Harry Duynhoven

[stevedee]

100-109 km/h is about it for joe blogges, and I am... and I stick to it or just a wee bit above, realistically roads in NZ were never designed for anything faster. There ain't no barrier for error like in other countries, we kill each other head on . ......So ya just have to chill and accept that this is it. Pass the peanutts or find a track day, and hey we live to ride and enjoy riding so just chill and enjoy life... ain't alwas about who is first or is faster

[scumdog]

Lou, should perchance the open road speed limit be lifted -then THAT would be the only change on the roads (apart from more deaths I suspect), you would STILL get the same whingers whinging about 'speed limits' and 'revenue gathering' ad nauseum, ad infinitum as they are doing right now!
You would have to be dreaming if you thought it would placate those that whinge, even a blanket speed limit of 120kmh on the open road would still not keep them happy - or make the roads safe from those that are out of their depth on a fairground dodgem.

[spudchucka]

Secondly, I'm not discouraging anyone from trying to change things, just highlighting how feable your attempts are.

I've been thinking about this and what I question about you Lou are your motives.

You act as if you're on some sort of a crusade to bring about change to the transport system, yet your writing, (especially on this public forum) appears to be motivated simply to discredit the police, LTSA, Transit etc. Every time there is something in the news that you can use to score points against the police you start off on your crusade again. Your writing is not capable of masking your irrational hatred for authority, particularly police. You use the fact that you were once a Ministry of Transport traffic cop to add some credibility to your writing and in an attempt to mask your true motivation. You critiscise the police on issues that you can not possibly have any true depth of understanding of the complex issues at hand, (Waitara for instance).

It seems to me that you are primarily motivated by your hatred for police, (for whatever the true reasons are we will never know) or perhaps that you simply like seeing your name in print. Does it give you a feeling of power that you can no longer get from other avenues?

If you are truely motivated by a desire to initiate change then why don't YOU run for public office? Put yourself in a position to bring about change directly rather than just writing endless letters to newspapers. I imagine you wouldn't consider that because it would mean that you would then be in the unenviable position of having to make decisions instead of being in the comfortable position of being able to publicly critiscise everyone elses decisions.

Why don't you identify what the issues are that you want to change and start a national referendum? "The Govt will just thumb their noses at it like they did with the harsher sentencing referendum" I can hear you saying. Maybe so but at least if you got the support from the public then you would perhaps gain some legitimacy and you would have done something positive that takes some considerable effort to achieve. Unlike writing a letter to the Sunday paper from the comfort of own hobbit hole.

[rodgerd]

So. if this happens, I'll look forward to comments from certain members of this forum who think it's better to sit on their fat butts than try to change anything. No doubt they'll continue to travel at 100 km/h in the interests of 'trauma reduction'.
As if!

Whereas I'll be waiting for the squeals of outrage from those who clim to be interested in safe speeds when the limit on current 100km/h areas drops...

FWIW I think Duynhoven's thinking is very sound on this. Personally I'd like to see something like the French model, with 130km/h on the motorway, 110km/h on non-motorway, high end roads, and 90 km/h everywhere else, at most.

Of course, I'd also like to see people re-sit their license every 10 years. Which will never happen.

[James Deuce]

Whereas I'll be waiting for the squeals of outrage from those who clim to be interested in safe speeds when the limit on current 100km/h areas drops...

That was the little alarm bell going off in the back of my brain too. More from the perspective that all the roads I like to go for a ride on that have little traffic and great surfacing will suddenly be 80km/hr or less, and the "plus" side will be being allowed to go 110km/hr on the more congested, less well surfaced straight roads.

We should all be very, very careful about what we ask for. We might just get it.

[James Deuce]

FWIW I think Duynhoven's thinking is very sound on this. Personally I'd like to see something like the French model, with 130km/h on the motorway, 110km/h on non-motorway, high end roads, and 90 km/h everywhere else, at most.

I like this bit, except for the last bit. Our secondary roads are way better than French country lanes. Seriously.

Of course, I'd also like to see people re-sit their license every 10 years. Which will never happen.

You and me both.

[Hitcher]

Of course, I'd also like to see people re-sit their license every 10 years. Which will never happen.

Use it or lose it too! Practical and written re-sits!

[scumdog]

"Of course, I'd also like to see people re-sit their license every 10 years. Which will never happen."

Stopped a car on Sat night, 16 year old driver who was a month into a 4 month disqualification for numerous breaches of learners licence, this time not only were they disqualified but were drunk to boot, also had 5 passengers in a big old car they had not previously driven, good recipe for tragedy.

Penalties would have to be pretty severe to make people fall into line with a 10 year re-sit if they don't bother with the present system anyway.

[James Deuce]

"Of course, I'd also like to see people re-sit their license every 10 years. Which will never happen."

Stopped a car on Sat night, 16 year old driver who was a month into a 4 month disqualification for numerous breaches of learners licence, this time not only were they disqualified but were drunk to boot, also had 5 passengers in a big old car they had not previously driven, good recipe for tragedy.

Penalties would have to be pretty severe to make people fall into line with a 10 year re-sit if they don't bother with the present system anyway.

That's just a touch cynical Scumdog, though I can understand where you a coming from, when you see it all the time. Like most legal systems most people comply most of the time and aren't visible to law enforcement. There are a great deal of road use legal changes in ten years and people need the refresher. If we have to get a new license every ten years we should at least need to do a written test to say that we understand those changes.

I think Police have to be really careful not to tar everyone with the "You're a criminal until proven not" feather.

