5km/hr speed tolerance

[sunhuntin]

to follow from ixions...does this also include country schools?

must admit....last time i went to palmy, i missed a turn off to go down past the harley dealer and found myself stuck in parental traffic picking up school kids. quite scary when you dont know they are there!

edit: some schools start at 8.30am...the high school i went to did, which meant kids on the roads anywhere between 7am and 9am. maybe make the hours 7-8am till 5-6pm, to allow for detentions!

[Lou Girardin]

This is turning into a ridiculous discussion.

No it isn't unless you start personalising it. I'm pointing out that zero tolerance for anything can bite unintended people on the arse. A perfect example are bus and taxi drivers losing their licences for offences that happened 30 or 40 years ago. The lawmakers never thought of that when they changed the law. They wouldn't think of the repercusions of zero tolerance for speeding either.
If you want to protect your kids, lobby for a 30 or 40 km/h limit near their schools.

[spudchucka]

Okay I think what I find inconsistant about this rule is this.

Right according to your unofficial amnesty on speed infringements you might be allowed to do the following speeds in the following zones

30K in a 20K Zone
40K in a 30K Zone
50K in a 40K Zone
60K in a 50K Zone
70K in a 60K Zone
80K in a 70K Zone
90K in a 80K Zone
100K in a 90K Zone
110K in a 100K Zone

Right or wrong?

If this is the case then this means


30K in a 20K Zone is a 50% increase on the indicated limit
40K in a 30K Zone is a 33% increase on the indicated limit
50K in a 40K Zone is a 25% increase on the indicated limit
60K in a 50K Zone is a 20% increase on the indicated limit
70K in a 60K Zone is a 16% increase on the indicated limit
80K in a 70K Zone is a 14% increase on the indicated limit
90K in a 80K Zone is a 12.5% increase on the indicated limit
100K in a 90K Zone is a 11% increase on the indicated limit
110K in a 100K Zone is a 10% increase on the indicated limit

That looks a little inconsistant to me, its okay to brake the speed limit by 50-33% at slower speeds, but don't go over 10% over at the high end.

As I said before I understand the need for this gray area in the law, and that it can't be as black and white as I have belaboured, but tell why you don't just make it a 10% infringement increase for ever limit like ever other sensible country in the world and remove the ambiguity.

I'm playing devils advocate here, but at least that makes a certain degree of logic, and would remove the need for special speed restriction weeks. I'm pretty sure people coul handle the maths.

The 10kph tolerance is simply a pragmatic, common sense approach to enforcing the speed limit in a reasonable fashion that more or less all people can understand. I really don't see what the problem is.

[Lou Girardin]

The 10kph tolerance is simply a pragmatic, common sense approach to enforcing the speed limit in a reasonable fashion that more or less all people can understand. I really don't see what the problem is.

That's probably true in a dumbed down society, with an NCEA standard of education.
Imagine how easy it would be for you if people tried to calculate a 10% tolerance, they'd be whistling past at 30 or 40 k's over in blissful ignorance.

[FROSTY:Me]

Fine. How accurate is your speedo?

Probably none too accurate-so Id be riding at 40-45 to be sure
Also the argument about what if its midnight etc--common sense says 8.30-4.00pm monday to friday.
Any other time or place no worries.

[dawnrazor]

The 10kph tolerance is simply a pragmatic, common sense approach to enforcing the speed limit in a reasonable fashion that more or less all people can understand. I really don't see what the problem is.

So the 10kph tolerence is in place for the ease of enforcing the law from the enforcers point of view and not the potential offenders protection.

From now on I'm going to ride everywhere at 10Kph under the posted limit......and I'll probably get done for lack of progress

[Pixie]

On the face of it it seems a nice politically correct tightening up. Who could complain, protecting kids and all that. Until we realise that this will also apply to someone tootling past at 2 am in the morning, with not a kiddy in sight. And vicinity is so vague that a motorist might be pinged for 5kph over "in the vicinity" of a school several streets and a kilometre away. In fact there are very few places in cities that are more than a couple of kilometres from a school or some sort or other. So is this really an underhand way of effectively reducing the 10kph tolerance universally?

Of course this will resolve the problem of so many accidents occuring around schools at the moment.

What about banning SUV's in families with children,as there has been several instances of them backing over kids.

