Speed tolerance reduced for December and January

[rastuscat]

And how come I really struggle to do 100 kms in an hour?? Surely if I only do 80 kms distance in an hour I should be able to tell the police I'm only doing 80 kms an hour??

Cool. Drive at 180 kmh for 20 minutes. Then take a break for 40 minutes. Then tell the cop that you only did 60 kmh overall.

Best of luck with that.

[rastuscat]

Ok Assuming this is correct I can understand getting a ticket for 105 even allowing for inaccuracy you're still over 100.

My question is if you get clocked at 112 will they drop it to 109 to get you into the lower $ and points bracket to allow for the inaccuracy

The ticket is supposed to be written for the speed you were checked at.

Unless you are happy for the speed to be increased, don't expect it to be dropped into the lower fine zone.

[Zedder]

Still no income for your lot from me rtc and it's the third time this week I've been out.

Did you used to know a traffic cop called Davies who worked out west of Auckland by any chance?

[george formby]

Any one noticed a change of behaviour on the road?

Prolly just the silly season, the heat, the stress, the looming dead line etc, but things up here seem worse. I don't take the speed limit as a suggestion & normally catch traffic up but recently I'm creating tail backs. What I see in my mirrors is scary, the white line is obviously optional, too.

[R650R]

For long distance travel, averaging more than 80kph hour upon hour is actually hard to do (assuming you're not sitting on SH1), and experienced people know to budget for less. There was this one ride of 1600km where I managed a moving average of 99kph

Yep average speeds tell the true story of someone's driving ability. Incidentally 81km/h is the magic number most drivers ermmmm 'cross reference' their driving hours logbook against, just to make sure they haven't made any 'errors'. As that is the fastest legal average speed for most journeys open road including slowing down through small towns and max speed of 90kph. In a 600HP truck you can go from Hastings to Auckland non stop on these numbers in the legal 5hr30min, but that's not mucking about either. (A car with a competant driver doing no more than 110 is only about 1hr faster). Include a few stops for fuel or quick deliveries etc and real trip average soon drops to 65ish even if you only stopped for few minutes at a time. The key to covering big km's is not speed but being prefueled and not stopping at busy places, especially during holiday periods...

[george formby]

Yup. Average speed is where it's at. Being efficient on the road. Back in the You K we used to say a thoughtless driver was belt & brake. Always hard on the gas or hard on the brakes but basically hard on everything.

[Gremlin]

The key to covering big km's is not speed but being prefueled and not stopping at busy places, especially during holiday periods...

Absolutely. You can lose time very easily, but gaining that time back is almost impossible.

In long distance riding you get some that blast out the gates, but then take long breaks as they're tired. I normally budgeted 500km in 5.5 hours and a 30min break, then do it again, when crunching big numbers on rides.

[R650R]

Absolutely. You can lose time very easily, but gaining that time back is almost impossible.

In long distance riding you get some that blast out the gates, but then take long breaks as they're tired. I normally budgeted 500km in 5.5 hours and a 30min break, then do it again, when crunching big numbers on rides.

I used to do 870kms five nights a week in the truck no worries but for some reason don't like doing the big kms on bikes even though I LOVE riding of course. Always feels wasteful to me when there are so many photo ops and places to see along the way...

[pritch]

Went to Opunake yesterday not much traffic so couldn't judge what effect the lower tolerance was having. Went to Stratford this morning and SH3 was much busier. On the way south most were sitting comfortably above the 4kph tolerance.

Interestingly, while sitting somewhat above the old tolerance minding my own business, I was passed at speed by a mufti car with disco lights ablaze. The next vehicle to be overtaken by the mufti was a Toyota ute. The high speed overtake was performed on a blind bend over double yellow lines and, it transpired, in the face of an oncoming heavy truck which caused the Police car to violently swerve back to his own side of the road narrowly missing the Toyota. I hope all this rushing about wasn't just to get back to the station before his mates ate his/her doughnut.

Some training needed perhaps? The red mist appeared to be fully descended.

The return journey was undertaken at a leisurely 85kph indicated for no good reason that I could see. There was a truck, but it was not at the front of the queue.
The radar detector was giving the occasional chirp so I just went with the flow.

