NZ Motorists

[Groins_NZ]

Unfortunately, you're right. The only policy is to ignore the root causes, and beat everyone over the head, indiscriminately, with the "speeding" stick. All they can see is to slow down all the traffic - seems to be the only thought in their collective brain cell! The LTSA or whatever keep coming up with figures like ---slow down the traffic median speed by 2.3690kph we will save 3.547lives per month at a savings of blah dollars a year, so if we extrapolate and slow everyone down we wont have to spend any money, we'll save it and we'll look good.Their goal seems to be to get us all in convoys, with police riding shotgun , travelling the highways at 65kph!

Well said SPman!

[SARGE]

and I love my full beam. I was coming up behind a car that was sat in the right hand lane, going 80. No one around, nothing to over take.. so on go the full beam, just a quick flash to say 'hi, fuck off from the fast lane, you're going slow', and I get the middle finger!! So on go the full beams, and I leave them on, just to see what happens. Nothing. Just get the finger back..

well buggy.. if you are getting the finger .. at least he SAW you..

i ride with my beams on during the day all the time for that reason ( and trust me .. you dont want to be in front of me when i do unless you want the hair on the back of your neck burnt off..)

Was this the recent survey that NZ came second, behind the USA, for the worst road rage?

sorry... my fault..

[Karma]

half a second more and she would have gone plowing up the arse of a parked car in front off her ,,,
She made a kamakazi piliot look safe ... Honestly she would have ,,gone right up the arse of a parked car rather than give way to me ...who was in the correct lane an all ....

I disagree... she would have swerved over anyways and ploughed into you... would have been safer than hitting the parked car after all.


Reminds me of an incident when taking my bike training in the uk.

We were in a standard formation, Trainee 1 at the front, instructor behind, and me at the back. Got into a bit of traffic behind some kinda lorry or something and as trainee 1 was a little new on bikes he couldn't sum up the courage to overtake when there was the oppertunity.

Anyways... all of a sudden this great big Range Rover pulls out from two cars behind me and trys to over take, get this, 2 cars, three bikes and a lorry all in one movement.

Well he got upto beside Trainee 1 before another lorry shows up heading straight for him.

Where to go he thinks...

A. Plough into the lorry headon
B. Swerve to the right and head into a ditch
C. Swerve to the left and shunt the learner biker off the road

Guess which option he took. Poor Trainee 1 was in hospital for a few days... could have been worse, broken leg, couple of cracked ribs, but says he'll never ride again because of it.

Range Rover driver was going through court when I left to come over here, but they were throwing all sorts of dangerous driving charges at him.

So... point of this post... um... well... some people are just shitty drivers, perhaps NZ has a higher percentage than the UK, but one thing is universal, they can kill you at 30kph if they really wanted to... the Range Rover was only doing 60Mph.

[Lou Girardin]

Tis true story ,,,,

I was driving in chch about 6 years ago ..goin down a one way street with 3 lanes ....cars parked on the side of the road ....so 5 lanes if you include where the cars are parked ...
....)

I've seen this happen too, except the caged clown was so busy accelerating and looking for a gap on his left he gave a car stopped to turn right a major Liberace.

[Brian d marge]

just trolling around hinternet and found this ,,,,this is yur actual evidence as used by those in big grey offices ,,,to prove how good/bad people are at driving

Warning dont go to Greece ,,,and stay away from french boy racers around 18 yrs of age ,,,,,,,,

Stephen

http://www.bast.de/htdocs/fachthemen...ility/p107.pdf

http://www.bast.de/htdocs/fachthemen...ility/p127.pdf

[Skyryder]

Prior to the Amalgamation of the MOT with the police the standard of driving in New Zealand was not that bad. Christchurch has always had a reputation for poor driving but this (going by the posts) has been transmitted through out the length and breadth of NZ.

I am of the opinion that after the amalgamation there was very little road enforcment other than speed camera's and this trend a has continued up to the present day.

The only bad driving that is now 'enforced' is speeding. The general poor driving of New Zealanders has become so habitual that it is now endemic in the New Zealsnd phsyc. Untill such time the police begin to actively monitor and enforce the road rules (not just speed) outside of the 100 k zone this trend will sadly continue and it is the biker communinty that pays for this neglect.

Skyryder

[scumdog]

Not wearing seatbelts/drinkdriving/failing to keep left/crossing yellow lines etc. get just as much of my attention as speeding - but often all of the above are linked with exceeding the speed limit and if you looked at it this way:
Speed & no seat belt, speed & crossing yellow line, speed & drink driving as an example of the circumstances I stop people you would on the face of it think "Hmmm, he's targetting speed cos he's got three speeding offences but only one each of the others" - and at times that's the way it looks ( but I'm only speaking for myself,)

[Lou Girardin]

Not wearing seatbelts/drinkdriving/failing to keep left/crossing yellow lines etc. get just as much of my attention as speeding - but often all of the above are linked with exceeding the speed limit and if you looked at it this way:
Speed & no seat belt, speed & crossing yellow line, speed & drink driving as an example of the circumstances I stop people you would on the face of it think "Hmmm, he's targetting speed cos he's got three speeding offences but only one each of the others" - and at times that's the way it looks ( but I'm only speaking for myself,)

So how often do you sit at a likely spot and concentrate on nailing non left keepers or double yellow crossers?
A prime example that I've mentioned before is the speed traps on Exmouth St (A quiet suburban road) over the last month.
Less than a km down the road is one of the worst intersections for red light running, (and other things like reading the news while you drive) but you'll never see a cop stake it out.

[manuboy]

Agree with many posts in this thread. And am mystified by the same Q. Why o why are NZ drivers so bad as opposed to so many othe countries when really, we have no reason to be (in comparison)?

