Geez there is a lot of anti police

[SPman]

Its actually rather sad that this thread is even considered.There is a lot of lack of distinction between police on criminal duties and police on traffic duties. Due to the politicos constant meddling, its no wonder. In the days of the MOT, police could pull you over and ticket you, but mainly, they didnt bother - you had to be a right prat. There were as many POS MOT officers as there are in the Highway patrol, but, you get that anywhere.
What has changed, is the politicos obsession with "being seen to do something". They dont know what, as long as its something and, as usual, its the easiest "something" they can do. Convince the populace at large, that "speed" is dangerous, will kill all your loved ones, and lead to the downfall of the human race. Any "speed"!
Not "speed, inappropriate for conditions ", - set an abitrary limit, take away all autonomy, discretion and judgement from the police who have to enforce it and turn it into a business. Tell the police how they will operate, - try and turn them into good little government robots, then try and tell the public its a "safety" issue - its all for your own good. A partial truth is far better than a whole truth!
Then, keep the police undermanned, try and break down their morale, force - induce them to act like nazis to meet artificial bullshit,"performance" figures and then say things like "See, we are committed to road safety and we will get the road toll down to X no by whenever!", as if a complex issue like traffic movement can be reduced to a mathematical figure or "performance goal"
Then act surprised when there is a backlash - against those who are given the unenviable job of trying to enforce this crap - "the police"
The backlash should be against the politicos -including the LTSA who spout this dogma - who make the laws, who say things like "motorcycles are dangerous and if I had my way they would be banned" and other constructive comments! Speed is dangerous - but it is inappropriate speed for the area and conditions that is dangerous - not just speed.
And why just target speed, without putting in place comprehensive training and education schemes - coz its cheap and easy.
A well trained, properly functioning highway patrol should have the autonomy and authority to be able to make judgement calls - give warnings, "educate' drivers. There will always be arseholes in any job, luck of the draw. We need a Highway Patrol - there are zillions of fuckwits out there on the road - but we need a structure that will let them do their job properly, not treat everyone automatically like an 18 yr old learner driver. We need to be able to regain a measure of respect for the police force that the active face of the traffic branch acting under government orders is rapidly losing.
So how about giving the cops a bit of slack, (criticise where justified), but get stuck into the weasily two faced politicos who put these structures in place in the first place!

But.....

[MikeL]

Well said, SPMan.
Some of us have tried to inject some balance into this argument, but often our justified criticism of the current situation is (wifully or not) misinterpreted as police-bashing. Of course to a large extent the rank and file police are caught in the middle and deserve sympathy. That does not alter the fact that in applying unjust or unreasonable policies they should be surprised or dismayed if they lose the respect and confidence of the public. I know that the police (and emergency services too) have a thankless task and are all too often abused and attacked by the people they are trying to help. It used not to be like this. The reasons for the changed nature of the relationship between police and public are complex and have been discussed elsewhere. Unfortunately instead of the required investment in the aspects of policing that really make a difference (more local cops on the beat, higher standards of recruitment and training) all we will see is more money wasted on PR campaigns.

[James Deuce]

Timid hand raised - never had a traffic infringement or conviction in 22 years of driving/riding and never intend too. I have two parking tickets to my name, and I successfully defended one of them.

If I get busted I'll pay my fine/do my time.

I don't like getting stopped when I haven't done anything is all. And that is government policy (vote-catching behaviour) not common sense policing - which I am sure most police would be much happier to provide than being a traffic monitor.

[Jackrat]

Ok I,m probably going to cop it for saying this but it's how I see things.
If I get pulled over by the police when I've done nothing wrong I tend to just look at it as them doing their job.I am aware that a lot of real crooks get caught by simple traffic stops,And as far as drink driving cheak points go,Well I have never been held up for more than about one minite.I travel a lot at night and have been pulled over a number of times in the small hours,mabe it means that I'm not very smart or something but I don't see it as being some infringement on my civil rights,I just see it as the cops doing the job they are payed to do.I mean what if I was up to no good,What then?

