Annual road toll up 44

[bogan]

What is clear is that crashing usually hurts and hurts a lot more if you break yourself at the same time.

I crashed at the incredibly fast speed of 45 km/h and broke my back. Object of impact? The kerb. Cause? Unseen patch of oil on the corner - invisible in the dark and rain. Vehicle involved? Toyota Estima, one of the stronger vehicles.

...

What lessons learned? Crashing hurts. Breaking important stuff has long term consequences and accidents can ruin your whole day.

See, if you took personal responsibility you might also learn to travel slower when in dark/rainy circumstances that may hide some unseen oil.

[haydes55]

My thoughts about the lower fuel prices having a correlation to more crashes. Some drivers and riders are on a waiting list to die. They fuck up a lot, they disregard the severity of their actions and don't believe it could happen to them. Eventually, given an opportunity, they will kill themselves in a good crash. Lower petrol prices have meant more of these people could afford to travel further distances, so they managed to meet their fate now, instead of in 6 months time from a different fuck up.

Idiots will die at some point, just because they all died around a certain time doesn't mean they wouldn't have died in 6 month from another crash anyway.

There will always be a few fatalities from competent drivers/riders. But the majority will be the brain dead ones.

Tl;Dr people die. If they die from a lack of driving/riding skill, they would die sooner or later anyway, but having cheaper gas allows it sooner, rather than later.

[dangerous]

How can other countries with way more traffic on the road have lower road tolls if it is that simple? Their traffic is also increasing every year.
Check your shelf full of books for dummies and let us know?

umm ok not that Im acepting being a dummy BUT...
'other contries' dont have the same mentality as NZ, we are shockers at the best of times, our roads are not allways as good as 'other contries' they are more narrow and tight than a lot of 'other contries' we travel oncomming side by side unlike a lot of 'other contries' we have a lot of tourests that seem to cause a lot of the issues than 'other contries'
now I didnt read this in any book (cos I cant read) it is just IMHO

[FJRider]

hey heres something... if two oncoming cars each traveling at 200kph stay on there side of the road they do so with out crashing...
If the same to cars travel at 2kph but one crosses the line to the other side of the road... they will and do crash

and there we have it... but ofcourse the crash showen on the news tonight was speed related... I find that odd

Three questions.

At the time of your last crash/off on the open road ...

1: Were you over or under the posted speed limit .. ??

2: Were there any other vehicles involved .. ??

2: Did you cross the center-line .. ??

[dangerous]

Three questions.

At the time of your last crash/off on the open road ...

1: Were you over or under the posted speed limit .. ??

2: Were there any other vehicles involved .. ??

2: Did you cross the center-line .. ??

duno what this has to do with me but cos ya asking there was this once in the last 30yrs a couple a years ago, Touno thour
well under
no
no

hows that help ya?
ohh and me not hurt

[FJRider]

duno what this has to do with me but cos ya asking there was this once in the last 30yrs a couple a years ago, Touno thour
well under
no
no

hows that help ya?
ohh and me not hurt

If you as an experienced and capable rider (experienced on the race track) can crash on your own ... well under the speed limit ... how safe would/could not so experienced riders be .. at (or over) the posted speed limits .. ???

Would it have been more serious for you if you were on or (well) over the posted speed limit .. ???

[Edbear]

Three questions.

At the time of your last crash/off on the open road ...

1: Were you over or under the posted speed limit .. ??

2: Were there any other vehicles involved .. ??

2: Did you cross the center-line .. ??

Under
No
No.

Oh, but you asked on the open road. Mine was in town. Never crashed on the open road.

[R650R]

There will always be a few fatalities from competent drivers/riders. But the majority will be the brain dead ones.

Don't know how old you are but I've seen a few people squished and expired over the years. Sadly though Darwines theory of evolution doesn't gel with the motor vehicle very well. Its only a single brief moment that the conditions for a fatal crash occur.
A high enough impact velocity, two paths converging at the exact instance after perhaps the most minor of errors or misjudgement by one or both drivers.
There's a hell of a lot of ordinary people I've known that have come to grief, and the idiots well they just keep on keeping on.

[Tazz]

umm ok not that Im acepting being a dummy BUT...
'other contries' dont have the same mentality as NZ, we are shockers at the best of times, our roads are not allways as good as 'other contries' they are more narrow and tight than a lot of 'other contries' we travel oncomming side by side unlike a lot of 'other contries' we have a lot of tourests that seem to cause a lot of the issues than 'other contries'
now I didnt read this in any book (cos I cant read) it is just IMHO

Yeah for sure. Numbers on the road become more and more irrelevant when you focus on driver skill and other factors that cause accidents. We'll never be without them unless humans are removed from the equation, but personally I don't think we've peaked at perfect roading and licensing conditions as things stand.
Not to say I see the need for improvements to come in the way of heavier policing or more and more legislation, nor am I some Johnny too good that has never broken a rule or made a mistake.

