New Police Stats.

[rodgerd]

Yes it is a big contributor to accidents, but the funny thing is that when they get a ticket for running a red they always insist that it was in fact green and suggest that the cops would be better to concentrate on all those dangerous speeders out there. Funny how everyones perspective is so different isn't it?

Nailed it.

[merv]

Try this link on the LTSA website http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/research/ann...al-table-1.pdf

Fatalities per 10,000 vehicles on the roads has dropped from 6.5 in 1951 to 1.5 in 2002.

[rodgerd]

What I hate about the way in which speeding is policed is that it is said that by issuing speeding tickets this will directly decrease the road toll. But the fact that last year the amount of tickets increased by 70% or so and the road toll increased. So how is this increasing road safety.

The toll has a declining trend - overall it's been falling as policing of booze and speed has tightened, and after the introduction of graduated licenses.

There will always be local upswings in the odd year, but the trend is down. Something which the "fuck you, I'll drive how I like" crowd ignore, and never get around to mentioning in years where it's a low.

[merv]

The main page for the historical stats is here http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/research/ann...istorical.html

There is motorcycle stuff there too.

[riffer]

The main page for the historical stats is here http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/research/ann...istorical.html

There is motorcycle stuff there too.

Bloody interesting the huge jump in 1973.

Was that the year they dropped the open road speed limit to 80km/r due to the oil crisis?

Actually, there was a huge jump in motorcycle deaths that year compared to other deaths.

Wouldn't have anything to do with the availability of a particular 2-stroke Japanese triple would it?

[Hoon]

Just so you understand, the police don't receive any additional funding in relation to the revenue gathered via traffic fines. They are underfunded regardless of the revenue gathered on behalf of the Govt.

Yep I know they don't get the money directly but it is still revenue for the government which they spend as they see fit. Whether they decide to spend that money on Police, roads, public health it doesn't really matter to me as long as it is benefiting the country and didn't come from my pocket! This is the point I was trying to make that Police revenue gathering is a win win situation for those of us that don't speed (or accept their punishment when they do speed instead of blaming the system) and I actually prefer this to blanket revenue gathering schemes like tax, rego, petrol which I cannot avoid no matter how well behaved I am.

If the issue is about the Police lying saying it reduces the road toll then yep that sounds like a shit poor excuse to me but I would say the same thing if I were in their position knowing the general public aren't keen on the revenue gathering and are even less keen on tax/rego/petrol increases.

[merv]

Bloody interesting the huge jump in 1973.

Was that the year they dropped the open road speed limit to 80km/r due to the oil crisis?

Actually, there was a huge jump in motorcycle deaths that year compared to other deaths.

Wouldn't have anything to do with the availability of a particular 2-stroke Japanese triple would it?

Oil crisis speed reduction didn't hit until 1974. In 1973 bike sales were up, the price of gas dropped from 49c per gallon to 48c under price control and we all thought we were in heaven. The MachIII had been introduced a couple of years beforehand. At the end of 1973 helmets became compulsory in the 50k areas too, before that when I was at Uni we could rip down the road for a ride to dry our hair after a shower (had hair then). Perhaps everyone was thinking liberal and were just made buggers being the anti-vietnam protest era - drinking age dropped to 20 from 21 too didn't it?

Stats look similar in a way to 1981 or so when sales were up again (and a certain shop Trash talks about became famous for its racing efforts) so its probably more related to the number of young guys on bikes at the time, which would have been in two waves - 70's era and post oil crisis early 80's before cheap second hand cars became available around 1989.

[marty]

Yep I know they don't get the money directly but it is still revenue for the government which they spend as they see fit. Whether they decide to spend that money on Police, roads, public health it doesn't really matter to me as long as it is benefiting the country and didn't come from my pocket! This is the point I was trying to make that Police revenue gathering is a win win situation for those of us that don't speed (or accept their punishment when they do speed instead of blaming the system) and I actually prefer this to blanket revenue gathering schemes like tax, rego, petrol which I cannot avoid no matter how well behaved I am.

If the issue is about the Police lying saying it reduces the road toll then yep that sounds like a shit poor excuse to me but I would say the same thing if I were in their position knowing the general public aren't keen on the revenue gathering and are even less keen on tax/rego/petrol increases.