[spudchucka]

I think Police have to be really careful not to tar everyone with the "You're a criminal until proven not" feather.

You're right Jim. Police as a rule tend to deal with either victims or offenders and it can be a challenge to not slot every person you encounter into a nice pre-formatted stereotype. The nature of the job can cause you to become suspicious of people whether you have good reason for suspition or not. The correct approach is of course to address the offence, not the offender. That is to say if you are dealing with someone over a speeding infringement, (using that example because everyone here obviously relates to it) you don't treat them as if they just raped your grandmother. If an offence has been disclosed you deal with it in the appropriate manner. The way you deal with an offender is often governed by them, if they are compliant the job gets done nice and quietly.

[spudchucka]

Stopped a car on Sat night, 16 year old driver who was a month into a 4 month disqualification for numerous breaches of learners licence, this time not only were they disqualified but were drunk to boot, also had 5 passengers in a big old car they had not previously driven, good recipe for tragedy.

See the Dorkland cops stopped around 16,000 vehicles and nabbed 140 drunk drivers over the weekend in an operation.

Percentage wise 140 drunks out of 16,000 vehicles is stuff all but dissregarding the number of vehicles stopped 140 drunk drivers over a weekend is somewhat staggering. What would happen if the police weren't actively targeting drunks on our roads? How many would drive drunk then? Can the same logic be applied to speeding? How many people would drive at much higher speeds than they do now if police weren't enforcing the speed limit? How would that effect the annual road carnage?

[rodgerd]

See the Dorkland cops stopped around 16,000 vehicles and nabbed 140 drunk drivers over the weekend in an operation.

Yeah, that staggered me. And it's not as though our limit is "one or two and you're over", either. You've got to be well liquored up to fail a test in NZ.

While I'm not a big fan of simple-minded American style "3 strikes and you're out" laws, I've got to wonder how you actually stop these asshats, because I bet habitual drunks drivers are just as happy to drive without a license as with one. Make it illegal to sell a car to anyone without a current license, a la firearms?

I would like to see a harder line taken on host responsibility - I note that the Hospitality Association is coming over all hard-line on drug testing their staff, which is pretty fucking rich considering how many of their members must be selling booze to people with cars in the pub/restaurant parking lot and are well over the limit.

Of course part of the problem is that a proportion of these people will be the white, middle class types who only think it's breaking the law when someone else is doing it...

Can the same logic be applied to speeding? How many people would drive at much higher speeds than they do now if police weren't enforcing the speed limit? How would that effect the annual road carnage?

That's been one of the LTSA's arguments - targetting the guy doing 150 is less important that all the people doing 120.

[rodgerd]

Penalties would have to be pretty severe to make people fall into line with a 10 year re-sit if they don't bother with the present system anyway.

The worst offenders won't pay attention to anything. You know that, I know that, everyone with half a brain knows that. I'm looking at the people over 35-ish who got their license before the graduated program and (like my father) got endorsements because the local cop gave them to him, not by sitting the tests. The people who haven't cracked a road code in 40 years, like my mother-in-law, and thought the "recommended speed" signs on corners were a change in speed limit, because she'd missed the info on the change to international signing standards.

The aging population of people who are moving to places like Martinborough and driving more than they did in urban/suburban areas, just as their sight and hearing head downhill and they start having the risk of serious health problems kick in. The "returning riders" who last sat on a bike in 1973, thought 40 HP was wicked performance, and now walk into a store and pick up something with 2 - 3x that and total themselves.

The fact that 15-25 fatalities have spiked *down* over the past few years, yet (as a proportion) the biggest spikes *up* are 35-55 and 70+ road users.

[marty]

That's been one of the LTSA's arguments - targetting the guy doing 150 is less important that all the people doing 120.

when i started on highway patrol in 2000 in the waikato, it was quite comon to get a dozen speeders over 150k a week. in 6 months, it had dropped to less than 1 a day, and now, anything over 150k is smoko room bragging. i don't beleive that this is from targetting the over 150's, but by targetting everything, the perception that you are going to be caught is increased.

the NZ public compliance relies on fear, not on sensibility, to comply with laws set down. if there were no speed limits/give way/stop/driver licensing rules, it would be each for their own, with a road toll like china, and people would be complaining that the police arent doing enough.

[vifferman]

While I'm not a big fan of simple-minded American style "3 strikes and you're out" laws, I've got to wonder how you actually stop these asshats, because I bet habitual drunks drivers are just as happy to drive without a license as with one.

That's quite likely to be true.
Some years ago, I worked with a guy once (real nice guy he was, too) who had lost his licence several times for drunk driving. Each time, he had continued to drive while disqualified. When I expressed amazement at this, he said, "It's no big deal, as long as you don't drink and drive while disqualified. Otherwise, if you're caught driving while disqualified, it's just a slap on the wrist."
While working with him, he came up for his third (IIRC) drink driving charge. Talking to him, he said - quite matter-of-factly - "It'll be prison this time, fer sure", and it was. He was sentenced to a few weeks at Waikeria (prison farm).
After he returned to work (a gummint farm), I asked him what it was like.
"Just like here, actually, only I got paid less." The only thing that bothered him about the 'punishment' was that some schoolmates of his young son had found out about him 'doing time' and had given his son a real hard time about his dad being a jailbird. Otherwise, he seemed rather unaffected by the whole experience.
I don't imagine his attitude would be atypical of repeat offenders: just a matter of weighing up the risks and deciding it's no big deal.