It would certainly give the statisticians something to mull over.......besides speed.Originally Posted by Jim2
#3
It would certainly give the statisticians something to mull over.......besides speed.
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now where's some dirt!
Totally agree with you there. I just object to the way in which this is policed. They say that by doing this they "are" reducing the road toll. But as the professor said, it is inconclusive and following the trends around the world.
What epitomises their attutude is the policeman that was hiding behind a bush with the laser gun. The head cop denied that he was hiding, what a complete load of shit. The only thing that this activity would have caused is some poor sods doing 110kph coming home from work loosing $120 (or whatever), not making people slow down. Although it was an EXTREMLY dangerous stretch of road with multiple fatal accidents each day, it is definately justified. The police should try to be seen as clear as possible because just the sight of a marked police car will make people slow down.
I just wish some more people would start making a stand. This should be a good talking point in the elections next year.
Forum whore
Non-LTSA ones anyway.
If a man is alone in the woods and there isn't a woke Hollywood around to call him racist, is he still white?
#3
Cynism, I love it . lolNon-LTSA ones anyway.
Missed u on Thur ?
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Forum whore
Sorry bud - wife unwell and kids to organise - completely forgot!
If a man is alone in the woods and there isn't a woke Hollywood around to call him racist, is he still white?
Kiwi back at home!
Personally loved the bit where he went on about wanting to put trained "operatives" at dangerous spots and not catch a single speeder. Cut to scene of extremly dangerous tunnel, no serious accident due to speed in five years, and all the rotten criminals doing 62 threatening the lives of all the toddlers and babys about to jump in front of them!!
Not once have I seen a cop not revenue gathering, speed cameras are on straights and at the end of passing lanes and cop just love these new dangerous expressways!
And when questioned, the "operative", said that he was not simply revenue gathering but saving lives or something....?
Oh and 80 Million dollars was earned in the interest of our safety?? anyone else been down 22 lately could see that there is a lot of places this money could have been spent but it just goes in the government coffers.
To call the officer question dumb would have been an understatement, all he did was preach from some official line, shoud have hit him up about how other countrys have raised speed limits recently, italy 150 or so
Rest In Peace
Now here is an idea that I have come up with before.
Lets say its a holiday weekend and there is a known black spot ( like Highway one near mercer ) and its raining.
The HWP knowing that this is a danger spot could sign post the dangerous road as follows ;
WARNING: High risk area next 30kms , Speed Cameras & Mobile Patrols operating.
Then Police the area heavily.
They should catch no one except the extremely stupid and prevent any speed related accidents.This would be much better than sitting at the end of a passing lane where there has been no accidents for the last 30 years.
The only problem with this as there would be no revenue
and thats why it would never happen
Immature and proud of it.
So ticketing people for 11 km/h over the limit saves lives, does it? Fanatics are people who believe their own propaganda.
Alan Wilkinson has shown that the road toll has risen since this 'zero tolerance' approach started, as it has in Victoria. Our role model.
I particularly liked the segment on overtaking at the speed limit. 28 SECONDS on the wrong side of the road! And that moron cop would still not concede that it was unsafe or that his troops heavily target passing lanes. He wouldn't even definitively state that there is a 10 km/h tolerance. Where do they get these people?
I also despair at the arguement that the cops actions are justified because they see things most people don't. That is the best reason for uninvolved people to set policy, then emotion doesn't cloud the issue. I saw plenty of burnt, dismembered corpses, but it didn't send me into a wild crusade to ticket every driver fractionally exceeding the limit. The cops and LTSA need to regain their perspective on this issue.
Loud and Uncouth
A lot of you have valid arguments but I have a couple of comments:
If the speed limit was raised to 120k on better road I think there would be more problems than before - the public have enough problems remembering when they have just entered a 70k or 50 k area without giving them another speed zone to think about.
The mention of 160k speed limit in Italy - have you checked their road toll lately? like twin towers every six months.
The autobahn, right, solid median barriers, single dirrection of travel, EXPENSIVELY engineered roads AND good road tolls when somebody DOES screw-up.
I'm not supprting LTSA by any means but until the stupidity/folowing too close/inattention road-side camera/radar is perfected I guess we will have to keep speed limits to a level where dumb-asses aren't killing themselves too often and as most of the driving population seems to be dumber than a sack of hammers I guess us "sharper" dudes will just have to fall into line - (most of the time)
Winding up drongos, foil hat wearers and over sensitive KBers for over 14,000 posts...........
" Life is not a rehearsal, it's as happy or miserable as you want to make it"
Forum whore
Actually Italy has a population of 57 million, and we rank 11th equal per head of capita in the developed world for road deaths - with Italy. Their accident rate has dropped since the speed limit was upped by 2%, but that is within both an error of margin, and standard deviation.A lot of you have valid arguments but I have a couple of comments:
If the speed limit was raised to 120k on better road I think there would be more problems than before - the public have enough problems remembering when they have just entered a 70k or 50 k area without giving them another speed zone to think about.
The mention of 160k speed limit in Italy - have you checked their road toll lately? like twin towers every six months.
The autobahn, right, solid median barriers, single dirrection of travel, EXPENSIVELY engineered roads AND good road tolls when somebody DOES screw-up.
