New 'road safety' adverts

[Kickaha]

If you know what you're doing and are careful doing it, there's no reason why you can't travel quickly without risking anyone's safety.
Half the of the rest of the world manages it.
Lou

Spot on, but who is it that decides which of us are are those that who know what they're doing,I know a whole bunch of people who speed and consider themselves "good" drivers but I'd be reluctant to get in a car or ride with them.

After all how many people do you ever hear saying "I'm a crap driver" absolutely no one,everyone thinks they're the next Rossi or Brock and seems to drive or ride accordingly.

Never mind that there are other countries with higher limits and have a lower accident rates,I'm sure its nothing to do with our roading system or driver education.

[Motoracer]

Ok..... leave every thing aside. If everyone goes at the speed limit, isn't every one going to be safer? Sure, I am aware all about being able to do 160k on a 65-75k very safely or do 200+ks on a emty back road with virtually no problems etc but like Kickaha said, who is going to say who is going to be safe enough to go over the speed limit?

We are like a bunch of sheeps (is it bunch or herd or something else? n/m) to the cops. No matter how bright each individual maybe (sheeps aren't bright but its just an eg), all have to be barked upon and chased around to have some control over the level of safety on our roads. Thus all of us will be treated the same when we are caught going over the speed limit cause they (cops) don't know who is a good driver or who is an idiot.

The key here I reckon IS speed. There are lots of other factors that causes accidents. However at lower speeds, these other factors may not be a threat.

I am no boyscout (used to be but anyway), I will go over the legal speed limit but still stay within my safe limits (on the road). All I am saying is that their strong approch to get people to slow down is justified IMO.

[Zed]

We are like a bunch of sheeps (is it bunch or herd or something else? n/m) to the cops. No matter how bright each individual maybe (sheeps aren't bright but its just an eg),

Psalms 78:52 But made his own people to go forth like sheep,
and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.

I am no boyscout (used to be but anyway), I will go over the legal speed limit but still stay within my safe limits (on the road). All I am saying is that their strong approch to get people to slow down is justified IMO.

I agree with you there Motoracer!


Zed

[Jackrat]

Hell if you take all the adds about what is going to kill you,and put them altogeather,By rights we are all buggered anyway.Vehicule fumes,second hand smoke,first hand smoke,speeding,legal drugs,illegal drugs,Medical incompetance,HIV,Hepititis,The next flash strain of Flu,Weapons of mass distruction,Boy racers,Gangs,Alcohol,Asian drivers,Storms,floods,Helen fucking Clarke,Winston Bloody Peters,Stress,sin,cheating on your income tax,
Bugger that,I think I'll go for a ride and trash the guts out of it.

[Zed]

Hell if you take all the adds about what is going to kill you,and put them altogeather,By rights we are all buggered anyway.Vehicule fumes,second hand smoke,first hand smoke,speeding,legal drugs,illegal drugs,Medical incompetance,HIV,Hepititis,The next flash strain of Flu,Weapons of mass distruction,Boy racers,Gangs,Alcohol,Asian drivers,Storms,floods,Helen fucking Clarke,Winston Bloody Peters,Stress,sin,cheating on your income tax,
Bugger that,I think I'll go for a ride and trash the guts out of it.

They don't have any speed limits in Waiuku yet do they? I thought it was still horse & cart transportation there...apart from the odd hoon on 2 wheels!

[Deano]

There seems to be a huge misappropriation of funds and time into the whole LTSA system... When i got the R65 rego'd and vinned a couple of days back, they wanted a piece of paper from someone else, certifying that the brakes were up to scratch... they didnt test them at all, and i know this because when we got the bike home to check the ovality etc etc there was grease over the inside of the rear drum - a result of cleaning and relubing the splines a bit too much... seems they are not interested in how safe the bike is, but in how to cover their asses if there is a crash at anytime in the future.

The swingarm had loosened up in transportation for some reason, and there was slop in the whole rear wheel, which we noticed when the rear drum was being cleaned/measured. This all happened after the vin/cof was given, but before the rego could be processed... all wthout obviously looking at the bike at all. I imagine if there had been incorrectly adjusted steering head bearings that would have been passed by without a second thought at all.

NB: the bike is in good working order now and all joints/bolts have been rechecked and retorqued up. i think the problem was short swingarm pinch bolts, when they should have been long ones, but it seemed fine at trial and final assembly stages. Maybe it was just one of those things

Personally, I would like to see the driver licensing situation much more like that in Germany, where a certain number of hours must be logged with an instructor before u can get your license... this way people will be more likely to know how to drive/ride BEFORE they get out onto the roads

anyway... enough from me

~milky

Fully - I heard that when a mechanic does their initial Accreditation, in order to carry out WOF checks and issue them, they spend about 2 hours going over a vehicle in front of the LTSA Officer........how long do they spend when actually doing the checks...30 minutes max.

Its all a facade. The mechanic who WOF'ed my old Duke didn't even look at the frame or swingarm for cracks, which was a common problem I thought he would have known about (this place does all the dukes for the local franchise).

He then asked if the braided brake lines were standard - I did a double take and said no

Im sure if I said yes he would have accepted my word for it. A quick nip around the block, lights etc, wheel bearings and it was all over in 10 minutes.

