Hawkes Bay - Safe As

**yungatart** · 6th August 2006, 20:05

8 August
“Saddles”
Hawke’s Bay Racing Centre
200 Prospect Road
Hastings 5.00 – 9.00 pm
hey you Hb peeps
We NEED to be involved in this, MSTRS, hXc and I will be going. Anyone else??

**Gixxer 4 ever** · 6th August 2006, 21:28

Great idea. I had a job to find this.
I hope to come along
K thanks Steve

**yungatart** · 7th August 2006, 16:47

*Bump* Come on Hawkes Bay, we need as many people at this meeting as we can get!

**Dooly** · 8th August 2006, 09:10

Sorry, unable to attend.

**MSTRS:Me** · 8th August 2006, 10:29

Originally Posted by Dooly

Sorry, unable to attend.

Shame - the lack of advertising and the prick of a time it's being held is of course deliberate.

**MSTRS:Me** · 8th August 2006, 21:28

Well, it's done. Hope it was worth going.

**yungatart** · 8th August 2006, 22:03

MStrs , hXc and I trotted off to the safe as meeting tonight. There were quite a few school kids there, Taradale, Lindisfarne and Wairoa College were in attendance as well as staff from other schools -apparently they only got their invites today and for some it was obviuosly in the too hard basket to grab a couple of Year 13's to accompany them. hXc and mstrs dominated one table while I collared another with two cops from the Booze Bus lot. One table had about six cops at it but was already full when we walked in. I found it really easy to sway people's opinions to the biker way of thinking.. even had the cops agreeing with me on a lot of stuff... scarey!! You just have to be forcful and stand your ground!
I basically just said the kind of stuff that has been mentioned on the other threads with a huge focus on driver education and ongoing education.
Got approached afterwards by a Napier city Councillor who wants to run one of these with the youth, (says youth wont come to one of these "hi-brow" things but with pizza and coke on a Sunday arvo in a less intimidating environment, he thinks they will probably open up). He would like me to help him with it and pull in a fewe more yunguns - watch this space if you are under 25 and in HB- you just may get another chance to have your say!
I hope that this is not just a PR exercise, but I may be getting a bit cynical in my old age, as I expect it is.
To those who can still get to one of these meetings, my advice is GO! We need you to carry the flag!

**Deano** · 9th August 2006, 08:44

Originally Posted by yungatart

I found it really easy to sway people's opinions to the biker way of thinking.. even had the cops agreeing with me on a lot of stuff... scarey!! You just have to be forcful and stand your ground!

Like they would argue with a "crazy lady"...

**MSTRS:Me** · 9th August 2006, 09:13

Summary of main 'ideas'....
Back off on the bullshit speed enforcement (more discretion)
Increase penalties (via demerits) for gross breaches
Use roadside tax to (help) fund driver education programs
Driver education should be concentrated on
Learning to ride/drive should be introduced as part of school curriculum. Passing this course will be acknowledged by having a licence issued. Cost to be 100% funded.
Vary open road speed limits to more appropriate speeds (80kph on narrow country 'lanes'; 100kph on 'average' roads; 120kph on open, straight roads).
Introduce power-to-weight restrictions (rather than cc) on motorcycles AND for cars.
Zero alcohol if driving.
Learner motorcyclists do the basic handling coarse, then have to do road work with the instructor, before they can go out on their own.
Road design/maintenance needs to be addressed.
Recommended corner speeds (the yellow signs) are usually unrealistic, and often lead to complacency.
Summarising the above and whatever I forgot to mention - BRING BACK COMMON SENSE

**Lou Girardin** · 9th August 2006, 11:24

It seems that the same message is coming from all the groups.
The zero alcohol limit will never fly though. Do people really want to be charged after a sip of cough mixture or breath mints?

**MSTRS:Me** · 9th August 2006, 11:33

Originally Posted by Lou Girardin

It seems that the same message is coming from all the groups.

Interesting, that. One of the 'hidden' messages is "We are tired of having our every action etc being controlled by legislation. Too many laws are not commonsense based, therefore are 'easy' to break"

Originally Posted by Lou Girardin

The zero alcohol limit will never fly though. Do people really want to be charged after a sip of cough mixture or breath mints?

What would we do without you, Lou? That never came up

**Gixxer 4 ever** · 9th August 2006, 12:32

Originally Posted by MSTRS

Summarising the above and whatever I forgot to mention - BRING BACK COMMON SENSE

Thank you for going MSTR and others. I could not make it but all you have reported sounds like the answer to me. I read the information and the legislation on this and I was sure we were not going to get too shafted. From your report above I can not see anything that is going to give us a problem. I know it is down to how and what extreme these things are taken but have I missed something here or is it looking OK?
I am a zero on the booze and riding anyway. That will piss a few off but I recon it is good.

So bring on the flame and I can see what I have missed......

**yungatart** · 9th August 2006, 18:06

One of the things that I found really interesting (in hindsight) was the break down of people at my table. There were 9 of us, of the 9, 6 were being paid to be there as part of their job, 1 was a Youth Advocate who was not being paid. There was a guy who has been involved in Motorsport all his life and was concerned at the numbers of unskilled drivers on NZ roads and me - 2 out of 9. Not good odds for pushing our case, guys. If your area meeting hasn't happened yet, make sure you get there. If its been and gone then organise yourown via the website!
The local rag reports tonight that 75 people attended, I would hazard a guess that 70 weren't there because they CHOSE to be!!