Criminal nuisance conviction for roading contractor after crash

[James Deuce]

A friend of mine struck this very thing on the port hills in Ch Ch, droped the bike his shoulder hit the armco and smashed it to peices. He now only has the use of one arm, I would like someone to tell him that this was his fault!

Unfortunatly sometime shit happens!!

I've tried to play the disabled card, but it apparently holds no water.

[Funkyfly]

We didn't all buckle to your view, so you're taking your toys elsewhere? Given the collective number of years riding, and the collective ages of the participants opposing your argument, and add that to some of the views you've expressed earlier one would have expected you to come over to the "dark" side by now.

Mate - ops cant call you guys that anymore can i. Fella, 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.


This has simply been a waste of my time, i tried but didnt get far.

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.

If one biker managers to save his ass due to the signs then alls not in vain.

[Funkyfly]

[QUOTE=Mongoose]

Certainly, in some way it will be. Especially if you knew the little darlings had been there.[/QUOTE

FFS you guys, now i gotta go buy one of them magic balls wot tells Ya wots gonna happen when yer not looking

I know how you feel Mongoose

Help oher riders stay upright out there? Na lets just piss all over anyone involved in an accident and forget about trying to be proactive.

[James Deuce]

Certainly, in some way it will be. Especially if you knew the little darlings had been there.

FFS you guys, now i gotta go buy one of them magic balls wot tells Ya wots gonna happen when yer not looking

Sorry Mongoose. I'm not doing this to rile people, and I don't think Motu or JRandom are either. People are really keen to pass the blame off these days, and if you examine your own offs from the point of view of what you did wrong you learn a lot more than writing it off as an event caused by events outside your control.

I remember being told off by an NZMS instructor for blaming the couple of offs I'd had on other drivers. I felt really indignant that anyone could interpret what was obviously stupidity on the part of other road users as being my fault. A few years reflection a couple more offs, and then a biggy changed my viewpoint, and helped remove ego from riding a bike. For me anyway.

My brother-in-law lost his right arm and leg (all of both) in a motorcycle accident and once he got over his anger he says he should have stayed at a mate's place instead of trying to get home while really tired. The fact that a drunk driver crushed him against a bridge and flicked him 20ft into the stream below is of less importance to him than what HE could have done to avoid it in the first place.

[Motu]

Just to keep the camp fire burning on this issue here is a question for Ya's all

You are driving/riding at night, its wet as you approach the intersection, being a defensive sort person you slow down seeing as its wet. But, halfway thru your left turn you find out that not all thats wet that night is water, the little bampots around here use oil to do there wheellies in(under powereded cars!). As these bampots dont piss around, no one litre of oil on the road, Oh no sir, tip the whole 44 gallon drum full of it out on the road.
So here you are, half way around the corner and suddenly no traction, is this your fault?
ps This scenario is based on actual events

OK,I could go down in a screaming heap - but there are clues....smell for a start,fresh oil,used,diesel,all will have a smell,209 liters on the road is gunna cause a stink,get my senses alert to something wrong,it will look different - you have to be on the ball,looking all the time,sight,smell,sound,sixth sense,be a cat,stay alive.

Tomorrow may be differnt,but up to today I have never been caught out by road works - there is always a clue,roadworkers are messy buggers and leave evidence of their tampering...look for it.

[Hitcher]

Help oher riders stay upright out there? Na lets just piss all over anyone involved in an accident and forget about trying to be proactive.

Nobody is trying to "piss over" anybody. All Jim2 and others are saying is people should be prepared to take ownership for their own misfortunes, rather than trying to offload blame onto others. Accidents are exactly that, and rarely are they due to a single cause. Yes, there is much that can be done to proactively improve road safety. But looking to the courts to provide the answers is often counterproductive.

In the Chris Parkin case if is evident that there could have been better signage of the roadworks. But the issue of who (if anybody) is at fault or to blame here is moot.

[speedpro]

Been there done that mate - I was rear ended on my 18th birthday,I take the blame for not monitoring my rear.

My pillion and I were rear ended when I stopped at a compulsory stop sign. There was two lanes of traffic crossing in front of me. I was sitting behind one car that moved off, I approached the stop line and the guy behind just drove into me when I stopped. I always had every intention of stopping and moved forward with caution, there was lots of traffic.

