Christchurch crash facts

[oneofsix]

Okay, so assuming that it was 4 riders who had no licence, no wof and no reg, it was 4/12 (33%) who were offending.

That's what makes it worth stopping motorcyclists just for a check.

Imagine the outrage.

yeah and fair enough too. You are stopping the vast majority of riders for no good reason!
How many of those without WOFs were in a dangerous condition? Actually that boarders on a serious question with the current govt. WOF review. It would be nice to know and also how stopped with WOFs were 'unsafe'.
As for tax collection, not really a safety issue even if it is a legal issue.
No license ... guess the disqualified one may have been pinged by your rego camera or a rego check if they were riding a bike they were the registered owner for. The point of a license is that someone has said they have tested you and think that you can operate the vehicle in a safe manner in accordance with the countries road rules, if they are doing this without a license is there a real harm? Otherwise it is clean up the mess at the hospital or funeral, can see why you would want to avoid that. With a car or truck an unskilled driver can hurt others and walk away, with a bike they are going to hurt themselves, they might also hurt a pedestrian.

[imdying]

A highway patrol sergeant was on SH75 on Saturday though, and he advises that he stopped 12 bikes.

What were they doing wrong that he had cause to stop them?

[orsem]

There were plenty of cops on the road over the weekend. Got the hairy eye ball from one uniform car but apart from that no major hassles on the bike yesterday. Had a bit of a giggle at a bike cop trying to pull over an ignorant cage who obviously didn't realise that cops on bike exist. Took him forever to get the car to pull over

[neels]

I have no problem being stopped for a check and if things are all legal the extra couple of minutes on the trip is no drama, if I've decided to take my chances and get pinged so be it, I always at least have the bike roadworthy to the best of my knowledge and wof'd.

I even tried to pay the rego before I took the bike out in the weekend, but there be something weird in the online system with it being on hold, wouldn't let me do 3 months and trying to pay for 4 months gave me an expiry date in september which seems to be from when it last expired.

Couldn't get to a shop to sort it out, and buggered if I'm paying for the 3 months it's been on hold for, so just had to go riding and hope for the best.

[orsem]

I too try to keep rego and WOF up to date where possible. I have found I get pulled over less when riding the bike than I do when driving the car. Have yet to be pulled over in chch, mainly struck it in ashburton, temuka, timaru and waimate

[GrayWolf]

Reality is otherwise; I spent years in Sydeney riding on motorways where there was that speed differential and it worked fine.

However, it would help if the po-po bothered to enforce the keep left rule. Which would actually align with the whole 'safer journeys' strategy, with a lot less aggro and traffic chaos all round.

It will never happen here because 99% of all Kiwi drivers are self appointed motoring gods. I include every donut muncher as well.

Alot of that actually comes from ignorance, they don't know what they're doing wrong & NZTA refuse to run safety or educational ads teaching them as they have a scam to push.
Most believe they're good drivers cause they don't know their speedos out by 5-20%, they don't know they have to keep left unless overtaking, they are unaware it's illegal to hold up traffic (and some of that again comes back to speedo error some believe they're doing the speed limit), they are ignorant of others reliance on correct indication (including pedestrians) & they have no concept of how slow driving severely adversely affects the road it screws everyone up.

Don't get me wrong tho alot are just fucking useless drivers too (fault of "have money here's licence" licensing system) but there's ALOT of ignorance out there on NZ roads & the great NZ scam just makes it worse.

I spent years riding on English and European motorways, with no speed differential. The drivers there 'sort it' themselves, so to speak. if you really wanted to improve the driving standard here (and its surprising how many people realise the poor standard on NZ driving once they've driven for a few months abroad (europe/aus), one of the most poorly observed and abused rules i see on the Hutt Motorway is the 'merge like a zip rule'. Drivers simply come into your lane with total disregard of your/their speed, road position and amount of space. Aclassic place is the lead in at the Ngauranga junction, going North towards the Hutt. i have lost count of the times I see and experience a vehicle thundering down the merging lane at 100 (+) kph, reach the narrowing at the end of the merging section and FORCE their way in front of you, rather than 'give way' or merge in behind you.
The other obvious 'classic manouver' is to simply cut in front when overtaking, or when the road 'narrows' into 1 lane to force their way in, the ruling IS, to merge you should be in front, so your indicator can be clearly seen, and indicate for 3 secnds? Well in that case I'd say the merging lane on the Petone Esplanade (hutt motorway end) should be piled high with vehicles that have smashed into the kerb while giving their extra 2.5 seconds of indicating..
Lets not even get started on the sheer NZ driver arrogance of sitting in the overtaking lane at 95 or 100kph and refuse to move over to the left for 'faster' traffic. Anyone who has driven in Europe will tell you, this behaviour would simply not be tolerated,

[rastuscat]

yeah and fair enough too. You are stopping the vast majority of riders for no good reason!

