Police getting tougher on speed tolerance

[rastuscat]

hmm, thought it was ignorance like the "keep left" which we see even on here so many are ignorant of... Still can't say that one [lane turning] bothers me too much; I sometimes get toots as I pull into the lane besides them or on occasion some brilliant "oh shit" faces but all in all I'm not to bothered by it... Now keeping left, THAT'S my pet peeve!

Oh & it is definitely his fault & if you were gonna legally ticket him I'd say go for it if he's affecting others but as I know you'd just run the extortion (probably cause you don't know the crimes you're committing or any other way) I can't say it's bad enough he needs to be financially raped for

I have a personal policy on it. If he does it and nobody is effected, it gets warned.

But if he pisses someone else off, it's ticket time.

[Akzle]

Cemeteries is full of idjist that 'could see for literally a kilometer' that the road was clear.

Fuckin' retard idea passing a dozen cars on one corner.

1- no.

2- jesus, you shouldnt be allowed to drive.

[R650R]

Damn here's a Darwin candidate adding to Rastus' side of the argument. This muppett must have been flying to leave 33m of braking marks then big impact.
This is the last lot of twisties before you drop down on to the tongoio/whirinaki flats by the walkway carpark, plenty of signage to say whats coming up...
Trucks have gone over the barriers here from brake failure but pretty rare for cars to crash in this spot...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay...ectid=11379804

https://www.google.co.nz/maps/@-39.3.../data=!3m1!1e3

[pritch]

Over the Christmas break I drove to the greater Auckland area and back. Generally the driving wasn't too bad. I had gone north on the 23rd hoping to miss the rush, saw not one single either with my eyes or the detector. The trip back was not quite so lonely. Two HP cars on the Hamiltton bypass, then saw a camera car and thought that might be it for a while but there was an HP car hidden in shrubbery about 1k further on.

The only two cars that pissed me off both did the same thing, used a passing lane to overtake then sat in the passing lane until I made my displeasure known.
The horn in the Subaru lacks the authority of the Nautilus on the bike, maybe I can get a pair of airhorns for my birthday?

[_Shrek_]

Q for the if you're handing out tickets for speed (1k over) what are you doing about the ones who are doing 70 in the 100k zone & slower on the corners & yellow lines with over 11 cars following & not pulling over on a slow lane?.... glad I was on a bike yesterday... also noted as I went past a lot of very pissed off drivers as it was above 30c

[Berg]

Q for the if you're handing out tickets for speed (1k over) what are you doing about the ones who are doing 70 in the 100k zone & slower on the corners & yellow lines with over 11 cars following & not pulling over on a slow lane?.... glad I was on a bike yesterday... also noted as I went past a lot of very pissed off drivers as it was above 30c

Both tickets and warnings issued by me up until I finished for Xmas and boy oh boy did I get given my pedigree by most I stopped. Apparently many of them have decided they are self imposed speed restrictors, ensuring others don't speed even though their own speedos are reading up to 10kph fast.
Problem is, everybody you stop for committing a driving offence is "normally" the best driver in the world, has never done that before or has the perfect excuse for their behavior. Stopped and warned (written warning) a little old lady who had failed to indicate at a roundabout. Apparently, according to her, she "normally" indicates but today she was distracted by something on the radio. I call bullshit! I bet she never fucking indicates and she got the lecture that if something on the radio has distracted her enough to forget about driving 101 maybe she should give up driving. Apparently I may have a complaint coming my way for questioning her "impeccable" driving.
Pet hate while on holiday, assholes with 4 or 5 bikes hanging off a towbar mount. Obscured indicators, tail lights, brakes lights and number plates. Get roof mounts, rear lightbars and plate or a trailer people!

[rastuscat]

Q for the if you're handing out tickets for speed (1k over) what are you doing about the ones who are doing 70 in the 100k zone & slower on the corners & yellow lines with over 11 cars following & not pulling over on a slow lane?.... glad I was on a bike yesterday... also noted as I went past a lot of very pissed off drivers as it was above 30c

Now THERE's a can of worms question from an enforcement point of view.

The relevant rule is Section 2.1(2) of the Land Transport (Road User) Rule 2004.

It says
[INDENT]
(2)If a driver's speed, when driving, is such as to impede the normal and reasonable flow of traffic, that driver must, as soon as is reasonably practicable, move the vehicle as far as practicable to the left side of the roadway when this is necessary to allow following traffic to pass.[INDENT]

Right, that's the rule. Now, how the hell do we enforce it.