I agree that bad drivers in rental campervans stand out, but I've noticed a habit of people saying that overseas drivers are better than us, yet when they get here it seems to be a different story? To many beersies on the plane?

[Murray]

and the idiots well they just keep on keeping on.

And unfortunately quite a few are driving trucks. Worst driving I have seen over the festive season a big truck overtaking a car on the outside lane of a roundabout at speed and then cutting infront of the car on the exit to the roundabout as it went into 1 lane then tailgating (scarily) the next car in front doing 80km in an 80 km zone. This was Tauranga to the Mount and traffic was busy.

Generally theres only 1 winner in a truck vs other vehicle collision.

[FJRider]

Saying if there was less traffic on the road there would be less deaths is a simpleton cop out.

Plenty have crashed (and died) on the roads with no other vehicles involved.

But the more traffic on any given road ... the greater the odds of one crashing. The greater the concentration of vehicles ... the greater the odds of some being involved in another drivers accident.

Regardless of legislation ... it is a personal choice (right .. ??? ) as to what is believed to be an increase/decrease/no change ... to your odds of actually crashing.

Plenty die on the road due to no fault of their own. At such times ... excess speed can't help. And we can't pick at which times ... that will happen.

We all know who those types at fault could be ... just not where they could be ...

[Tazz]

Maybe the next road safety campaign should just simply be 'Stay off our fucking road. The stats don't lie'

They can show ads of spastic people running out onto the road without looking and having no bad consequences or personal responsibility to worry about. Safety in numbers (or lack there of).

[caspernz]

And unfortunately quite a few are driving trucks. Worst driving I have seen over the festive season a big truck overtaking a car on the outside lane of a roundabout at speed and then cutting infront of the car on the exit to the roundabout as it went into 1 lane then tailgating (scarily) the next car in front doing 80km in an 80 km zone. This was Tauranga to the Mount and traffic was busy.

Generally theres only 1 winner in a truck vs other vehicle collision.

Try making a phone call to the transport co when you witness aggro stuff like that. As a fellow trucker I can't stand the described behaviour, and at times the video from my onboard camera tells the story...in case the transport co don't wanna know, the local boys in blue will deal with it

[AllanB]

It's the cunty attitude of many drivers. Witnesses tonight a fat prick overtaking on the inside - well over the posted 50 k limit and when the car he swerved in front of tooted, the fatarse gave the finger, slammed his brakes on and proceeded to tootle along at 30 just to piss off the other driver. He was really fat. Maybe the accelerator got stuck between his fat toes.

Fucking old piece of shit 4WD too. Typical.


There is NO fix all. Ticketing me for doing 103 won't make a Silverfishes dicks length of difference to the road toll. Indeed it may make it worse as after receiving such a ticket, manly testosterone will kick in and I'm possibly more likely to drive like a pissed off arse after receiving the ticket.

[R650R]

And unfortunately quite a few are driving trucks.

Actually I'd say their are a lot. I think Casper is right though, few people ever complain through the right channels, preferring to rant on message boards or in smoko rooms...
But then who has time to play mall cop anyway, where do you draw the line.... I gave up ages ago and feel better for it, coincidentally the road toll dropped during that period hmmmmm.....

We tend to remember certain vehicle types when we have bad interactions eg trucks or police cars. The risk is prob perceived higher than it is...

The roundabout grand prix is a tough one though, lightly loaded it is easy to maintain quite a high speed in the outside lane, many cars damn near stop going though the inside lane. One persons view of OMG that's dangerous might just be business as usual and a car on the inside has panicked and slowed more than they need to.... Then there's people who are the first to approach a double lane traffic lights or roundabout and to lazy to use the left lane the get agro when someone comes along and burbles on through on momentum.....
But yes there are tools out there going past that and doing dumb stuff like you describe.... One chap I used to work with thought he could put his Quad chiller semi past me in the right hand lane of roundabout, it didnt work for him is all ill say.... neither did the time he redlined his truck to try and pass me when we had the same loads on up passing lanes.

Bosses get complaints all the timje, some legit and some not. If you have a genuine one you should make it.
We had one bullshitter who reckoned he had driven roadtrains in OZ (never mind the boss was too dumb to work out he was too young to have ever gained the right licence). Lots of colleagues at work complained but nothing happened.... until the head dispatcher was getting tyre changed and saw the muppett doing 90 in 50 zone passing cars on painted median like a freakin fire engine....