How the hell could that possibly be my fault?

[Mongoose]

OK,I could go down in a screaming heap - but there are clues....smell for a start,fresh oil,used,diesel,all will have a smell,209 liters on the road is gunna cause a stink,get my senses alert to something wrong,it will look different - you have to be on the ball,looking all the time,sight,smell,sound,sixth sense,be a cat,stay alive.

Tomorrow may be differnt,but up to today I have never been caught out by road works - there is always a clue,roadworkers are messy buggers and leave evidence of their tampering...look for it.

Yeah, well, guess its one of those " You had to be there" situations.

[Skyryder]

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. Most of the time we are successfull. On occasions some of us are not. There are distractions that require our attention and those that on occasaions cause 'involuntary' distractions. These, as the word means, are beyond our control. We are after all only human and our senses do have a finite ability.

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

[Lou Girardin]

My pillion and I were rear ended when I stopped at a compulsory stop sign. There was two lanes of traffic crossing in front of me. I was sitting behind one car that moved off, I approached the stop line and the guy behind just drove into me when I stopped. I always had every intention of stopping and moved forward with caution, there was lots of traffic.

How the hell could that possibly be my fault?

It wasn't your fault, but were you watching the vehicle behind you? This incident is why I always work up to the front of a queue.
It's a very rare accident in which even the innocent party couldn't have done something to avoid it.
This is the essence of defensive driving.

[James Deuce]

Mate - ops cant call you guys that anymore can i. Fella, 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.


This has simply been a waste of my time, i tried but didnt get far.

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.

If one biker managers to save his ass due to the signs then alls not in vain.

There's no call for rudeness.

Council's are local taxation agents. Motorcyclists are a minority that ride vehicles that are unsafe in conditions that 4 (or more) wheeled vehicles simply shrug off by being inherently more stable. Are you a rate payer in the district that the Councils you are contacting operate? If not then don't expect elected officials to be particularly sympathetic. You may find that rural councils are openly hostile given the combination of parochial conservatism and adherence to the principal that all motorcyclists are evil town destroying gang members. Even if they don't believe the second point it can easily be summoned and used to convince "right-thinking" people to respond apathetically to motorcycle friendly safety initiatives that involve significant extra funding.

You ride a mototrcycle in an underpopulated country with a hugely over developed roading infrastructure. The road is going to be dodgy off the main arterial routes, including the alternative route that Mr Parkin had his accident on. NZ is also one of the most urbanised society's in the world, and a Council with a shrinking rural population due to urban drift and therefore tax base, is always going to go for the cheapest road repair job they can get. Get used to it and ride accordingly.

If you want to help other bikers, whining in an Internet forum isn't going to help, neither is a piecemeal approach to random Councils. You need a strong political organisation with real political clout, including memebers of Government and Opposition. NZers are really good at moaning about stuff, but when it comes to long term hard work with no immediate personal payoff, and putting aside minor interpersonal differences for a bigger picture, it all turns to crap. Do you really think you are the first person to indignant about someone else's apparent lack of competence? How about approaching a council that you have a relationship with through a family member or personal contact. Convince someone with clout who isn't a biker that it is in their interest to make a few biker friendly noises within their political forum.

Single focus political groups like BRONZ are good at ocassional political victories, but quietly political broad spectrum groups like Ulysses are much more successful in the broader sense. Telling me I'm a wrong headed moron (I take it that is the distilled gist of increasingly personal attacks) achieves precisely zero.

[Motu]

My pillion and I were rear ended when I stopped at a compulsory stop sign. There was two lanes of traffic crossing in front of me. I was sitting behind one car that moved off, I approached the stop line and the guy behind just drove into me when I stopped. I always had every intention of stopping and moved forward with caution, there was lots of traffic.

How the hell could that possibly be my fault?

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

[Funkyfly]

Nobody is trying to "piss over" anybody.

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?

[scumdog]

A truck re-cap flailing across the road towards you can be damn hard to avoid - and I can't see how being hit by one could be my fault.

[Funkyfly]

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

Yea well you must of made stupid mistakes Motu, good to see you have learned from it,

However it doesnt mean EVERYONE else makes those same stupid mistakes like you did.

I wouldnt allow myself on a bike untill i was over 25 for this very reason.