Criminal nuisance conviction for roading contractor after crash

[speedpro]

I think you guys are being oversensitive here - by accepting responsibilty and realising that there were things you could of done doesn't mean you went out and purposfully made yourself crash,step back and look at it impartialy.When I first learned this stuff I too was spitting mad indignent,but think about it,making arguments in my head (no internet then) I realised I didn't have a leg to stand on

Assuming it was my fault and I am now accepting responsibility for being rear ended at the compulsory stop sign where there was too much traffic to safely enter the intersection without stopping which was a legal requirement anyway, just what was I doing that I could have stopped doing, or not doing that I could have started doing, that would have helped me avoid causing this guy to rear end me??

It was a nice sunny afternoon, sun overhead and not in the eyes.

My personal opinion is that there was nothing I could have done in this situation to avoid this incident, apart from staying at home.

I suppose I could have stopped on the very left of the lane. But then of course some dick would have pulled up beside me at the intersection causing another set of problems to avoid. Even in the RX4 he would still have hit me as he wasn't watching and said as much. I was riding a Z1000J with a VERY loud pipe, it wasn't the sort of thing that could possibly have been overlooked. In any case I hadn't overtaken anyone leading up to the intersection and it was a lane of stop/go traffic.

I don't mind owning up to things when I screw up but in this case I'm not owning up to anything.

[Funkyfly]

Just a wee note Funkyfly, you won this one even though the opposition have failed to notice. There are situations out there that can not be forseen. There are cagers who for whatever reason do things that are unexpected. And we do all that we can to anticipate their stupidity.

I simply expepct roading contractors to adhere to there legal responsibilities in the same manner as the Ministry of Transport expects me to on the road. If I fuck up because it's my fault so be it, but I dammned if I am going to make allowences for some dickhead because he does not take my life as serioulsy as I do.

Skyryder

Um thanks for that Sky, not sure what i won exactly, a whole lot of contempt maybe!

Glad someone was able to follow my logic.

Appreciated.

[Funkyfly]

Thanks to the heated debate on this im now a moped rider!

Woohoo.

[speedpro]

Thanks to the heated debate on this im now a moped rider!

Woohoo.

Talk about doing things that will get you in trouble - riding a moped. You should avoid them for your own safety, ask Motu.

[Posh Tourer :P]

really?

"The RIDER fucked up.....he fucked up on his nice Aprillia and wants someone to pay for it - how bought we take responsability for our own actions and pay for it ourselves."

"it's all in your control,buck up,or fuck up,then shut up."

"blaming someone else is a cowards way to deal with your own lack of skills"

"Chris Parkin is an idiot for pushing that through the courts"

"Chris Parkin had an accident and felt moved to blame everyone but himself"

I call that pissing over the guy. The people who made these comments werent even there at the time of the accident, have they talked to chris about the crash details to hear what he has to say?

You are being pedantic to point score without providing a reasoning behind your statements. There should always be a because statement or a reasoning/explanation of your statement SEX! Statement Explanantion eXample (or for the politically correct, SEE, which it changed to after I'd been taught it from the end of primary onwards). OK so you dont always need an example, but it often clarifies things further than a straight explanation. For an example of an example, see any of your attempts to do a reductio ad absurdio on the situation of accidents. I know I dont always follow the SEX principle, but I think you need to do it more often than you do.
You werent there either were you? I have heard about what actions Chris took after his accident, and have based my opinions of him on this. Unfortunately you cant always get everything first hand, thats why we have news media (mass information through an efficient intermediary).

[Posh Tourer :P]

So Mr personal responsibility - YOU cost this other driver $600 and loss of license. How did you take personal responsibility for this?

Did you pay the $600 for him? Did you get him a work license ($1000) so he wouldnt loose his job due to your bad decision?

There is a huge gulf between legality and lack of fault. The legal system does not cover every instance of responsbility, and nor should it. The legal system was put in place by majority rule (in a secondary kind of convoluted way) to make sure that the most blatant dismissals of responsibility by individuals can be punished, in an attempt to teach the individual what the majority of the population regards as normal behaivour/thinking

[Motu]

Talk about doing things that will get you in trouble - riding a moped. You should avoid them for your own safety, ask Motu.

