No Offence Intended

[rastuscat]

My brother always used to say "The faster you go the more time they have to clean up the mess" .

I think that unless the car/bike fails to make a corner due to high speed and goes off the road/into another car or gets pulled out on by someone that didn't see they coming due to their extreme speed then speed is the main factor. The fact that we travel at any speed makes it always a factor though.

One of the great ironies is "If they were going slower they could have stopped in time". Which when you map out speed over distance makes little sense, if they were going slower they would not have been in that very location to have a car pull out on them. Also is true if they were going faster they may not have been there either. Of course you are better off if you are going to have a prang going slower, but by going slower you may end up in a location where a truck decides to cross the centre line and squish you.
To sum up if it's your time it's your time.

I see far more dangerous driving most of the time from people doing under the speed limit than those that go a bit faster, or bang-on as in my case. Unfortunately Policing that is so much harder as unless the cop sees them do the evil dead with their own eyes they aren't able to ticket as easily as getting someone with a radar gun. Case and point was when I went in and complained about a lunatic that overtook on hill, double yellow into an oncoming car and nearly caused a head on if it weren't for me n the other cars reaction.
Police looked him up, said yup he's local, will go hit him up. They said do you want him done, I said yup dude deserves to lose his license. Waited, waited, called up got told cop was on leave will get back to me soon. Waited some more. Been a year now... Either there is not enough Cops or they just don't care about properly dangerous drivers.

Each day in a cops life there's a new batch of issues to deal with. Each new batch makes yesterdays batch harder to get to.

I would have expected better too. It's unfortunate that this one got away.

[Autech]

Each day in a cops life there's a new batch of issues to deal with. Each new batch makes yesterdays batch harder to get to.

I would have expected better too. It's unfortunate that this one got away.

Pretty much what I put it down too. Though from a public perception perspective its very bad for them to go on about road safety but not do much about it when prompted as I have seen on more than one occasion.

It's a losing battle I think, everyone's got their hands out asking for more money, differently governments promise this and that but instead throw the money at the stuff that will get them votes ("free" tertiary education springs to mind), which more Police or better pay for nurses probably wont help on the wide scale for gaining lots of votes.

[Swoop]

That 15% relates to speed ...
In the 85% where speed was not identified as a causitive factor, speed was a determinant factor...

So, speed = 100% of accidents and relentless pursuit will be inflicted on the population by the .

[Scuba_Steve]

The research on phone use shows that hands free is just as bad as holding it.

The ones I've seen suggest it's worse than holding it as (in the real world) on handsfree your brain has to do a lot of noise cancelling which obviously takes some of it's CPU power

[R650R]

It's a lot of information, but it's valuable. It says a lot about Police priorities.

If you have the time to trawl it, and the background knowledge to understand it, it tells an interesting tale.

If We're all honest and look objectively it fits reality. Eg most if not all of us speed or break speed limits often, we just don't get caught often but its prob the offence most people commit most often and therefore will always be orders of magnitude ahead on real enforcement.
Most of us if we're honest prob less frequently than we speed occasionally take a cell call, forget seatbelt briefly, make bad call on red light phase, have one to many at pub..... but because it's not very often then not very many will be ticketed.

Surprised the phone camera experiment only showed 3% infringement rate, but then compared to the time duration the offence lasts versus the journey time and chance of apprehension I think the offending rate must be much higher.
Eg drunk drivers are always about 1.5%-2% at any checkpoint but the offending occurs during 100% of journey time so easier detection.
I've been back on truck driving duties last couple weeks and seat of the pants observation is that way more than 3% are cellphone driving.... what's really disturbing is I'm seeing about 5 people a night with no lights on during a max of 200km urban driving!!!!

[R650R]

Of course you are better off if you are going to have a prang going slower, but by going slower you may end up in a location where a truck decides to cross the centre line and squish you.
To sum up if it's your time it's your time.

Do you understand the concept of going slower also gives you a chance to take evasive action. Also not every road user has Rossi level depth and speed perception. We all speed from time to time, if you can't admit/realise the extra element of danger and risk, along with the impact of it on other road users decisions then your doomed to be a statistic. By all means feel free to speed but accept and think of the risks to mitigate the higher hazard level.