[Akzle]

Always feels wasteful to me when there are so many photo ops and places to see along the way...

exactly, one must always take time to stop and smoke the flowers...

[Tazz]

Cool. Drive at 180 kmh for 20 minutes. Then take a break for 40 minutes. Then tell the cop that you only did 60 kmh overall.

Best of luck with that.

Shit now you're talking! You're an ideas man

[swbarnett]

Cool. Drive at 180 kmh for 20 minutes. Then take a break for 40 minutes. Then tell the cop that you only did 60 kmh overall.

Best of luck with that.

It just occurred to me that this would actually work on some European motorways. I've been told they time you between toll booths to see if you were speeding.

[R650R]

It just occurred to me that this would actually work on some European motorways. I've been told they time you between toll booths to see if you were speeding.

The poms already have such systems in place. NZ also has the capability with those new signs on the motorway, all we need to do is pay the extra for the cameras and software if we hadn't already. It will Prob be the next big thing after the 4k failure... Works via anpr and doesn't matter if you change lanes, uk ones measure over five mile distance.

[rastuscat]

Nostalgia.

The MoT used to have a thing called Digitector. Two cables set 25 metres apart on the highway. A vehicle crossed the first one, starting a clock. when it crossed the second one, it stopped the clock. The machine then worked out the speed.

The Auckland City Traffic Dept (pre merger with the MoT) used to have a thing called Truvelo. It was the same principle, but the calibrated distance was only 1.025 metres. The device calculated at 1.0 metres. The 0.025 was added to give an error allowance for the motorist.

I remember operating it on Balmoral Road. Goldfish in a bowl, even when our tolerance then (1988/1989) was 19 kmh. You had to be doing 20 over any limit to be stopped.

Yes, good old days. Only radars we had were stationary mode only. I rode an R80RT.

Feck, we've come a long way. I used to go out with a ticket book and a crash pad. No baton. No pepper spray. No taser. I actually didn't feel less safe. Chases were an every day event, far less now.

Used to chase Anton Dixon on his Gixxer. Also a bloke who had a 928s Porsche, but he died on the south motorway, doing warp speed 7 (not being chased). Funny, he got caught once by the helicopter, after the chase cars had pulled out when he got to 240 kmh. Or maybe it wasn't that fast, and my memory has inflated the facts.

It was a bit wild west, by todays standards. Dear Lord, I'd go back in a trice.

[Zedder]

Nostalgia.

The MoT used to have a thing called Digitector. Two cables set 25 metres apart on the highway. A vehicle crossed the first one, starting a clock. when it crossed the second one, it stopped the clock. The machine then worked out the speed.

The Auckland City Traffic Dept (pre merger with the MoT) used to have a thing called Truvelo. It was the same principle, but the calibrated distance was only 1.025 metres. The device calculated at 1.0 metres. The 0.025 was added to give an error allowance for the motorist.

I remember operating it on Balmoral Road. Goldfish in a bowl, even when our tolerance then (1988/1989) was 19 kmh. You had to be doing 20 over any limit to be stopped.

Yes, good old days. Only radars we had were stationary mode only. I rode an R80RT.

Feck, we've come a long way. I used to go out with a ticket book and a crash pad. No baton. No pepper spray. No taser. I actually didn't feel less safe. Chases were an every day event, far less now.

Used to chase Anton Dixon on his Gixxer. Also a bloke who had a 928s Porsche, but he died on the south motorway, doing warp speed 7 (not being chased). Funny, he got caught once by the helicopter, after the chase cars had pulled out when he got to 240 kmh. Or maybe it wasn't that fast, and my memory has inflated the facts.

It was a bit wild west, by todays standards. Dear Lord, I'd go back in a trice.

A guy I know came across that ex traffic cop I posted about earlier. He had a "worse work stories" nostalgia session with him which included patrolling SH16 alone at night etc.

There was another cop who was not well liked by his colleagues (there was a story about him busting his wife for speeding iirc) and who used to get into "situations" at the drop of a hat. Apparently, his "Officer needs assistance" calls weren't responded to as fast as they could have been...