the same as everywhere else
higher than the normal tolerance (eg 40%)
open ended - police should not enforce the speed limit n passing lanes
The 2010 NZ Land Transport Safety Strategy has run it's course, lessons have been learned and the 2020 Strategy is in train. One lesson that has been learned is that the old crime & punishment approach has failed to tackle the top causes of accidents - a new way is being sought. Polls like this are useful input but probably only as a pilot for larger research. Although decision makers are listening and taking submissions. However, the first step is to see if there is anything to be said on this matter: Are we happy with current speed limit enforcement or is there something to be improved - in this instance with respect to passing lanes.
"Statistics are used as a drunk uses lampposts - for support, not illumination."
That's the effect though. Currently the effective open road speed limit is 110km/h, on holiday weekends it's 105km/h. If it were raised to 140km/h on passing lanes while overtaking then a significant proportion of people, including myself, would travel at the higher effect limit whenever possible to do so without risking a ticket. Maybe not always in the car, but it'd make no difference to fuel use on the bike.
That's the idea - I should have made it clearer.
Three times actually. They were probably doing less than the speed limit prior to the passing lane and then sped up. So the two you mention and a third for impeding a few minutes earlier;-) (Just kidding - if I can be sure the Police won't fish in passing lanes anymore I'll get a whole lot more relaxed about impeders)If those being passed are in excess of the 10% tolerance they should be pinged twice, once for speeding and once for preventing overtaking.
I've edited my post to make it clearer that I meant while fulfilling the criteria for the higher tolerance.
Also, I'm not sure it would be that easy to determine whether an overtake was occurring. Does the overtaking vehicle need to be in the passing lane before starting to accelerate? If the answer was "yes" then that's straightforward to enforce but less practical in terms of keeping the passing lane clear unless it's being used. A question that would be likely to cause more trouble would be how close does the overtaking vehicle need to get to the one it's passing before the higher tolerance applies? Call it x metres, it'll come up in court whenever someone gets a ticket in a passing lane.
I would assume the 3 second rule applies? They should be within 3 - 4 seconds of the car infront before starting to accelerate while moving into the passing lane. As far as I know, moving in to the other lane and accelerating to a higher speed happen at the same time.
To keep the amount of time spent out of the left lane to a minimum I do a significant amount of accelerating prior to moving out. This applies whether using a passing lane or oncoming lane.
EDIT: Also, basing it on time wouldn't work very well as it would be dependent on speed. If you were doing 140 you could start overtaking sooner than you could at 100.
Despite the apparent sense in all this, I suspect that such a practice would quickly degenerate to a point where we would have idiots camped out in the passing lanes roaring past everything on the road - rather as some...errr never mind.
One of the joys of a bike is that ability to zoom past stuff - if I was allowed 140, I just bet it'd get up higher than that before you could say "boo".
. “No pleasure is worth giving up for two more years in a rest home.” Kingsley Amis
No
Doesn't need to be as complicated as that. This is an enforcement policy about discretion. It's not a court decision, it's a real-time Popo on the road decision. It'll never go to court. Anyway, its obvious when someone is overtaking - they're either accelerating towards the slower vehicle from behind, alongside it travelling faster, or past it moving left and slowing down.A question that would be likely to cause more trouble would be how close does the overtaking vehicle need to get to the one it's passing before the higher tolerance applies? Call it x metres, it'll come up in court whenever someone gets a ticket in a passing lane.
Yeah I can see that. Two mates, a Morrie and a Z1R taking turns being the overtaker and the overtakee. But so what? The riskiest part would be the U turns they'd be doing at the end of each run.
Then you'd get a ticket, just like you do if you exceed the current tolerances.One of the joys of a bike is that ability to zoom past stuff - if I was allowed 140, I just bet it'd get up higher than that before you could say "boo".
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Bookmarks