Say I'm sitting at the side of the road eating donuts on my troll bike when I see a line of 11 cars coming toward me, doing say 70, in a 100 kmh area. Before I can take enforcement action I'd need to know how long they had been like that for, how many opportunities they have had for the lead car to pull over as required, whether in fact it was the second car which was the problem for not overtaking when the chance was there. The third vehicle too, and the fourth. Right down to the back few. What say the guy in car 2, 3, 4 et al are happy to be doing 70........who is the problem?

Say the first four are all travelling together, to the Summer Old Age Pension Big Day Out, featuring Jerry and the Pacemakers. Sponsored by the manufacturer of the Pacemakers, incidentally. I'd need to deal with all four.

See, it's not as simple as it sounds. Potentially, and from my experience, it's the second car in those lines that deserves the ticket most, as they have had plenty of opportunities to pass, and haven't done so.

Okay, let's put me at number 5 in the line of 11 cars. Then I'm in a far better position to see what the problem is, as I've watched the situation unfold over some distance, and have some real idea what's happening.

But say I was travelling the other way, and saw the 11 going past me in the other direction. How could I address all those issues with a glance at the cars going the opposite way to me. Then if I did decide to do something, I'd be U-turning behind number 11, and forcing them all to let me past to get to number 1, who might not be the biggest problem.

Just hoping to make youse fullas aware that it ain't as easy as it sounds. Generally, I pull the first car over, allowing all the traffic to pass. Then I set them off to the Pacemakers Get Together with nobody behind them. Without a ticket.

Another wee point, is that it's often the older folk who are the slower ones. If you don't know the older person holding you up, you want them ticketed to death. But if that was your own grand mother, how would you like it dealt with?

Just a couple of things to think on.

[Akzle]

meanwhile we've had folk clocked at 140-240 kph on the new boring road to hamitown... With family in the car *gasp* shock horror


Not crashing, you understand, just travelling.

[Berries]

Another wee point, is that it's often the older folk who are the slower ones. If you don't know the older person holding you up, you want them ticketed to death. But if that was your own grand mother, how would you like it dealt with?

Shoot her.

[Scuba_Steve]

See, it's not as simple as it sounds. Potentially, and from my experience, it's the second car in those lines that deserves the ticket most, as they have had plenty of opportunities to pass, and haven't done so.

Got that right, then usually there's a diesel behind them who won't overtake because it's going to be push & shove to do so & everyone else behind them won't do it because members of you gang like to scam on passing lanes & for them to pass safety they'd have to make their needle point to a higher number than the sign on the side of the road; so the line gets bigger & bigger as everyone's too afraid to pass until someone "snaps", which of-course will probably happen at the wrong time

[caspernz]

There is another angle to "holding up traffic" and it's from the seat of a truck. So I'm 23m long, empty, and trucking back from say...New Plymouth. At each passing lane I indicate left, slow from my 88 kmh limited speed to about 75-80 to make it easier for the 5-10 cars behind me to scoot past. Now there's plenty of times that only one car will pull out to overtake. So after a few passing lanes of this, the same 5-10 cars just sit behind me...and we've gone down plenty of straight roads to make an overtake without the aid of a passing lane easily achievable. In the interests of safety, when I then get to a township or place where I can safely get the truck off the road, I pull over and the mixed reward is some toots and some abuse in the form of the middle finger...hey, it mostly happens during holiday periods, and no it doesn't surprise me. I just put it down to "townie" drivers not being confident enough on the big road

The paranoia about speed enforcement is part of this equation I'll admit.

[_Shrek_]

But if that was your own grand mother, how would you like it dealt with? Just a couple of things to think on.

both my grandmothers aren't here any more, but if they were, they'd be the ones getting the speeding tickets, my up bringing.... & what was worse my old man was in the 60's

[neels]

Had the pleasure of being followed by a policeman for about 50k's the other day, the message has stuck because my main focus while being tailgated by said policeman was making sure my speed didn't exceed 100k, not so much because of the fine but because I wasn't in the mood for shagging around on the side of the road.

What this meant was on nice downhill bends coasting with no throttle applied, rather than looking at where I was going I was looking at the speedo and braking so I stayed under the magic number, lest I should creep a couple of k's over and die in a flaming crash.

Safer driving folks.

[TheDemonLord]

See, it's not as simple as it sounds. Potentially, and from my experience, it's the second car in those lines that deserves the ticket most, as they have had plenty of opportunities to pass, and haven't done so.