[spudchucka]

If you call the police they claim they are too busy to find your stolen bike, And yet if they put the same resources into finding stolen property as they did into catching speedsters, they would have more luck.Only thing is, THEY MAKE NO MONEY FROM FINDING STOLEN PROPERTY

And they make no money from issuing traffic infringements either. This logic is inherently flawed.

[spudchucka]

You make valid points SPman.

Speed in its self isn't dangerous, in fact its stopping suddenly that does the damage. Speed is just part of the equation that adds up to the net damage as a result of a crash, its pretty basic physics.

The problem is we don't elect when we are going to have a crash, they happen without warning. So how fast you go is dependant on how much damage you are prepared to inflict on yourself or another person should you be unlucky enough to be involved in a crash.

[Lou Girardin]

And they make no money from issuing traffic infringements either. This logic is inherently flawed.

No they don't, directly. But a big revenue stream makes for a happy Govt. and a happy Govt is a (relatively) generous one. Hence, the proliferation of HP cars, Stalker radars and lasers.
So Daves logic is correct.
Lou

[Coldkiwi]

The problem is we don't elect when we are going to have a crash, they happen without warning. So how fast you go is dependant on how much damage you are prepared to inflict on yourself or another person should you be unlucky enough to be involved in a crash.

...true.... unless we put driver education into the equation and remove some of the 'unlucky' component. You probably know as well as the rest of us that accidents are all caused by a number of factors from poor reactions, poor maintenance, poor visibility, poor decision making, poor attitudes and piss poor education. I don't think people who have ridden for 20+ years without crashing would say they are 'lucky'.. they are just more careful than most. Sure, we can all be victims of other peoples bad decisions but a more educated populous would be in a MUCH better position to avoid many crashes we have on our roads. Sadly for us all, our esteemed LTSA experts and politicians believe educating the drivers will make us drive faster because we will get arrogant (umm.. yes, I see the link.... no honest I do!) and so are apparently opposed to teaching people more about handling a vehicle.
better drivers/riders cause/have less crashes... why is that so hard to accept for politicans and law makers!?

[Kwaka-Kid]

Sadly for us all, our esteemed LTSA experts and politicians believe educating the drivers will make us drive faster because we will get arrogant (umm.. yes, I see the link.... no honest I do!) and so are apparently opposed to teaching people more about handling a vehicle.
better drivers/riders cause/have less crashes...

I do see it, i think it depends on an age/maturity thing, its a real hard one, the way i see it its almost 50/50 going one way or the other, except that the long term affect is that when the immature ones grow out (hopefully) of being immature (nah, never will!) they will still have the skills they have been taught. But i unfortuantly i do believe that many teens etc put on practical courses etc will become big-headed about it and try more to prove it to mates etc, has definatly happened to me, seen it happen heaps, and will continue seeing it happen, surely you have too CK? cmon surely your teens wernt too many decades ago! -im just lucky i lived thru these days and now have come out alive and with some extra experience (still not much unfortunatly)

[Stinger]

You make valid points SPman.
The problem is we don't elect when we are going to have a crash, they happen without warning. So how fast you go is dependant on how much damage you are prepared to inflict on yourself or another person should you be unlucky enough to be involved in a crash.

I agree with this, however it is mainly true if we increase our average speed. When we increase our peak speed i.e for 30 seconds or whatever to overtake so we spend less time on the other side of the road then I think that it can make us safer.

One interesting theory about this is that we all have an ingrained sense of risk perception, we will increase our speed (or whatever) to match the level of risk we're happy with. Which means that when we increase our speed we become that much more careful. This can be seen in NZ where they have straightened corners thinking that it will make the road safer... in fact there are more accidents because people increase their speed because they feel that the corner is safer. It works both ways - speed is not an isolated variable.

[spudchucka]

I agree with this, however it is mainly true if we increase our average speed.

The whole objective of targeting speed is to lower the mean speed. You'll always get rouges that drive at whatever speed they want to.

When we increase our peak speed i.e for 30 seconds or whatever to overtake so we spend less time on the other side of the road then I think that it can make us safer.

