Forum whore
Just a point here, the NZ open road speed limit is 100kph, right? So it would stand to reason that the roads have been designed (including safeguards) to be able to handle traffic at speeds of say 120kph? Yet many bikers ride at speed in excess of that and have done for some time. So if they lower the road design speed to 90kph aren't bikers (generalisation) going to continue to ride at the speeds that they have done in the past regardless? So there's nothing to get upset about.
They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the evening,
we will remember them
fükengrüven
Actually some LTNZ wallahs came out with a report a couple of months back, they looked at all the roads in NZ & concluded that none of them were safe at over 100km/h, & in many places limits should be lowered.
Now I'm no traffic engineer but I've ridden them & I'm buggered if I can tell the difference between the Austrian (120km/h limit) & German (WooHoo) Autobahns & most of this country's motorways.
Cheers
Clint
Forum whore
Monash! - whose research is based on the predication that motorbikes should be banned and all vehicles should travel at 50k down divided roads! - and 2 of Orstralias more draconian cops......Originally Posted by stuff
No deaths on the roads? That would be a world historical first for the last 50000 years! FFS, the road toll back in 1929 was thrice what it is now in vehicles/population terms and the average road speed was about 53 kph!
Just ban all vehicles from the roads! - that 'd do it!
“- He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.”
Scotsman on a German
The Austrian and German motorways are more than a few hundred metres long.....
This would mean a radical rethink of the equipment given to the police - they would require vehicles that actually go round corners something their Holdens and BMW's are woefully inadequate at.
The question will be are they designing roads for big block gas guzzlers to do 90kph on (in which case bikes and properly proportioned cars can still do 120kph) or will they design a road that will restrict a Lotus Elise to 90kph thus reducing holdens and fords to 30kph?
In space, no one can smell your fart.
Scattering the morning dew
Its because speed limits are not solely based on road geometry, rather they are based on roadside development. There more development there is, the slower the speed limit. Problem is that a lot of our 100 km/h areas are getting quite heavily developed, and are no longer considered as safe to ride/ drive at 100 km/h. Take lower parts of SH16 for example, where the speed limit has been progressively lowered since as the devleopment has increased.
Also, sometimes when they cant think of another way of reducing the crash rate on a particular stretch of road, there is a tendancy to lower the speed limit as a desperate act. For example, the ridge north of Waiwera, where the limit was lowered to 80 km/h due to the number of loss of control accidents.
fükengrüven
No doubt, that's why I gave the example of our motorways. (what there is of them anyway)
& one would think that if that reasoning was applied evenly, a few of the relatively deserted & straight bits of state hwy around might have nudged over the suitable for more than 100km/h mark.
Cheers
Clint
Hardcore Biker
The MOT audit the Breen report (by Brits) recommends reducing mean speeds to 93k rural and ?51k town. As a shortterm means to achieve the 2010 toll goals. Its nothing to do with what is safe or unsafe apparently, just with meeting certain kill rates on time. So the speed mngement goals are arbitrary.
No-one much would die at 70, too many at 100 say statistics so 93 is good!
Idiots.
Immature and proud of it.
The mean speed on the open has been reported as being 97 km/h now. That means there are an awful lot of drivers on the open road doing 80 - 90 k's. Combine that with the number of people being ticketed for 111 -115 km'h and you have a serious speed differential. This is where a lot of our rural accidents are coming from. If not actual conflict between the two, then frustration at being held up.
Speed doesn't kill people.
Stupidity kills people.
Scattering the morning dew
Mean Speed? Or 90th percentile?
Forum whore
Mean speed.
Driver magazine had a good article, with stats, to show that the roads are 37 times safer than they were in 1929!
You get this a lot over here - the Toodyay rd for example - out in the sticks with a 110 limit - except where a road joins, or there may be a driveway or a stray store and the limit bounces between 80-90-100-110 - can get quite confusing - if you stuck to the limits like the cars do - I just take it as a single to be more vigilant and on guard.....
“- He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.”
Waa?
At the end of the day...
Your local bit of road that you let off steam over after a hard day is now set at 100kph.
You regularly hit this windy bit of tarmac at WELL over the set limit knowing that if you get caught, your in the shit, lots of zeros on the fine and walking for a while.
Next month you hang a left into your circuit and spot the blur says 80 instead of 100.
Now if you get caught its another, much larger sum and you’re going to get very fit.
So do you slow down?
The road is the same, your bike has the same power and handling it had befor and you had a good breakfast.
Naaa…
It’s going to happen, and here’s why and how...
Fist why;
People cant drive, although its not entirely true, the lowest common denominator cant drive so we have to all be brought down to that level for our, and their safety.
One of the many reasons they cant drive is that there is no real testing to see if they can befor letting them lose on the roads, and most drivers have had little or no training.
So we have a situation where we have say 100 wannabe drivers.
10 of these can actually drive in a competent and safe manor...
But, we need more than a 10% pass rate so the powers that be make it easier for the rest to pass...
Now we have a lower standed 50% can pass, hmmm, need more than that due to having no workable public transport as we all know and people need to work.
So they dumb it down with scratch and win tests and let the remaining in as we cant discriminate against the terminally stupid.
Now we are going to have limits that are as slow as the dregs of the gene pool are, to keep them alive.
And all the while people are being told that there cars are so much safer now, so they act accordingly... I'm safe, I can’t be hurt in my nice safe car, do de do de do...
And at 80kph, they’re right.
And how;
Speed kills, if you say that it doesn’t you must want to kill all the children!
You sick person! Get help!
Haven’t you seen the ads on TV? People are dying on the road because of speed and nothing else!
Its been so indoctrinated into people that to go against it would be like telling people the world is round 800 years ago.
If a group or individual where to go against the grain they would be discredited and ridiculed by the establishment, AA, MoT, ACC, insurance companies, LTNZ, Transit NZ and anyone else that has something to gain from lower speeds or more control over what we do.
Sorry, we have already lost the fight, out manoeuvred 10 years ago by an ad campaign, miss-information and statistics that the powers that be control.
We may be able to keep the limits the same in some places but it will be a fight to do so and any crash in the area will be laid at our feet.
Don’t look at it as a loss, look at it as a challenge!
We all have our little obsessions...
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