Nope. They were stopped to see if they were illegal. Pursuant to the Land Transport Act.

Eat me. And donuts.

[oneofsix]

I have no problem being stopped for a check and if things are all legal the extra couple of minutes on the trip is no drama, if I've decided to take my chances and get pinged so be it, I always at least have the bike roadworthy to the best of my knowledge and wof'd.

I even tried to pay the rego before I took the bike out in the weekend, but there be something weird in the online system with it being on hold, wouldn't let me do 3 months and trying to pay for 4 months gave me an expiry date in september which seems to be from when it last expired.

Couldn't get to a shop to sort it out, and buggered if I'm paying for the 3 months it's been on hold for, so just had to go riding and hope for the best.

actually heard about that on the radio. NZTA had their site down for maintenance. Thought at the time that it would have been nice if they had advised people before hand.

[oneofsix]

Nope. They were stopped to see if they were illegal. Pursuant to the Land Transport Act.

Eat me. And donuts.

I'll eat your donuts, no probs there but as for eating you, I don't ride HD or Honda so would have to kill you and boil you up with some watercress first

Stopping riders for no good reason and at a weekend when the NZTA site was down so they couldn't re-rego on line. That is just unfair.

[rastuscat]

Stopping riders for no good reason and at a weekend when the NZTA site was down so they couldn't re-rego on line. That is just unfair.

Thats wot I wuz saying. They werent stopped for no reason. They were stopped as the odds of there being an offence was 1 in 3.

If it were possible to check licence status without stopping the rider, we'd do it. But how can we check licence status without first identifying the rider? It's a bugger for the 2 in 3 that are 100% kosher, but they should blame the 1 in 3 for their inconvenience.

How long do you think we'd keep stopping motorcyclists if every one was legal?

Unfair? Who ever said life would be fair.

[dangerous]

It's a bugger for the 2 in 3 that are 100% kosher, but they should blame the 1 in 3 for their inconvenience.

hell yeah, bloody inconsiderate pack a non complient tooth past tube wearing straight liners...

[imdying]

Nope. They were stopped to see if they were illegal. Pursuant to the Land Transport Act.

Eat me. And donuts.

That attitude is some of the reason why people don't help police officers who're getting assaulted. Even in biblical times tax collectors were considered lowest of the low. Consider that when you're at the next funeral for an officer where the byline reads "Nobody tried to stop the offender from stomping the skull of the officer".

Yes, I realise you'll have plenty of good reasons why you're now dropping motorcyclists into the same bucket as drink drivers. Those reasons will be cold comfort when you throw the roses onto the coffin, I'm sure.

[willytheekid]

This is a perfect example of why Rastuscat and his crew randomly stop people (car or bike)
http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/7556...-dangerous-car
...ya just never know what state the car/bike or driver is in.
This turd above wasn't just risking his OWN life in that shit box, but his partner, a 5yr old a 3yr old and a 6month old baby!...and every other motorist on the road!

So the next time ya get stopped...smile, say gidday and be bloody thankful that your brief & friendly chat/check-up ensures that peices of crap like the above are removed from the road!

Ride Safe KBers

(And keep up the great work Mr Rastuscat )

[neels]

actually heard about that on the radio. NZTA had their site down for maintenance. Thought at the time that it would have been nice if they had advised people before hand.

In that case it's still down, just tried again with same result. Last rego expired in may, on hold until december, when I try to put 4 months on it comes up with new expiry date in september.

Off to join the queue of old people at the post shop to sort it out I guess, and even then I can't pay with my credit card.

[imdying]

This is a perfect example of why Rastuscat and his crew randomly stop people (car or bike)

I don't think most will have a problem with drink drive checkpoints and random stops, but dedicated targeting of a particular group based on nothing more than tax compliance is not the way to make people excited about the police.