Hey! But has anybody tried this? You see some really dumb shit. Dumb enough to have almost caused you bodily harm. Instead of "doing the dance" and making sure the offender knows about it, you just smile, think to yaself "what a f**in cock" and then continue on ya merry way (till the next incident).

I say that because you can't educate NZ drivers. They won't learn. You can't do anything except keep yourself as safe as possible and not add to your own stress levels while doing it. I just take off with my driving superiority intact.

Less than a km down the road is one of the worst intersections for red light running, (and other things like reading the news while you drive) but you'll never see a cop stake it out.

You've got a point there Lou / Skyrider. I can never understand why known problem areas seem to be ignored when it would be so easy to sit in one place and nab people who are more likely to cause accidents than pure speeders...

[scumdog]

So how often do you sit at a likely spot and concentrate on nailing non left keepers or double yellow crossers?
A prime example that I've mentioned before is the speed traps on Exmouth St (A quiet suburban road) over the last month.
Less than a km down the road is one of the worst intersections for red light running, (and other things like reading the news while you drive) but you'll never see a cop stake it out.

I don't 'sit' anywhere but if I have time I could check and see how many I've pinged for the yellow linw/failing to keep left (cutting corners to you lot), I know it's quite a few - and I'm not 'over-zealous' about it.

Exmouth Street? It's in Kaitangata and I never even knew they had traffic lights there, hell I'll get down there tomorrow and start nailing those red light runners!!

Seriously, the one common thing I'm picking up from the various comments on this site is that we live in a different world down here when it comes to driving.

[Posh Tourer :P]

Where to go he thinks...

A. Plough into the lorry headon
B. Swerve to the right and head into a ditch
C. Swerve to the left and shunt the learner biker off the road

Guess which option he took. Poor Trainee 1 was in hospital for a few days... could have been worse, broken leg, couple of cracked ribs, but says he'll never ride again because of it.

Range Rover driver was going through court when I left to come over here, but they were throwing all sorts of dangerous driving charges at him.

Fair enough.. BUT... Here are my observations on why this might have happened.

1. Nobody overtakes on single carriageways. Probably due to limited opportunities because there is so much traffic coming the other way most of the time.

2. Everybody follows too close, regardless of intention to overtake.

Add those two together, and you get the situation where if you want to overtake, most of the time, you MUST, by necessity, overtake 3-4 cars at a time, just to find a gap to get back into... Also, because 2 is the case, it makes 1 worse, and because 1 occurs, there is rarely a problem doing 2....

Not in any way excusing Mr Range Rover, but it reminded me of this scenario I see all the time, particularly down the A11 through Thetford Forest, for those of you familiar with Norfolk...

[Drunken Monkey]

Was this the recent survey that NZ came second, behind the USA, for the worst road rage?

That's an interesting one. The US of A has quite a reputation for road rage. In my short experience (1 month in California/Nevada/Arizona), I encountered driving at a level of courteousness and road-rule awareness I've not seen anywhere else (except maybe Germany). Maybe it depends on when and where you drive there, and a month isn't really a long time, although 2 of my other friends have spent about the same amount of time driving there and had the same impression. I guess when they do road rage over there the violence level is higher, I've certainly read of road rage stories which involved the use of hand guns (scary stuff).

[Motu]

Sometimes the cops target the roundabouts in Carr rd for people going straight ahead in the left turn lane,easy pickings as it's almost constant.We get several crashes a day between trucks and buses and cars getting caught on the inside lane,and I was surprised that once when talking to a cop at one of them that they didn't consider it a high accident area.

Yesterdays one was a classic - some woman came through so fast in an Odyssey type thing that she took out a sign on the corner,speared off over the road and mounted the island taking out a couple of curb stones...then she just carried on! We were just standing there looking at the damage she had done when she came back the other way - ah good,she's come back to the scene of the crime.Her car was damaged on both sides and had a flat left rear tyre,on the rim.But she just kept going,down towards the motorway!!,flat tyre and all with kids in the car!! Oh,and the nationality? Indian.

[wendigo]

Yesterdays one was a classic - some woman came through so fast in an Odyssey type thing that she took out a sign on the corner,speared off over the road and mounted the island taking out a couple of curb stones...then she just carried on! We were just standing there looking at the damage she had done when she came back the other way - ah good,she's come back to the scene of the crime.Her car was damaged on both sides and had a flat left rear tyre,on the rim.But she just kept going,down towards the motorway!!,flat tyre and all with kids in the car!! Oh,and the nationality? Indian.

Fannytastic! - haven't read all this thread but this caught my eye. Brilliant. If I hadn't seen similar meself, I'd swear you were making it up!

[NordieBoy]

I moved from Auckland to Nelson, and although Nelson drivers are a hell of a lot more courteous, and let people in, and aren't in any big rush, they are freaking hopeless at using their indicators, which can be twice as bad.

It has to be seen to be believed.

Going down Bolt Road from Stoke in the POURING rain.
Truckie from the car factory swings out into the middle of the road to turn right into Merhtin Street (so I thought - no indicators).
I accellerate up the inside as we're only doing 30kph.
He turns left...

One of those "Oh, I'm going to crash" moments.
On the brakes (this is on the VT250 with twin disk front) and managed to almost stop.
Caught the left rear corner of his deck on the fairing just in front of the right mirror and it scraped some paint off and slightly bent the fairing mountings - didn't fall off.
Waited 10 mins for him to come out of the shop.
"I went up back of your truck there mate"
"Oh no, I don't think you did"
Run hand along back of truck "Here's the paint from my fairing"
"Well you were going too fast" drives off (no indicators).



A lot of not indicating but also a lot of "I am going to turn/pull out as my magic indicator will protect me and create a gap".
Wait a few seconds, someone will let you in.