One of the best learning experiances I've ever done,riding a C50 stepthrough for 7 years and an FA50 for one year,you are at the mercy of everything on the road,you have no power in every sense,your every action is self presevation - no,you won't get me talking down to a moped rider,lest his name is Flunkyfly!

[Posh Tourer :P]

this thread has 2 tangents
1) Your idea that if your involved in any addident you are always at fault. True or False
2) Try to raise council awareness of the dangers of contractors not erecting warning sign. Good idea or bad
Ive said my peice and invested a lot of time trying to gather support for point 2 being a good idea.
So now i personally will contact different councils in the areas i ride to notify them of the inherent dangers i personally see when contractors fail to erect signs.

I've done no.1, so lets do no.2
You have said before that you are not encouraging court action, but only supporting an existing court case. As far as I can see, this is in fact encouraging court action, if a court case is court action (yes, I dont see how this can be not) and supporting ~ encouraging (I think these two words are fairly similar in meaning in this case http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=support and http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=encourage).
Ok so this is then encouraging court action. Then Merv's point/reply to that particular post sometime today stands. (Its a couple of pages back if you want to go find it)

Then, if Merv's point stands, it may be a bad idea.

I also question that if there is more council awareness of the "inherent" (sorry I hate that word) dangers of a lack of signage of roadworks when contractors do not erect signs, isnt that similar to a lack of signage when signs are stolen, and how do you distinguish between the two? I noticed that you rubbished my idea of responsibility for monitoring the signs to ensure they werent blown over or stolen, so is it enough for you to have the signs up there in the first place, no matter how long they last? If you want signs up, shouldnt you be supporting signs being up for the duration of the roadworks, as I assume that is the legal requirement?

More later... maybe tomorrow if I have time

[mangell6]

Phew I have made it to the end of this thread, so far.

Personally there should have been road signs advising of road works and the rider knew that the road was and still is a country road with loose metal, trees, leaves, mud and other debris scattered over it, therefore should have taken more care.

Well a lot of points have been made and I would like to make several statements.

1. The majority of individuals do not want to be responsible for their own actions. Just check out your workplace and see how many people put their hand up when something goes wrong.

2. NZ society has moved to the "blame" mentality. For examples read any newspaper (or this thread). People are making themselves "victims" by blaming others for there own misfortunes.

3. OSH and litigation have resulted in NZ becoming "risk averse". Check out the "playgrounds" and see how "safe" they have become compared to ten years ago. This is a direct result of schools and local bodies being accused of having "unsafe" playgrounds based on the number of "accidents". Which is a direct result of caregivers/parents not taking responsibilty to _teach_ children how to safely use the playground.

4. Society has a "I wasn't told" mentality. Please tell me all that can occur so that I can be prepared. The opposite to this is sometimes refered to as (un)common sense. Like it is winter, the white stuff on the side of the road is called frost, frost is frozen water, which is also known as ice, the road looks wet, wet means water . . . . I do not need a sign to says "ICE".

I may not have communicated things appropriately but Motu is correct when he says that we have control of ourselves and we can therefore limit the unfortunate events that might occur to us. The unfortunate events that do occur are called "accidents" and are always preventable in hindsight by both parties, however there is no such thing as accidents in law (or OSH) and someone has to be blamed. If you want to be a victim put your hand up.

Mike

[Funkyfly]

You have said before that you are not encouraging court action, but only supporting an existing court case. As far as I can see, this is in fact encouraging court action, if a court case is court action (yes, I dont see how this can be not) and supporting ~ encouraging (I think these two words are fairly similar in meaning in this case http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=support and http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=encourage).
Ok so this is then encouraging court action. Then Merv's point/reply to that particular post sometime today stands. (Its a couple of pages back if you want to go find it)

I have never supported the court case! Never! If you read what ive been saying its that this case has happened - ok, lets do what we can to help riders and minimize the chances of another court case!

I also question that if there is more council awareness of the "inherent" (sorry I hate that word) dangers of a lack of signage of roadworks when contractors do not erect signs, isnt that similar to a lack of signage when signs are stolen, and how do you distinguish between the two? I noticed that you rubbished my idea of responsibility for monitoring the signs to ensure they werent blown over or stolen, so is it enough for you to have the signs up there in the first place, no matter how long they last? If you want signs up, shouldnt you be supporting signs being up for the duration of the roadworks, as I assume that is the legal requirement?

