Finally some common sense

[MikeL]

The people killed in the Landcruiser were Korean immigrants. It's a good bet that they had never driven on a beach back in Korea. Asians for various reasons have a much more restricted range of experiences and opportunities in their homeland than we do. It's not surprising that when they come here bad things happen. Preventing those bad things from happening (i.e. protecting them from themselves) without ruining things for the rest of us is a challenge for the authorities. Unfortunately there is a good chance that they will react in the only way with which they are familiar and comfortable - not innovative, creative (read "expensive") targetted education and training programmes, but further tightening up of existing regulations and consequent erosion of our freedoms.
BTW the absurdity of our contemporary approach to problem-solving is illustrated by the swimming spool fencing laws. When I lived in Tauranga I had a spa pool which had to comply with numerous requirements to prevent children falling in and drowning. Yet I put in a large fish pond in the garden, at least 2 feet deep in places, with absolutely no restrictions whatsoever. When I pointed out the inconsistency at the local council office I was told not to make a big thing of it because if people started giving the council a hard time about it the inevitable result would be the introduction of similar requirements for fishponds. Whether it has happened yet I don't know but it must come.

[Skyryder]

The snakes??

Affectionate term for traffic cops.

How the English language changes. When I grew up in the 50's the word snake was a derogutory term for policman. I am going back to the days of the bodgies and widgies and get,this bikers were milk bar cowboys. Bit of an oxymoran realy when the word cowboy is american and the 'cowboys rode British bikes. I have no idea how the word snake came to be assosiated with policeman but I understand it was a kiwi term.
With the advent of tv in the early 60's the term was replaced with more common epithets.

Spud do you have any idea how the term came to be used in the manner you describe??

Skyryder

[spudchucka]

If my kids drown because I haven't taught them water safety, then that's tough luck. If they drown in a neighbour's pool because I didn't supervise them properly when they were young and foolish, then I'm not going to go looking for someone else to blame - I know where the blame lies. I'm not going to go to the media and say "There should be a law against this!" That's just stupid, yet that is what happens. People moan, so they institute another law.

I know what you are saying but its very easy to make statements like that while your kids are still walking around using up oxygen.

with the exception of the police being able to impound cars if they deem people to be using them for racing, and vague subjective things like "excessive acceleration" or "unnecessary acceleration" being illegal. WHAT?!?

Like any new law it requires testing in the Courts to determine the threshold of what is reasonable.

A guy at work got pulled up because the cop said "You sounded like you were speeding. I know you weren't going faster than 50k, but it sounded like you were going fast". For fucks sake! This is just crap. What has this to do with protecting other road users?

The cop doesn't need a reason as such to pull someone over, the cop may have suspected he was speeding and was probably just fishing for a confession.

Yes, Spud, I KNOW that sometimes innocent parties get hurt when people do stupid things. But making everything cozy and safe (and boring) eventually makes normally well-behaved, responsible people bust out, say "Fuck this!" and deliberately break the law, because life becomes so grey and dull and restrictive. There has to be BALANCE. And the way to a better society is not to legislate, restrict, confine, impose, and police, as these things don't address the causes of crap that happens. That's like nailing the stable door shut after the horse has bolted.

I'm not really dissagreeing with you but I'm sure confused about how this thread ended up going down this line????

Why did those people die on the beach?

They died from stupidity!!

By the way, Spud - it may not be your intention, but your post made it sound like you were in favour of creating laws to cover crap that happens.

Was it this post??

The snakes did something similar in my patch recently, everyone caught between 61 - 65 got a nice letter in the mail saying "you have been snapped at ??kph - please don't do it again" or something like that.

Sorry mate but I don't see how that prompted you to go off on this tangent.

If it wasn't what you meant, then I apologise. Regardless of whether it was or not, don't you already have enough to do, without more laws to police?

No it wasn't what I meant, I really can't figure out how you got that meaning. Yes policing is a very busy job and the pollys will always dream up more things for them to do.

[spudchucka]

The snakes??



How the English language changes. When I grew up in the 50's the word snake was a derogutory term for policman. I am going back to the days of the bodgies and widgies and get,this bikers were milk bar cowboys. Bit of an oxymoran realy when the word cowboy is american and the 'cowboys rode British bikes. I have no idea how the word snake came to be assosiated with policeman but I understand it was a kiwi term.
With the advent of tv in the early 60's the term was replaced with more common epithets.

Spud do you have any idea how the term came to be used in the manner you describe??

Skyryder

Before the merger of police and MOT the police used to call the traffic cops "snakes". The term is still used for traffic cops these days but is usually more in jest than meant as a derogitory term. For instance at the end of a shift the sergeant will come through and ask the troops how many tickets did they "snake" today, the bright flouro vest and coats worn by traffic cops are refered to as "snake skins".

[Hitcher]

"The snakes"?

A better term than "mermaids"...

[Lou Girardin]

Before the merger of police and MOT the police used to call the traffic cops "snakes". The term is still used for traffic cops these days but is usually more in jest than meant as a derogitory term.

I hear of lot of terms used in jest about the IRD patrols these days, usually a 'c' preceded by an f'ing.
Laugh? I nearly started.

[sAsLEX]

Had a pool on the navy base once that would of only been a foot deep that had to be removed, yet there are unfenced cliffs within 50m that drop straight into the sea/rocks, somethings I just dont understand.

[spudchucka]

[QUOTE=Lou Girardin]

Before the merger of police and MOT the police used to call the traffic cops "snakes". The term is still used for traffic cops these days but is usually more in jest than meant as a derogitory term. QUOTE]

I hear of lot of terms used in jest about the IRD patrols these days, usually a 'c' preceded by an f'ing.
Laugh? I nearly started.

You still can't get that quote thing right.

The "c" & "f" words were used by the general public when talking about your mates in black & white too. The term "snakes" was used by the police to describe the MOT's. Traffic cops have always had to bare the brunt of public ridicule, always have, always will. It just stinks of sour grapes when ex traffic cops start bleating about how bad the traffic cops of today are.

[Lou Girardin]

You still can't get that quote thing right.

The "c" & "f" words were used by the general public when talking about your mates in black & white too. The term "snakes" was used by the police to describe the MOT's. Traffic cops have always had to bare the brunt of public ridicule, always have, always will. It just stinks of sour grapes when ex traffic cops start bleating about how bad the traffic cops of today are.

There's a lot of them. Something must be riling them.
I know, it must be the grossly unfair manipulation of Police resources to ensure a healthy revenue stream.

[spudchucka]

There's a lot of them. Something must be riling them.
I know, it must be the grossly unfair manipulation of Police resources to ensure a healthy revenue stream.

Or that they couldn't cut it, wussed out and now they get off on pretending to others that they are better than those doing the same job today.

[Mongoose]

Or that they couldn't cut it, wussed out and now they get off on pretending to others that they are better than those doing the same job today.

And there I thought a lot of snakes were wanna be *Real* cops