Okay, Devils Advocate time:

(before I start, I should point out that on the way back from Dannevegas, I encountered this situation heaps of times)

Do you think that the 1 Km Tolerance is going to help this situation?

A more in depth question is this:

We all know that overtaking is a higher risk move - it puts you into the opposing stream of traffic. The best overtake involves accelerating in your lane and minimising your Time Exposed to Danger. so a good overtaking move would be accelerating from 80 - 120 in your lane, pulling into the oncoming lane for the shortest possible time before resuming your travels at the law-abiding 100 kph (of course)

Next if we factor into this scenario that often the people that hold everyone up can generally do 100-110 kph on the nice straight bits of road where you have enough visibility to safely overtake (assuming of course that there isn't traffic coming the other way ruining every stretch of road where it would be possible to overtake - but that is another gripe) but can't for the life of them go round a corner or up a hill at anything resembling reasonable open road speed.

So now, we have Driver number 2 who doesn't want to get ticketed, sticking to the 1 kph tolerance, stuck behind someone going slow, but speeds up on any bit of road where an overtake could be possible to the point that overtaking with a 1 kph tolerance wouldn't be safe - so they decide not to overtake - How can you fault Driver number 2 for their actions whilst supporting the Company line?

For the record - I do often fault Driver number 2 for not overtaking where it is possible - I fault them as much as I fault the person who can't travel on the open road at the speed limit (conditions allowing) as the actions of Driver number 2 means driver number 3 either needs to overtake 2 cars, or Leap-frog (which is generally seen as an asshole move) and so doesn't overtake, then you get driver number 4, because of the actions of drivers 2 and 3 etc. ad infinatum ad nauseam.

I myself try and overtake as quick as possible to allow those behind me to also overtake, I often do this whilst playing a loose with the speed limit (to minimize my TED) but to come back to the point - The Police's Lower tolerance (be it 4 kph or 10) directly translates into people not overtaking when they should - And whilst I can see many of the technical difficulties you have raised with ticketing someone - I myself don't care, as many of the difficulties are IMHO a direct result of Police Policy.

[husaberg]

Okay, Devils Advocate time:

(before I start, I should point out that on the way back from Dannevegas, I encountered this situation heaps of times)

Do you think that the 1 Km Tolerance is going to help this situation?

A more in depth question is this:

We all know that overtaking is a higher risk move - it puts you into the opposing stream of traffic. The best overtake involves accelerating in your lane and minimising your Time Exposed to Danger. so a good overtaking move would be accelerating from 80 - 120 in your lane, pulling into the oncoming lane for the shortest possible time before resuming your travels at the law-abiding 100 kph (of course)

Next if we factor into this scenario that often the people that hold everyone up can generally do 100-110 kph on the nice straight bits of road where you have enough visibility to safely overtake (assuming of course that there isn't traffic coming the other way ruining every stretch of road where it would be possible to overtake - but that is another gripe) but can't for the life of them go round a corner or up a hill at anything resembling reasonable open road speed.

So now, we have Driver number 2 who doesn't want to get ticketed, sticking to the 1 kph tolerance, stuck behind someone going slow, but speeds up on any bit of road where an overtake could be possible to the point that overtaking with a 1 kph tolerance wouldn't be safe - so they decide not to overtake - How can you fault Driver number 2 for their actions whilst supporting the Company line?

For the record - I do often fault Driver number 2 for not overtaking where it is possible - I fault them as much as I fault the person who can't travel on the open road at the speed limit (conditions allowing) as the actions of Driver number 2 means driver number 3 either needs to overtake 2 cars, or Leap-frog (which is generally seen as an asshole move) and so doesn't overtake, then you get driver number 4, because of the actions of drivers 2 and 3 etc. ad infinatum ad nauseam.

I myself try and overtake as quick as possible to allow those behind me to also overtake, I often do this whilst playing a loose with the speed limit (to minimize my TED) but to come back to the point - The Police's Lower tolerance (be it 4 kph or 10) directly translates into people not overtaking when they should - And whilst I can see many of the technical difficulties you have raised with ticketing someone - I myself don't care, as many of the difficulties are IMHO a direct result of Police Policy.

Here is a notion, to over take you need to be able to see a clear area in front of you for about the distance of the passing move, plus 100 meters..... if you see a policeman and you will be unable to pass at the legal limit don't overtake.
Conversely if you don't see a policeman feel free to complete the overtaking manoeuvre at any speed you see fit.