1. it ALL comes from your (and our) pockets.
2. the police budget for the whole country is less than the health budget for one DHB (midland for eg)
3. having worked in the environment, i will say that enforcment assists the reduction in the road toll - ask any firey or ambo how much trauma from open road car crashes has been reduced since 2000 (HP inception). i certainly wouldn't say that anyone is lying about it

prior to a dedicated highway enforcment, i was attending, on average, 2 fatals a month on SH1 north and south of Cambridge. there are still fatals here of course, but now they seem to be mostly (in)attention related, and simply don't have the speed component as much as they used to.

if you have ever witnessed a post mortem, and seen where the aorta was torn as the heart couldn't decellerate as quickly as the rest of the body (happens to the brain/liver/spleen etc too), and the person bled to death from it (in about 30 seconds) then you'll know what i mean.

[Drunken Monkey]

3. having worked in the environment, i will say that enforcment assists the reduction in the road toll - ask any firey or ambo how much trauma from open road car crashes has been reduced since 2000 (HP inception). i certainly wouldn't say that anyone is lying about it

*ahem*

I tried to stay out of this, but that was one of the worst mis-uses of 'stats' used in this thread so far, Marty. The reduction in accident trauma in road accidents is directly attributable to the increase in car safety devices - Even the fricken LTSA would agree to that. It's got little to do with traffic enforcement.
Some of you just don't get the _bloody point_. It's not that people like Lou or myself think we shouldn't get fined for speeding - we don't like being lied to and we don't like an already under-strength police force putting their energy into traffic infringements when they should be putting their fricken energy into reducing violent crime, theft, burglary and home fricken invasions!!!!!



Stick it to The Man, Lou. Power to the people.

[Slim]

The reduction in accident trauma in road accidents is directly attributable to the increase in car safety devices - Even the fricken LTSA would agree to that. It's got little to do with traffic enforcement.
It's not that people like Lou or myself think we shouldn't get fined for speeding - we don't like being lied to and we don't like an already under-strength police force putting their energy into traffic infringements when they should be putting their fricken energy into reducing violent crime, theft, burglary and home fricken invasions!!!!!

Which is pretty much what I was going to say.

[k14]

*ahem*

I tried to stay out of this, but that was one of the worst mis-uses of 'stats' used in this thread so far, Marty. The reduction in accident trauma in road accidents is directly attributable to the increase in car safety devices - Even the fricken LTSA would agree to that. It's got little to do with traffic enforcement.
Some of you just don't get the _bloody point_. It's not that people like Lou or myself think we shouldn't get fined for speeding - we don't like being lied to and we don't like an already under-strength police force putting their energy into traffic infringements when they should be putting their fricken energy into reducing violent crime, theft, burglary and home fricken invasions!!!!!

Stick it to The Man, Lou. Power to the people.

Thank you, thats what I was trying to say aswell, I just suck at trying to make a point and arguing.

[Indo]

"The reduction in accident trauma in road accidents is directly attributable to the increase in car safety devices "


Wrong, it has every thing to do with speed reduction. Car safety devices work to an extent, but they arent gonna save you at a head on at 120kmh +.
Like it or hate it, its pretty undeniable that the introduction of speed cameras and a decent HP has reduced top end speeds considerably.

"we don't like an already under-strength police force putting their energy into traffic infringements when they should be putting their fricken energy into reducing violent crime, theft, burglary and home fricken invasions!!!!!"

I would love to take all the people who use lines like this to the aftermath of a fatal crash, maybe when you see bodies torn apart into 8 or so different peices you might stop viewing traffic crashes as a trivial matter. In 2003 there were 460 deaths and around 14,000 serious injuries as a result of traffic crashes. How many people were killed as a result of burglarys, thefts and home invasions?. Not saying they aren't just as important but there are people no better than criminals on the road too, and the total social cost to the country as a result of traffic crashes is huge.

Warnings simply don't work, tickets no matter how much they piss you off do.

[marty]

*ahem*

I tried to stay out of this, but that was one of the worst mis-uses of 'stats' used in this thread so far, Marty. The reduction in accident trauma in road accidents is directly attributable to the increase in car safety devices - Even the fricken LTSA would agree to that. It's got little to do with traffic enforcement.
Some of you just don't get the _bloody point_. It's not that people like Lou or myself think we shouldn't get fined for speeding - we don't like being lied to and we don't like an already under-strength police force putting their energy into traffic infringements when they should be putting their fricken energy into reducing violent crime, theft, burglary and home fricken invasions!!!!!