Run them over I say
...little bastards

[Pixie]

And he couldn't anyway. Flipping the bird to anyone is not illegal. All he could have done is pull you over and try to find something to ping you with. Good on yah

Wrong. Fred Gassit was charged with "Prolonged fingers giving"

[Pixie]

5. Lou, your comment re parking around schools etc. I drop my daughter at school each morning and the amount of f***wit driving I see is scary. But it's not usually speed, it's inattention..

Speeding is dangerous.
Everything else you've listed is safe
-LTNZ

[Pixie]

No offence taken. Don't take offence yourself but I almost think that you are going out of your way to look for possible inconsistencies. Schools are obviously a high risk environment because of the large number of small people who have very limited road sense. Most people seem think it is a good thing to target schools, so do I, but I'd also be happy for hospitals and old folks homes to receive the same attention. However, this campaign is obviously being timed to coincide with the return to school and to raise awareness at that time. Once the period of the campaign has passed I would hope that most cops would continue policing around schools in the same fashion.

I don't see that as inconsistent or favouring a certain section of society, I simply see it as a common sense approach to road safety.

In the end,the difference to a five year old being hit by a Pajero at 55 kmh or 60 kmh.
Would be similar to a rabbit being shot by a subsonic .22 or a supersonic .22
I don't think the rabbit or the five year old would have a firm preference

[Da Bird]

Quick update on "vicinity". The 5km/hr tolerance will be enforced within 250 metres of a school boundary. As I said before, this will include speed cameras at selected locations.

A publicity "Back to School" campaign will start around 7 February - but you heard it here first!

The 5km/hr tolerance policy around schools will be year round, not just the first couple of weeks.

BC.

[Gremlin]

I don't have a problem with that sort of law, and 250m is nothing. Going to my mum's school one afternoon to check something, I saw 3 kids in uniform. Biggest croses, plenty of time, medium crosses still time, little one doesn't look and wants to join others, and crosses right in front of my bike.

Luckily I was first, not a car and had already slowed, expecting it to happen. If I hadn't noticed, I would have plowed right into her, she never looked. This is despite the schools trying to teach the kids about road danger. Mum has had several kids getting hit by cars... still, they can't get the message through.

This was probably more than 1k from school (unless it was another school, no idea - they're all little kids to me). Little kids have no idea about traffic, and only see the people they want to get to.

[RiderInBlack]

The 5km/hr tolerance policy around schools will be year round, not just the first couple of weeks.

So does that counts Public holidays, weekends, school holidays and Midnight? If so it's a bunch of arse especial around Country Schools out in the wop-wops.

PS: Anyone have any stats that suggust that this law change is even needed? Eg. how many road deaths there are around schools and at what speeds.

[dawnrazor]

On my into work this morning (a saturday @ 06:30, this will be of relevence later) I had the chance to tail a cop car from parnell through newmarket where I left them as they turned up towards remuera back to the cop shop maybe, there was no flashing lights or sirens.

Either way I thought I'd try the 10K tolerence rule, its a 50K zone all the way as far as I know, well as I did an indicated near 60K (I'm not a complete fool) I watched as the squad car pulled away from me into the horizon and away, through two sets of red lights without yielding, round a roundabout without indicating and then I lost them as they turned up to remuera, at this stage I was tickling the decency of 60K and slowed down, and suddenly felt very hungary and an overpowering desire for donuts.

And as Forrest Gump would say "Thats all I have to say about that"

[Monsterbishi]

I'm all for keeping the speeds down in the areas where it counts the most, but setting the tolerance at the minimum variance rate of the average speedometer is erring less on the side of caution, and more on the side of revenue-gathering, surely it would be more sensible to set the speed limit 10kph lower in school areas and be done with it.

This gives motorists a workable spread to keep their speed acceptable, whilst ensuring the children are safer than they will be on this new rule that is coming out, without creating a cash injection for the government.

Edit: Especially since you are now going to have people spending more time staring at their speedos that what is actually in front of them.

I don't know about the rest of the Country, but around many of the schools down here in Christchurch, there are illuminated "School Zone" signs that lower the speed limit during Arrival/Departure times, they work quite well too, with minimum congestion even on a rain day when all the SUV's are out to pickup the kiddies.