ACC proposals on motorcycle levies

[eldog]

Faster if you're being rear-ended. Even if you're not going faster can mean the difference between a glancing blow and a full-on square impact.

I would think its the difference of speed and direction that is mostly at stake here.
if your travelling at similar speeds and directions the amount of damage you would expect to be less (no matter what the speed)

[eldog]

My own 2c worth

I would like to see drivers/riders pay for ACC or pay for use of a vehicle, not sure how this would work, maybe part of license. 1 payment would be for use of 1 vehicle no matter how many they own.

ACC pays for health care as it does now?
Insurance companies care of bikes and whose to blame, they deal with each other.
Police take care of whos to blame if traffic offence.

So if your in an accident - ACC covers your health costs, if you also have private health care you can use that too.

if you were speeding and crashed you would expect the police to pay you a visit not the ACC

if your bike is damaged and you caused the accident (needs to be proven beyond doubt) then you wont expect the insurance company to foot the bill to pay for the other parties repair.

if you had an accident and damaged your bike the insurance company should cover you as per normal

or am I missing something about how the current system works?

basically your health is covered to a basic level if your injured no matter what
you did a crime you get penalised
you caused damage to someones property the insurance covers it but maybe not repairs to your bike.
If someone ran you over their insurance covers you

my little scheme falls over when one or both of the parties doesnt have 3rd party or any insurance.

do we really want to get compulsory insurnace like the UK before we can drive/ride?

[Bikemad]

my little scheme falls over when one or both of the parties doesnt have 3rd party or any insurance.

do we really want to get compulsory insurnace like the UK before we can drive/ride?

wasn't so long ago that 3rd party insurance was part of your rego payment..........i wouldn't have a problem with compulsory 3rd party insurance.....at least you would then know in a situation where you were not at fault you would be compensated/repaired.....if you were at fault the innocent party would be compensated and you would bear the cost of your own repairs....seems fair to me

[eldog]

wasn't so long ago that 3rd party insurance was part of your rego payment..........i wouldn't have a problem with compulsory 3rd party insurance.....at least you would then know in a situation where you were not at fault you would be compensated/repaired.....if you were at fault the innocent party would be compensated and you would bear the cost of your own repairs....seems fair to me

I tend to agree.

There was obviously a problem thats why it changed, typical NZders always wanting cheaper.
User pays I guess.

I didnt realise it was part of rego, stuff like insurance I am now having to deal with myself rather than looked after by others.

So what am I missing so that each license holder pays ACC, that way it covers multivehicle owners. You would have to pay one basic rate for general use and another as an extension for mbike? Could be carried as part of license. Not sure how this would apply to farmers (they would pay ACC anyway?) and offroad riders - would they have a greater accident risk than road riders? or do more road riders die and offroaders just have broken bits and pieces.

someone bring me upto speed. Obviosuly we are paying too much for ACC but this is due to the high rate of accidents and the cost of hospital/care increasing as well.

[TheDemonLord]

Indulge me. Just imagine for a minute that speed isn't the causative factor in a crash. It's caused by, say, inattention, SMIDSY, whatever.

Is it better to be going slower or faster when the crash happens?

Its better to have an RPG mounted to the front of my Bike that removes the obstacle from my path and prevents the crash....

But that wouldn't go down to well.....

To engage in a little reducto as absurdum - if both objects in a scenario remained stationary relative to themselves and relative to the road they were on, then there would be no crash - therefore the safest speed limit is 0.

This is effectively the line you are arguing - we are going to crash, so by going slower there is less injury, likelyhood of death - however, at what arbitrary number do you then set the speed limit at? and more importantly - at any number greater than 0 someone could make the same argument to make it lower 'Well they suffered a broken bone traveling at the speed limit of 5 kph, so maybe we should lower it to 4...'

I accept a certain amount of risk on my Bike - but as you say - the greatest factor is human error, so I ask you this:

How do we address that factor? I would put forward that a much Much MUCH more stringent and restrictive testing system would be a start - a similar model to say the path to getting a PPL (Private Pilots Licence) - with a minimum number of hours in a vehicle with a certified instructor - as a case in point: Look at Germany's Licencing system and the Autobahn that they get to drive on. I would even add compulsory re-testing every 5 years (on the grounds that the retest is free, but if you fail it first time, you have to pay to take it again) and for anyone who has failed a licence test more than 3 times in a 6 month period, a minimum wait time of 6 months before they can try again (as they clearly can't fucking drive....) and for anyone who has had to take a test more than 4 times to pass - a mandatory retest at the 6 month mark to make sure it wasn't a fluke.

[TheDemonLord]

I dont think making getting a license as expensive as getting a pilots license would be fair to those who are not that wealthy. However your idea of making people resit their tests does make sense but I would make it compulsary for all those at fault rather than the whole population.

Mein Gott im Himmel! Sprechen sie Englisch?

(English clearly isn't your first language - I thought I would try Deutsch)

Did I say we should make it the same or the same cost of getting a pilots licence? No I specifically said:

a similar model to say the path to getting a PPL (Private Pilots Licence) - with a minimum number of hours in a vehicle with a certified instructor

The cost is dependent on the hourly rate of the driving instructor (which is considerably less than a Pilot Instuctor) and the number of hours (a PPL the minimum is 50) as an aside - it would still be cheaper for a car as you don't have to pay the hourly rate for the Plane as well.


As another aside - Why do I care if poor people can't afford to drive? Last time I checked driving is a privilege (and not a right, although it is commonly perceived as one) so long as there is adequate public transport available to them (but that is a completely separate can of worms)

and finally - at fault for what? are you suggesting that each time you have a crash you have to resit your test? I'm pretty sure if the crash is bad enough you can have your licence revoked and be forced by the courts to re-take your licence test. You seem to arguing for something that already exists?