Stick it to The Man, Lou. Power to the people.

my post had nothing to do with stats, and everything to do with personal observations, personal experience, and until a lot of the 'answer for everything' people on this forum have those experiences, then i expect that we will continue to see bleating, with no real answers or suggestions as to how things can be improved.

[Drunken Monkey]

Wrong, it has every thing to do with speed reduction. Car safety devices work to an extent, but they arent gonna save you at a head on at 120kmh +.
Like it or hate it, its pretty undeniable that the introduction of speed cameras and a decent HP has reduced top end speeds considerably.

[snip]

I would love to take all the people who use lines like this to the aftermath of a fatal crash, maybe when you see bodies torn apart into 8 or so different peices you might stop viewing traffic crashes as a trivial matter. In 2003 there were 460 deaths and around 14,000 serious injuries as a result of traffic crashes. How many people were killed as a result of burglarys, thefts and home invasions?. Not saying they aren't just as important but there are people no better than criminals on the road too, and the total social cost to the country as a result of traffic crashes is huge.

Warnings simply don't work, tickets no matter how much they piss you off do.

1 - It's an undeniable fact that the increase in people surviving head on and offset head-on accidents is specifically to do with improved crumple zones, restraining belts and air-bags. More people drive these cars than ever before. Fatals were common 50 years ago in slower accidents because of poor energy transfer through the chassis, poor restraint and dangerous windscreens - despite the fact that the cars were travelling SLOWER. The only reason there were less deaths is because the fleet was a lot smaller! DUH! Road death tolls all around the western world increased from the fifties as the fleets increased in size. The recent reductions in deaths (there are still increasing numbers of accidents) are purely due to the advent of commonly available car safety devices. The decrease in death tolls is directly proportionate to the higher speeds cars can collide and still protect their occupants!
If you disagree with this, put your money where your mouth is and hop into a 1/2 star saftey rated car and have a head on at 95 with a 5 star rated car and see how you fare! Hell, why do you think motorcyclists are at so much bloody risk? I'm sure there are plenty of previously-injured-in-auto-accident-KB'ers on this board who would take great offense at you lecturing them that they were only hurt because they were speeding - often they were not!

Fact: Improved safety device (an automated pop-up roll bar) in a Mercedes Benz saved a man's life. This is a well known video where a driver on the autobahn rolled his Merc at over 200km/h and walked away from the accident - literally.
Fact: Family of 4 survives combined head on collision speed of an estimated 140km/h+ in Australia driving a Mitsubishi Diamante. All directly attiributable to the inherent safety features of the car. This incident was part of Mitsubishi's standard safety pamphlet. Are you calling them liars?

The list goes on ad infinitum.

Wait a minute...these were both over you're magic 120km/h!!!! By all rights in the world of physics according to Indo, all these people must, in fact, be walking ghosts!

2 - Oh yeah, real classy. Play the emotion card! Whoooo, that's real constructive...Hey right back at ya: why don't you repeat that fricken mantra to yourself next time some pricks break into your home, nick your TV and beat up the missus while you're out...then you can sit around and jerk off while you wait for the cops who never show up.

[sAsLEX]

"The reduction in accident trauma in road accidents is directly attributable to the increase in car safety devices "


Wrong, it has every thing to do with speed reduction.

Dissagree with you mate, the safety of cars has increased at such a pace that not only is crash protection through crumple zones, airbags and pyrotechnic pretensioners and other such devices been saving lives, but advances in other areas have seen handling stopping and all other aspects of car improve.

Watch Top Gear and you will see alot of modern sport cars are getting near 1g of lateral grip, through tyres suspension adn electronic wizardry. How many car used to achieve this, better grip and handling reduces the probabilty of you losing control( other than if your a plonker and crash off a straight piece of road, or drive beyond your vision and get sprung by things mid corner!).
I always compare the difference between the cars I have had ( 83 sunny 1.3lt, 91 levin GT apex) I feel much safer in the newer car due to above mention things. Its legal for any car reg/wf to go the open road speed and yet in some this is alot more dangerous than others.

The speed limit has been at one level for a while now and yet the quality of some/most of the vehicles on the road has increased! Maybe this is why there is a worlwide decreasing road toll trend! rather than the targeting of speeders