Those cheesecutter/wire median barriers

[scumdog]

Um, based on the number of bikes in ditches, such a policy extended also to motorcyclists might mean many of the latter on the bus also?

True, true, - and they all have excuses/justification when they bin because of their riding errors - and layer it on if it is a car or trucks fault.

It's a win/win for them - yeah right!!

[eliot-ness]

Two lanes, one in either direction with the cheese cutter as the median barrier.

It would seem that, quite inadvertantly, Transit have come up with what could be the safest piece of road for motorcyclists. You now have to stay in line. The only time the barrier could be a problem is when there is no traffic around. Just the opposite of the situation before the barriers were installed. All you need to do is control the right wrist until you get to the end, then you can go back to crossing the centre line, overtaking on corners, wheelies past stationary traffic and all the other necessities that make motorcycling so enjoyable to the connoissuer, (or you could go by the scenic route)

[Lou Girardin]

BTW I can't perf, we have a different super scheme now and perfing doesn't apply to those of us grafted into the system after the government super days.

Trapped for life. Bugger!

[Lou Girardin]

Ixion - you will never make it in Govt with that attitude.

[Wolf]

Thing with barriers - any barriers - and trees, power poles and other fixed hazards is: they're predictable hazards.

You know it's there and it is going to sit there being a hazard that you can note and take steps to avoid.

Oncoming cars, however, are unpredictable. They are not guaranteed to cross the centre line and when they do you don't know where or when. You have to assess them as a "what if" risk. Every one of them, individually.

In practice, you trust that most are going to stay in their own lane and trust that when one doesn't you'll have the skills to do what is necessary to avoid the hazard.

There are a few dead bikers and a few who're missing limbs or paralysed because they weren't able to avoid a car or four-by-fuckwit crossing the centre line.

Yes, the wire barriers are a major hazard, but they are a predictable hazard set in a place notorious for unpredictable hazards.

Personally, I know what kind of hazard I prefer.

It's not like they run the entire length of the motorway, just the places where enough vehicles have come unstuck or where drivers/riders do stupid, dangerous things.

If they dissuade a driver or rider from pulling out to pass on a blind corner: fine by me. If they cause a driver or rider to slow down for a dangerous turn: fine by me. If they stop an oncoming car, truck or SUV crossing the center line because the driver was going too fast or too busy fumbling on the floor for his P pipe: likewise, fine by me.

If they scare the shit out of other road users like they scare the shit out of me and prompt them to be more cautious, perhaps that would be a good thing, too.

Yes, I would prefer something less likely to julienne me should I hit it, but frankly I'd be scared to clip a concrete, plastic or metal rail at speed in those areas too. As I said above - there is no magical guarantee that I will survive an encounter with an armco barrier or any other kind. There are no guarantees, just "statistical likelihoods" which then puts us into the territory beyond "damned lies".


[Edit] Waiting for red bling for knowing what "julienne" is. There goes my "biker cred"...

[sAsLEX]

yellow lines do not stop some people from deciding they'll "chance it". T

They over use the yellow lines now, even in sections with 800m visability on a straight stretch of wide double lane road the yellow lines are still there, I do ignore them at time like that, not on cresting blind corners or the like though

[Motu]

I've been driving along the new stretch of SH1 cheese cutter at Te Kauwhata since they were put up...it was a bit un nerving at first,but now I'm used to them.The first few months at least a couple of times a week you could see signs of damage where posts were taken out....but now I don't see any damage,it's just not happening.Something has happened to stop drivers hitting the wire ropes - I wonder what has changed the drivers habits?

I don't do that stretch on a bike,no way Ho Zay.Plenty of other ways to get into Auckland on a bike other than SH1.

[Wolf]

I don't do that stretch on a bike,no way Ho Zay.Plenty of other ways to get into Auckland on a bike other than SH1.

Especially if you have an XT500.

Just don't scare the stock.

[scumdog]

They over use the yellow lines now, even in sections with 800m visability on a straight stretch of wide double lane road the yellow lines are still there, I do ignore them at time like that, not on cresting blind corners or the like though

They may be stretches 800m long - but are they long enough for a GN125 two-up when they decide to overtake? (if you get my drift, i.e. they are designed for the lowest common denominator which is NOT an R1!!)

[Badcat]

Especially if you have an XT500.

Just don't scare the stock.

hey - tread carefully.....
do you have a bike, Wolf?
your profile says "working on it"...

[Ixion]

Well, if it were the lowest common denominator, it would be a two up GN125 overtaking a laden Fiat Bambina with nothing coming the other way. So, yes 800 mtr is enough.

In fact Transit have sneakily and without mentioning it, totally changed the function of the yellow lines. They used to warn of hazrds not readily apparent. "this stretch looks safe to overtake on. But, beware, it is not".

Now they just signify "we know better than you. And we do not think that anybody should pass anything, anywhere".

They now cry wolf so often that they have lost all meaning.

[scumdog]

No Mr Ixion, the one and true lowest common denominator would be a Bambina with four large Samoan Sumo wrestlers overtaking a Mach 1 Mustang doing 99kph uphill on a 800m stretch of straight road...

That is the kind of hypothetical problem that has to be taken into account when figuring out whether to put down yellow no-passing lines or not.

[Ixion]

Actually , of course, the vehicle type is ireelevant. The only only factor to consider is the speed differential. Since nobody ever exceeds 100kph , the criterion for a yellow line would be based on a 1kph differential - one vehicle doing 100kph, overtaking another doing 99kph.

I have just worked this out. Allowing that the vehicles have a 1 kph differential, as above. And that the overtaking vehicle starts his pullout from the Road code 2 seconds behind, and allows the same when oulling in. And assuming 10mtrs for the length of vehicle being overtaken.
Then arithmetic gives us a distance of just under 3.5 kilometre to execute the overtake.
But, as this has to deal with worst case, we must assume this is in the rain. So the 2 second rules becomes 4 seconds. Distance now 6.5km

Know many straights, hazard free, that long in NZ?

So, if we apply the "paint yellow lines on the worst case" rule, we will have double yellows on every stretch of road less than 6.5 km long.

Prosecution rest their case, M'Lud.

[scumdog]

And aren't we lucky they don't have enough yellow paint to do that?

[Wolf]

hey - tread carefully.....
do you have a bike, Wolf?
your profile says "working on it"...

Tread carefully? Where was the disrespect in agreeing that Motu has little need for SH1 with a quite respectable adventure bike?

At this moment I do not have a bike, but it is my hope to have one soon - I've been without a bike of my own for nearly two years now and occasionally borrowing one of my friends' bikes is not an acceptable substitute.