I agree with this and I belive that a higher level of discretion should be shown on passing lanes. Up to about 120'ish would be reasonable to me.

One interesting theory about this is that we all have an ingrained sense of risk perception, we will increase our speed (or whatever) to match the level of risk we're happy with. Which means that when we increase our speed we become that much more careful. This can be seen in NZ where they have straightened corners thinking that it will make the road safer... in fact there are more accidents because people increase their speed because they feel that the corner is safer.

Well I don't know of any data that could prove that so if you have a link I'd like to see it. One similar theory is that a lot of crashes happen close to home because people are driving within their comfort zone and their level of awareness decreases.

It works both ways - speed is not an isolated variable

In terms of what causes a crash, I'd agree. In terms of damage & injury sustained in a crash, speed is an intrinsic factor, totally related to the level of carnage that results.

[Stinger]

Well I don't know of any data that could prove that so if you have a link I'd like to see it. One similar theory is that a lot of crashes happen close to home because people are driving within their comfort zone and their level of awareness decreases.

I don't know about actually proving it, but there is a reasonalble amount of data (I'll try to get my hands on some of it). There is an ergonomics professor (he calls it something different, applied cognitive psychology?? I think). He's the one who recently has made that developed the driving simulator that they've been using to test drunk driving limits and things (it's been on 20/20 etc).

Anyway, they did an isolated test to try to prove his theory. What they did is they used one of those big green sheets of canvas netting or similar to obscure view coming up to an intersection. The idea being that it would make people slow down as they approach because they have to be very close to the intersection before they can see if it is safe to go. As opposed to the way the intersection was before where you could see for miles around.
They did this as an ABA test i.e, they measured accidents with no canvas, then with canvas and then back to no canvas again. I believe the results they got pretty much showed what he thought (small low budget study though so obviously not proof).

When I get a chance I'll see if I can find any proper references to his work

[scumdog]

Ok I,m probably going to cop it for saying this but it's how I see things.
If I get pulled over by the police when I've done nothing wrong I tend to just look at it as them doing their job.I am aware that a lot of real crooks get caught by simple traffic stops,And as far as drink driving cheak points go,Well I have never been held up for more than about one minite.I travel a lot at night and have been pulled over a number of times in the small hours,mabe it means that I'm not very smart or something but I don't see it as being some infringement on my civil rights,I just see it as the cops doing the job they are payed to do.I mean what if I was up to no good,What then?

Far too much sense and logic here, you're saying things that a normal person should know, for this reason I do not think it a good idea to post such information JR, why you could end up converting one of the rabble-rousing rabid-raving nay-sayers to actually THINK.
Funny how 95% of the people I stop think much along the same lines as you, - and the ones that don't? well I brood on what they say for as much as 3 or 4 seconds sometimes, after all when somebody is letting rip just to hear their head roar it's not worth listening to. eh?

[HanaBelle]

is surprised - I feel so normal

by the way Lou - what I do is not illegal - I aint a hooker.

Actually, it make no difference whether or not you do it for money bunny, honey...(ok, its punny)...s/m is illegal if it causes marks, otherwise known as "bodily harm", and that is so whether your partner consents or not - if you bruise, the legality you lose. (Dont ask me why I know this).

HB
PS theres a motorbike in the Hellfire Club in NYC, so this is on topic!

[spudchucka]

I don't know about actually proving it, but there is a reasonalble amount of data (I'll try to get my hands on some of it). There is an ergonomics professor (he calls it something different, applied cognitive psychology?? I think). He's the one who recently has made that developed the driving simulator that they've been using to test drunk driving limits and things (it's been on 20/20 etc).

I'm familiar with the theory and I saw the 20/20 show. What I was more interested in was data that proves this.........

This can be seen in NZ where they have straightened corners thinking that it will make the road safer... in fact there are more accidents because people increase their speed because they feel that the corner is safer.

When I get a chance I'll see if I can find any proper references to his work

Thanks, I'd apprectiate that.