[TheDemonLord]

So what you are saying wealthy people would make the best drivers? I think you would find the death toll would not go down if only the rich could afford to drive other than they would be able to afford safer cars.

No - I'm saying less cars on the road means less other road users to crash into.

But also not driving a barely Warrantable shitbox and having airbags for africa etc. probably helps too

Heres an exercise for you - look at the crash stats for NZ and compare them with the fuel price - its interesting that on the long weekend when there were no fatailities, Petrol was at one of its highest prices ($2.20/ltr). I'm not saying correlation equals causation - but it certainly merits further investigation.

Not all offenses are punished by a loss of license and having to resit. Maybe increasing the number could make a difference.

First you suggested that people at fault should have to resit, then when I pointed out that if the offence is serious enough - you have to do that anyway - now you are trying to expand the scope of the what is serious enough - as it stands, any loss of licence for more than 1 year means the person will have to be re-tested.

I would suggest that you understand the current laws and systems before trying to 'improve' them.

[onearmedbandit]

Reading text on a computer screen can be damaging to the eyes it is said. Reading cassina's comments is definitely damaging to the brain.

[bogan]

You were the one that felt driver training was not good enough and I just said making resitting the test, by more people at fault could make the roads safer. Everyone has sat different complexities of tests over the years so if those at fault do a current resit they may improve. Certainly if petrol got up high enough there would be less accidents but it would get to a point where people would trade their gas guzzling cars in on motorbikes and maybe then there would be a big enough critical mass to lobby for lower ACC premiums for bikes.

Perhaps you could even make them sit the test before they even have the (at fault) accident... Might be a safer option?

[TheDemonLord]

You were the one that felt driver training was not good enough and I just said making resitting the test, by more people at fault could make the roads safer.

You see - here is the issue:

I am saying that the standard of the typical NZ driver is rather low - especially when compared with other first world nations. This could be remedied by better driver training/stricter license tests/periodic re-testing (all of which doesn't exist atm)

You are saying that if people are at fault in accident (and therefore by extension have committed some form of driving offence) they should be re-tested - this currently exists in NZ law.

where the two ideas are not the same (yet you seem to make them the same) is that under the current system, those that loose their licence go through the same limp wristed testing requirements that we currently have. Under the system I propose, everyone gets tested periodically, those that loose their licence for more than a year still have to re-take their licence test, but under much stricter requirements.

Certainly if petrol got up high enough there would be less accidents but it would get to a point where people would trade their gas guzzling cars in on motorbikes and maybe then there would be a big enough critical mass to lobby for lower ACC premiums for bikes.

Yah ever tried to move a Drum kit using a Motorbike? or how about a Somoan family on a Motorbike? People will always need cars - so again you are leaping a to conclusion that isn't supported by logic.

[TheDemonLord]

perhaps you could even make them sit the test before they even have the (at fault) accident... Might be a safer option?

holy logic batman!

[Bikemad]

So what you are saying wealthy people would make the best drivers? I think you would find the death toll would not go down if only the rich could afford to drive other than they would be able to afford safer cars. Not all offenses are punished by a loss of license and having to resit. Maybe increasing the number could make a difference.

there you go again........trying to put words in other peoples mouths.........
how long have you been driving/riding and reading/speaking english?..........really......i think we are all curious to know

[bogan]

So what would your idea be of a better driving test than what we have now? In another thread when the issue of compulsary advanced driver training was brought up someone made a claim that the govt did not want this as people would become "Over Confident". I wonder how they would reach this conclusion when you say it works overseas. You may not have been around in the mid 70s but there were substantially more bikes on the road that there are now due to the substantial difference in price between a car and a bike which was brought to an end by the dropping of tarrifs/import duties which allowed cheap jap import cars to be priced about the same as a big bike. So while bikes boomed due to the differential in purchase price exactly the same thing could happen again if the cost of fuel went up high enough.

One which you'd be incapable of passing...

It was possibly a conclusion they wanted to reach to continue the 'speed kills' campaign.

[swbarnett]

agree about a rider/drivers natural speed.
They arent forced to drive at the speed limit, its not a target.

No, they're not legally forced to drive at the speed limit. However, if your natural speed is above the limit you are legally forced to drive below your natural speed (just to be clear this all has to be with consideration for a sensible speed for the conditions).

Also, someone whose natural speed is below the limit will often find faster drivers annoyed with them because they're being held up. Without a speed limit the faster driver has no "target" to base their frustration on.

When I am not comfortable with the speed limit indicated I ride at the speed I am ok with.
If I am slow, I try and find a decent location and allow the people behind me pass safely, everyone is ok with that?

This is exactly what I'm advocating. Good for you.

I would think its the difference of speed and direction that is mostly at stake here.
if your travelling at similar speeds and directions the amount of damage you would expect to be less (no matter what the speed)

Agreed. My last off was due to shit weather at night and the car behind me not taking account of me gingerly taking a corner full of white paint. Had it been dry it would never have happened.

What I'm really getting at is that no-one can predict ahead of time whether a higher or lower speed will result in more damage for any given incident. Sometimes going faster will allow you to completely avoid an accident. Sometimes it will make it worse. Only the rider/driver can say what's appropriate for them without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.

[swbarnett]

Here's a thought. Why don't we all just accept the fact that carnage and death is a part of life. Hell, there'd be no life without them.

Accept the fact that we are all human and that we ALL benefit to the same degree from a publicly funded, no fault, recovery and compensation scheme.

I see no other plausible option than to fund ACC completely from the general public purse and to hell with all this "your life is more dangerous than mine so you should pay more" bullshit.