NZ Road Toll Now Higher Than Last Year

[Quasievil]

Is that taking into account the mileages that Trucks do per year?

no because its irrelevant, trucks do many more KMs on the road obviously but so what, they are overly represented in the Stats. If we utilised our failing rail system more we would remove more of them from the roads.
ive got nothing against truck drivers, hell I used to be one, but point is they are involved in to many crashes

[miSTa]

I see that the toll now stands at 16. I think really it shows that the current policies don't work and that govt has its head in the sand.

What gets me is the 'it doesn't work but if we keep on doing it for long enough it will work one day..." attitude. Time for some new ideas.

[Brian d marge]

Snip
Take a good look at who you have voted in to run this country! Look at the laws and rules they produce.
Snip
It's not my fault, officer I was badly potty trained it's always a "them" who is to blame, never a "me".
Get real New Zealand, it is us you and me who are to blame for letting these brainless bastards inflict themselves on us.
Snip
Its our country and it's us who are shitting in our own back yard.
Snip
We need fewer rules and laws with tougher consequences for those that break them, we need to be more individually ACCOUNTABLE for our actions.
Speed does not kill on the roads STUPIDITY does. John.

I would have to agree here. Ill start from the top,

apathy . When I was living in NZ , one of the things I struck was apathy ..as in ,,,I dont like this ,,still could be worse , mustnt grumble eh? ( before anyone starts , I have stood infront of 400 people in CHCH , trying to get people to do something about student fees ...( dont go there girlfriend!!!) and paid out of me own pocket to go to the behive and have a meeting with as many ministers as I could bend the ears of. !!
BUT I was banging my head against a brick wall , as the majority of people had the ,,,still mustnt grumble attitude ..
politcans LISTEN when votes are counted ,!!!

The draconian laws stem from, the lack of social responsiblity, ,,seatbelts , speeding ,,,etc by acting like an arse. you shit on the guy next door ....so if you dont like getting crapped on dont act like an arse !

bit simplistic, but works like this ,,,go out for the nite, ya mate is drinking water ,,, dont say things like ,,,what are ya.... why dont you have a real drink ......cos it all has a knock on effect

It doesnt matter WHO or WHAT you vote into government, their hands are tied. In order to have prudent management of the house, you have to save , ie stop spending ,,and if the BOOKS LOOK good , people will trade with us ( same as feedback on trademe !) . So all govenment dept must be self supporting , -or as near as damit -,,, and a cash cow is speeding,,, ( bad driving is a social responsibility/ education thing..and costs to much !)

Have a look at canada and they have INCREASED their speed limits, they looked at the 85 percentile rule and made a sensible law! and i seem to remember their D/toll was the same as the rest of us , ie NZ was no better or no worse than our trading partners,,,

One thing we all could do is start with close family, and let them feel aware that you have some basic common sence ground rules and encourage them to respect that , and to foster the same attitude ( what the Gov has been trying to do concerning drinking driving ,,just went arse about face at it as usual )

Finally, doing runners from the police, Racking up big fines and not paying,etc while I personally couldnt do it, I accept it will happen... the system is at fault, your average slackJaw ( love that expression ) is just responding in the best way they know

As every farmer knows , you leave the gate open ( system/Situation ) and the cows ( slackjaws , no offence to cows meant ) aint there in the morning ...no use blaming the cows ...its the system that was at fault ( gate open)

There are 2000 people on this site , 90 % are pissed off with the speeding tax ... One of us could write a well spelt, gramtikally lerjitimayte letter that we could copy, sign and send ( FREEPOST ..all letters to the behive are freepost ) ..to the polytitian you prefer......

Stephen

BTW , just did a google seach and at current market prices the above lot of tripe came to exactly 0.02 cents before tax.

[inlinefour]

I see that the toll now stands at 16. I think really it shows that the current policies don't work and that govt has its head in the sand.

What gets me is the 'it doesn't work but if we keep on doing it for long enough it will work one day..." attitude. Time for some new ideas.

Well said, just the point I was trying to make, cheers ZZR.

[miSTa]

Have a look at canada and they have INCREASED their speed limits, they looked at the 85 percentile rule and made a sensible law! and i seem to remember their D/toll was the same as the rest of us , ie NZ was no better or no worse than our trading partners,,,

Also a number of states in the US have increased their speed limits recently as well. I believe all reported a decrease in road deaths.

[Skyryder]

yet driving on the wrong side of the road is relatively safe.

or in convoy with the Prime Minister in the back.

Skyryder.

[Skyryder]

I'd love to see redlight runners lose their licences on the spot. Hmmmmm, nah make the hung, drawn, and quartered on the spot. I hate anyone who thinks it is okay to race through a redlight. Absolute fuckers. If one hit me and I was still able to get up the po-po would have to arrest me for beating the driver to within an inch of their life.

I tend to agee with you insofar as it is a [I]red light[I] that is run. Unfortunately police have it in their power that if they choose you can get nailed for running a red, going through on the orange. Now when it comes to choices I'll go throug an orange with the proviso that it is safer for me to do so than suddenly slam on the anchors and get rear ended on a bike.

Which bring's to my attention (I'd forgotten about this) the complaint I sent to Roadwatch. There's a thread of mine on this. This was a police officer going through Red light. To date I have recieved no corrospondence on this.

Not surprising as this would have left a paper trail. As a result of this and other matters (PM's speeding motorcade) I have come to the conclusion that the police don't see the need for themselves to obey the road rules.

Skyryder

[Kickaha]

no because its irrelevant, trucks do many more KMs on the road obviously but so what, they are overly represented in the Stats.