[jellywrestler]

20 cops wrote no speed tickets, and just stuck to red lights, cellphones etc. 200 other cops wrote nothing but speed.

Then everyone stood back and bagged the Police for focussing too much on speed.

Leaving the 20 to wonder why they bothered.

The end.

you've answered it in a nutshell, they only focus on offences that are easy to deal with, what about all the poor driving, careless driving, following too close etc? they simply don't want to be chjallenged and have to waste their time in court i reckon.
simple, cameras in every car, ticket issued then with video evidence it's not the coppers problem to administer, but, they're too fucking scared of having their life recorded i reckon.

[jellywrestler]

causitive

can't wait for my next scrabble night....

[rastuscat]

can't wait for my next scrabble night....

What an interesting life you have.

Try discombobulation.

[GazzaH]

Nah, "UNZIPPERINGS", systematically assembled with triple word scores etc. over several goes.

Never forgave my old man for that one ... during the UK coal miners' strike and power cuts of the 1970s.

Many, many babies were conceived around that time.

[Mike.Gayner]

Interesting story in the paper today:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/cri...n-drinkdrivers

So despite the fact that drugs are now responsible for more fatalities than alcohol, there is still virtually no enforcement of drugs impairment while driving (it's such a tiny sliver in this chart you can't even see it).



Once again, police take the easy route, continue focusing on speed, no plans to change.

[EJK]

Interesting story in the paper today:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/cri...n-drinkdrivers

So despite the fact that drugs are now responsible for more fatalities than alcohol, there is still virtually no enforcement of drugs impairment while driving (it's such a tiny sliver in this chart you can't even see it).



Once again, police take the easy route, continue focusing on speed, no plans to change.

Look, why don't you just apply for a job at NZ Police? Clearly you are so genius you have figured it all out.

[Swoop]

Look, why don't you just apply for a job at NZ Police? Clearly you are so genius you have figured it all out.

Actually he is doing what journalists "should do", which is gathering information and providing it for the wider community to consider.

Sadly "journalists" then step over the line and ram their opinions & personal bias down the throat of the public in a manner that Linda Lovelace would struggle to cope with.

[Viking01]

Interesting story in the paper today:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/cri...n-drinkdrivers

So despite the fact that drugs are now responsible for more fatalities than alcohol, there is still virtually no enforcement of drugs impairment while driving (it's such a tiny sliver in this chart you can't even see it).



Once again, police take the easy route, continue focusing on speed, no plans to change.

Just to reply on the drugged driving point alone:

I'm not quite sure how you actually envisaged Police officers enforcing drugged
driving to a greater extent.

1. Random Stopping

If I understand it correctly, there are restrictions under the Human Rights Act
(or Bill of Rights) that legislate against a person being "unlawfully detained or
arrested". The lawyers on KB will be able to comment much better than I.

I'm sure a few adverse court case decisions (stopping people without due cause)
would make Police cautious.

2. Organised Stopping

I don't know whether current legislation grants Police the right to subject a driver
to an impairment test when their vehicle is captured via a roadside (booze bus) stop.
Specifically if the driver showed no signs of impairment while driving.

The conditions under which we allow ourselves to be subjected to a roadside stop and a
5 second breath alcohol test (under the above scenario) should perhaps not be assumed
to apply automatically to drugged driving as well.

leaving ....

3. Random Sighting

Which effectively leaves it down to an officer actually sighting a driver "operating their
vehicle in a visibly unsafe manner", stopping them, and then subjecting them to an alcohol
breath test and / or a roadside impairment test.

If:
- the number of Police vehicles on the road at any time is relatively low ;
- the Police officer is not necessarily travelling in the same direction ; and
- the time period over which an officer might need to watch a driver (in order to judge
that the driver might be impaired) is long,

then unless the driver does an unsafe manoeuvre right in front, I'd wager the chance of
a roadside stop - due to suspected drugged driving - is then quite low.

Just my thoughts.

[Mike.Gayner]

It's about an allocation of resources - police (as an organisation) have made the conscious decision to focus virtually all of their resources on speed. They could easily reallocate some of those resources to the things people WANT to be policed - alcohol, drugs, red lights, phones etc. But it's harder to prove results, so as usual a government body has taken the easy route.

There is nothing in the BOR or any other act of parliament stopping police from doing random stops - they do it every single day.