iffy about, but your bitching and whining on THAT point is just plain daft.