I dont believe it is irrelevant,if crash statistics were looked at along with mileages travelled and the amount of them on the road I'd be willing to bet that motorcyles would be at top or not far off the list for most crashes per km travelled

If they could get the trucks off the road then that would be good,but rail has a bad reputation for delivering on time and from personal experience I certainly wouldn't use or reccomend them

There used to be a law that prohibited transporting something by truck over 120km? if it could be transported by rail, perhaps they could bring that back in

I see that the toll now stands at 16. I think really it shows that the current policies don't work and that govt has its head in the sand.

How does it show they dont work?

[terbang]

I have been involved in the Aviation industry for 27 years now especially in the area of pilot training and competency. One thing that aviation does, among others, in the light of increasing accident trends, is look at the role that crew training and competency plays and often the major changes are in that area. In todays modern aviation environment we continue to develop more advanced aircraft and Air traffic control solutions to avoid the "Dirt coming thu the front windows" and it has been identified that it is the crew (driver) element that is now a major weak link as engines rarely fail, wings just don't snap off anymore and, plainly speaking, we now know where all the mountains are.. Aviation as a responsible industry will allways attempt to improve the area of crew training and competency to combat accident statistics and as a whole are very open to new and improved suggestion on how to achieve it. We don't play Tom and Jerry entrapment games and we don't collect revenue off peoples mistakes instead we collect Knowledge and then pass it on in the form of training and thus change attitudes (the people grow with the technology).. Anyone remenber the Dash 8 that crashed at Palmerston North and the Palmy police took their usual stand by trying to thump the Captain for manslaughter with no regard for why it had happened. That approach to an accident investigation rocked the aviation industry to the core worldwide and resulted in a lot of legislation changes to stop what you could call "A good old thumping" getting in the way of finding the truth to prevent further (the Palmy plod are now famous worldwide for their ability to fuck up an aviation accident investigation).

OK why all this crap about planes and stuff? Well I reckon we have some parallels here in that we have seen some fairly quick advances in motor vehical technology. Whilst we can acknowledge a fair bit of change in driver licencing it is now just a bit more than the road code and a multi guess "scratchy" exam.. The thing that I notice is that the "human factors" such as hazardous attitudes, complacency and anger are poorly addressed and that the attitude from our regulators seems to be one of punish, collect some money and put nothing back into the industry to prevent it happening again (not even the money). They just don't seem to be thinking too far ahead and as roads and cars get safer we as the road user are still floundering around with a 20 year outdated safety regulator that would rather sit around with speed cameras than become proactive in driver education and competency.
It is a fundamental leadership issue in my view that is the root of the problem and until our regulators pull thier heads out of the sand and join the 21st century, we are going to see our road toll continue to climb.

[James Deuce]

Kickaha is right, though I suspect that push bikes would top the list of accidents per kms travelled with motorcycles a very close second. Pedestrians would probably be at the same level.

Terbang has made the most compelling argument yet for "crew" training.

I haven't met a driver/rider I could call consistently competent at an average level 100% of the time. Yet. I have met pilots who are utter loons on terra firma, but they are the most intensely safety concious, procedure oriented pilots who will put an aircraft down precisely on the same pice of tarmac (within a metre or two) everytime, and who take pride in improving their skills and knowledge. My understanding of the current road code is pathetic. How many of you buy every updated edition? We should, but just don't, probably because that would be an uncool approach to driving.

We could lead from the front, but we prefer to keep going on our own tangent, citing personal repsonsibility and "above average" skills as rationale for our blithe law breaking. For goodness sake, I do it too, so I'm not preaching from on high, but too often we just accept that we "deserve" the "right" to ride at speed on public roads.

Until we start training people properly I'm just going to keep on assuming that every vehicle on the road wants to kill me and ride accordingly. Hell, I don't trust half you buggers let alone people I don't know.

Harry Duynhoven is wrong. 95% of NZers are complacent, arrogant, ignorant, thoughtless drivers/riders, and the other 5% are homocidal, psychotic murderers. At least some of the time.

[Skyryder]

Harry Duynhoven is wrong. 95% of NZers are complacent, arrogant, ignorant, thoughtless drivers/riders, and the other 5% are homocidal, psychotic murderers. At least some of the time.

I'd go along with the arrogant. That's how I drive. I'm the only one on the road who knows what he's doing and I drive/ride accordingly.

Skyryder

[oldrider]

If aeroplanes were traveling in opposite directions less than one meter apart wherever they went and in single file, I am sure their safety record would be as crazy or worse than the road safety records are.
When the sky's are as congested and confined as our roads it will be comparing apples with apples. :spudwhat: Cheers john.

[terbang]

Well John If I have to give a simplistic answer then take look at some of the airspace in the North atlantic and in Europe & USA and as I see it, it is apples compared to apples.
But not exactly the same I guess...
So lets draw an exact parallel for those that are struggling with a concept here and need to compare apples with apples.
Aeroplanes do have human factor type accidents (people do make mistakes and errors in judgement) just like cars and Motorcycles and a lot of these accidents have high impact forces, sometimes with fire and commonly with the result being thier occupants/riders (passengers and drivers) suffering horiffic, grotesque, dismembering injuries and so often followed by a painful death that has a deep and lasting impact and cost on our families and society
(perhaps you may now say that it is no comparison as the apples are now likely to be blended in with everything else)
We can minimise those mistakes by teaching and promoting sound judgement along with good handling skills.
Or in simple catchy words "Educate above Legislate or Train rather than Cane"..
However education costs and speed cameras generate revenue so are we really going to see any changes?

Selamat Tahun Baru
Bruce

[Marmoot]

Selamat Tahun Baru
Bruce

You too, Bruce. Hope this 2006 will be better for us motorcyclers......sorry, motorcyclists.........

[inlinefour]

You got an example?

But nor do the Police or the government...