I'm not supprting LTSA by any means but until the stupidity/folowing too close/inattention road-side camera/radar is perfected I guess we will have to keep speed limits to a level where dumb-asses aren't killing themselves too often and as most of the driving population seems to be dumber than a sack of hammers I guess us "sharper" dudes will just have to fall into line - (most of the time)
If a man is alone in the woods and there isn't a woke Hollywood around to call him racist, is he still white?
Rest In Peace
Its an old theme but the ability of many NZ drivers behind the wheel is dismal to dangerous.
I drive 50000kms pa. mostly during the week for work. 8 - 5 during the week its quite good out on the roads as most people are going about thier business and as they are in the majority people who spend a significant amount of time behind the wheel , are driving well and courtiously.
The problem with weekends and in particularly holiday weekends , the whole population gets mobile and this includes a lot whos driving ability is marginal in urban areas let alone out on the main roads. I will avoid driving at these times as the standard of driving is often alarming.
When I taught my son to drive , we spent many hours on a dirt road by the river just going through basics , like starting , stopping , changing gear etc until he was comfortable with the basics of car control.
From there we went to a deserted industrial area on Sundays and learned about intersections , vehicle placement and more practice.
Once he was capable we did stuff like braking hard without locking the wheels , Steering while braking . He interestingly was natural at skid control from driving his go cart on the dirt.
Only then after many weeks did we venture out into the traffic.
By doing it this way car control was second nature and he could concentrate on dealing with the traffic.
Driving schools teach them to pass the licence and little else from my experience , particularly the way some instructers drive themselves !
The current LTSA policy is to Police for the most incompetent out on the roads and not seriously look at how to improve the driving skills of our population. Again because one earns revenue , the other dosn't
Thats my rave for today
Loud and Uncouth
Our road toll has risen slightly - but our car numbers has done so by an even larger amount, as has the km's covered per annum.
Winding up drongos, foil hat wearers and over sensitive KBers for over 14,000 posts...........
" Life is not a rehearsal, it's as happy or miserable as you want to make it"
Slower than Ixion
Are any of you (from both sides of the fence) going to start providing link to back up your claims.
I've just noticed a lot of "facts" being thown around through different threads on this subject and yet no one seems to be backing up their position with verifiable evidence. Before any of you have a go at me, I am not saying that anyone is talking out there asses, just that from a interested and yet open minded possition, it would be better for the indervidual to be able to see the evidence in order to formulate their own possition.
Unfortunately I have found staticians to be much like reporters. Both go into an assignment with a preset possition/angle, and then search out the "evidence" to back up their possition. This is a normal human function, but prevents me from giving them more weight than a little. Whether they support my personal possition or not.
unfortunately that is the way of the nz govt - be it labour or national. the same applies for all govt driven initiatives - health (esp. mental health, chronic illnesses, child health, high-need health), policing, roading infrastructure, anything that requires money from the govt to run, in this country it seems to be a band aid fix at best. there is little tax money or effort put into keeping the high-end healthy - that is left to those that can afford it (private health insurance, life insurance, private superannuation, private security patrols etc etc). teaching people HOW to drive is initially so much more expensive than cleaning up the occasional mess on the road, and as for fixing/engineering roads? people should just slow down, as the roads are not safe, and speed kills.
The current LTSA policy is to Police for the most incompetent out on the roads and not seriously look at how to improve the driving skills of our population. Again because one earns revenue , the other dosn't
Thats my rave for today
see how easy it is to get into that mantra? i did it without even trying......
Deus ex ukulele
Like many others I watched the Sunday programme last night. My perceptions about the "twin pillars" -- the LTSA and Police traffic enforcement were confirmed.
1. "Road safety" isn't the issue. Zero tolerance and enforcement are the issue (although the twin pillars argue that enforcing speed limits reduces road accidents and deaths, therefore improves road safety). They also argue (by implication) that drivers who obey speed limits are safe drivers. Drivers who speed are a minority -- the same minority who complain about zero tolerance and enforcement.
2. Don't let facts get in the way of your dogma. "Enforcing speed limits will reduce the road toll" (keep repeating this to yourself until you believe it). If people disagree with this proposition, play the carnage and grief card: "You should see what the Police and emergency services see at accidents," "What about all of those families who have lost loved ones?"
3. Let's not talk about driving appropriately for the conditions, as long as you do it within the prescibed speed limit (even if it takes you 28 seconds or half a kilometre to overtake something).
4. If people are still dying on roads when obeying the speed limit, then it must be the road's fault.
5. This isn't about revenue collection. People who get fined learn from the experience. (I feel a Tui ad coming on). So let's shoot fish in a barrel in the Mt Victoria tunnel or on the Ngaio Gorge road (can only remember one fatality on the Ngaio Gorge road in 17 years -- pissed teenager with girlfriend takes top corner too quickly, mounts power pole, kills girlfriend. I guess this was technically a speed-related fatality but then again, said teenager shouldn't have been driving under the affluence of incohol). Not smart PR guys, when everybody has a favourite "slow driver" story or has tried to get into or out of Dodge on a holiday weekend...
6. Politicians pass laws, not officials. Getting decision-makers to take a different approach to road safety will be bloody difficult as this current strategy has a lot of momentum and significant taxpayer funding to support it. Its appeal is its (over) simplicity, which makes it very seductive to politicians who want to be seen to be making a difference but don't want to think hard about alternatives.
"Standing on your mother's corpse you told me that you'd wait forever." [Bryan Adams: Summer of 69]
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