Its about people doing their best to do their job - and for good reason - when they do their job it can SAVE LIVES.

You cant blame a contractor for not doing their job if the sign is stolen, its not their fault.

[Funkyfly]

There is a huge gulf between legality and lack of fault. The legal system does not cover every instance of responsbility, and nor should it. The legal system was put in place by majority rule (in a secondary kind of convoluted way) to make sure that the most blatant dismissals of responsibility by individuals can be punished, in an attempt to teach the individual what the majority of the population regards as normal behaivour/thinking

What i was getting at Posh, is that if Jim was totally at fault and caused this accident then he hurt the other driver financially, maybe even cost him his job!

[SPman]

Sheesh, what a minefield.! Whilst I except responsibility for my actions on the road and if I fuck up and have a moment, I accept it is my fault, just as I have legal responsibilities for which I will be prosecuted if I transgress, so the Councils and Roadworkers have legal responsibilities. Like me, if they can get away with them, they will. But also, like me, if they get caught out, then, they too can expect to be prosecuted. And if I have to put up with continual bombardment of what my legal responsibilities are, vis, "speed kills" etc, then so can the authorities.! People should occasionally remind them of their obligations.
However, I refuse to accept that I am in the wrong, purely because I am on my bike on the road and have to be totally omniprescient to all conditions and situations. There can be times when everything is out of your control and you are along for the ride, whichever way it pans out. So, should you have not got out of bed that morning? Apparently.
We should always ride to conditions, but a little help is always appreciated, esp. road signs.

[James Deuce]

What i was getting at Posh, is that if Jim was totally at fault and caused this accident then he hurt the other driver financially, maybe even cost him his job!

Leaping to conclusions again.

He was 75, had sold his shop in Nelson to retire to the Hibiscus Coast, and had stopped at a mate's place in Picton for a couple of wines before getting on the ferry. He drove through a stop sign with his lights off at 9:30pm. He didn;t stop at the stop sign. As I have already said the MOT (this was 1992 and the last weekend that Traffic Cops existed) did an analysis of the site and found that he was to blame. My fault exists in not getting Picton earlier, for putting myself in the position of being in traffic that was going to be faintly chaotic due to the nature of loading a ferry, and for not having a state of mind that maximised my survivability. I was totally to blame for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don;t care about the legality. I could have avoided this acident by being a sensible grown-up instead of a brat trying to do too much in one day.

You can stop putting a spin on it now, unless you are of course practising for a job as a Government spin doctor.

[Funkyfly]

Leaping to conclusions again.

You can stop putting a spin on it now, unless you are of course practising for a job as a Government spin doctor.

Jim - "It happened because I didn't stick to a sensible timetable. Not because someone had a couple of wines at a mates place before he got on the ferry."

You didnt mention any of these other details Jim, thus implying the only thing the other driver could have been responsible for was having a couple of wines.

[Drunken Monkey]

Jim2, although I think in principle that taking a personal responsibility view is a relatively reasonable thing to do, 'punishing' yourself with that long string of 'what if's?' before your accident isn't a terribly productive approach.

Yes, you MAY have avoided that accident IF you hadn't altered your schedule. You MAY also be dead IF you had stuck to your schedule, and your schedule brought about a completely different string of events which put you in an unlucky, but more dire set of circumstances. Looking back over your situation and saying 'what if' may help you rationalize your predicament, but there are an infinite number of 'what if's'. What IF you were heinously breaking the speed limit - you MAY have been through that intersection before the other driver was in that suburb. (And current LTSA marketing would indicate that MAY have made you a murderer...)
You MAY also have won the lottery IF you stopped at a dairy and bought a lotto ticket. You MAY have also kissed that $5 goodbye, as you have no control over how those little balls drop out the machine.

You'll never know and you can't change history.
Taking reasonable steps is more along the line of Motu's approach (although he may not articulate it as well as he could have), ie not riding to your limits so you have room to maneuvre, taking the best course of action when a hazard has been identified. As others have said, there has to be some practical approach to the daily risk taking that is life.