What a rort.

[Lou Girardin]

So, judging from some of the posts, we have to assume that NZer's are inherently more stupid than, say, Germans and we can't be trained to be better drivers. The LTSA must think so, they have no faith in driver training and think that we must be beaten into submission.
Lou

[Motoracer]

I agree with you Lou. To nip the matter in the bud so to speak, spending more funds in the driver licencing system to better train the future drivers/riders on our roads might just be the best idea yet. Then that would be damage prevention rather than just damage control with the speeding adds.

[franco]

just more rambling thoughts about changing the way people behave...

There seems to be consensus that better driver education would be more effective than advertising campaigns and abitrary fines.

At the risk of suggesting unpopular ideas, what about a more stringent relicensing programme for all drivers? Not as a user-pays money making scheme, but from a continuous assessment of your driving skills and aptitude (and dare I say it - attitudes) perspective. Like once every 2 or 3 years you have to resit some form of practical riding / driving / roadcraft test.

That way, we reinforce the message that having a licence to drive a vehicle amongst others is a priveledge to be respected, not a right to be defended...?

[Hitcher]

just more rambling thoughts about changing the way people behave...

There seems to be consensus that better driver education would be more effective than advertising campaigns and abitrary fines.

At the risk of suggesting unpopular ideas, what about a more stringent relicensing programme for all drivers? Not as a user-pays money making scheme, but from a continuous assessment of your driving skills and aptitude (and dare I say it - attitudes) perspective. Like once every 2 or 3 years you have to resit some form of practical riding / driving / roadcraft test.

That way, we reinforce the message that having a licence to drive a vehicle amongst others is a priveledge to be respected, not a right to be defended...?

I agree with you Franco, although at an interval of five years to coincide with current license renewal requirements could be simpler.

I got cut off last night riding up The Terrace by some bint in a RAV4 who was busy sending a text message on her cellphone at the time. I had a whack at her mirror but just missed...

[SPman]

just more rambling thoughts about changing the way people behave...
There seems to be consensus that better driver education would be more effective than advertising campaigns and abitrary fines.

At the risk of suggesting unpopular ideas, what about a more stringent relicensing programme for all drivers? Not as a user-pays money making scheme, but from a continuous assessment of your driving skills and aptitude (and dare I say it - attitudes) perspective. Like once every 2 or 3 years you have to resit some form of practical riding / driving / roadcraft test.

That way, we reinforce the message that having a licence to drive a vehicle amongst others is a priveledge to be respected, not a right to be defended...?

Good idea, but.....it would cost them money, they would have to actually do something (set up systems, training centres, organise testers etc)
Also, people are on, generally, their best behaviour in these situations.
A drivers "wof" is a good idea, short of reassessing every driver in the country from scratch, but theyve got to start training drivers properly...giving them the basic initial skills and attitudes when they first get their licences, and following it up with a further training, to a stage where drivers have some confidence in the ability of the vehicle, what it will and will not do - proper skid pad training etc.
But if they did, they would somehow totally cock the whole thing up anyway, in best NZ bureaucratic tradition!

Do I sound cynical here?

[Motoracer]

One good example of Training vs slow down advets is:

Do you guys remember that one when the dude in the ford telstar runs over the little girl in the trike when he fails to stop in time. At the end of the advert he says "she was only 4 and...*sob* *sob* I KILLED HER!". Well, if only he had proper training (just a 1 dayer deffensive driver training course), he could have stop in time by using the pulse brakeing method.

I have watched Targa rally many times and I get shocked in horror as some of these guys who are racing lock up their brakes for miles and end up upside down in a ditch.

Training is so desperatly required for most people out there. I don't know if you guys are aware of this but there is a program up and running called "Pro drive". They go around schools and give a deffensive driver training course to any interested students with at least a learners licence for free! Its briliant and its definetly a step in the right direction.

[Lou Girardin]

That's what we need, Franco. It used to be a laugh a minute in my driver testing days, when people came in for court ordered tests. They were in a cold sweat trying to remember the correct way of driving. A 5 yearly test would be a wake up call.
Lou

[SPman]

. I don't know if you guys are aware of this but there is a program up and running called "Pro drive". They go around schools and give a deffensive driver training course to any interested students with at least a learners licence for free! Its briliant and its definetly a step in the right direction.

The Pro drive course is really good! Set up by John Osborne when he was recovering from bad injuries after totalling a ...RX7 V8 I think...at Pukekohe.
Its a bit more than just a "Defensive driving course".
The official DD course is a bit of a joke really, but its better than nothing.

[wkid_one]

Here is an interesting stat from the LTSA website - it states in black and white that speeding contributes to 30 (yes only 30) per year (HERE)

Why all the fuss then?? More people get killed in home invasions/abduction/assaults etc - yet the police force is soooo inundated with traffic issues these go largely by the by - for what - to get 30 down to 29, or 28.

So out of 400 deaths on the road (which is still a bloody low number) - they gave decided to focus on speeding because it is the majority incident? Hold on - it makes up 12.5% of the road toll - doesn't make sense to me.

It also is a contributing factor in only 15% of injuries??