Harry Duynhoven

[Pwalo]

"Do we consider time exposed to danger in speed statistics? No! In LTSA's opinion, you are better off taking 30 seconds to pass at 100km/hr on the wrong side of the road, than to spend 5-10 seconds at 120-140 and then slow down. Even accounting for covering more distance per second at 140, I would speculate that I would spend less time in a passing lane or on the wrong side of the road than if I was doing 100.

However, speed is speed is speed. Exceed 100 and you are in the wrong."

That's an interesting point Mr CelticNo6. Hard to argue against as head on crashes must be the most dangerous (speed & mass & sudden deceleration x 2)it makes sense that there should be an element of discretion, but that needs a policeman to be present rather than a camera. Too expensive, and open to doubt.

Another factor that perhaps needs to be looked at is the speed differential between road users. Some of this is down to experience, preference (some drivers just like to drive at a slower speed!!! - apparently), but it's another potential hazard that can occur well within the posted speed limit.

Speaking of Middleton Rd, what do you think of the new road surface. Sure wouldn't like to go down on that. Some of the realignment is interesting as well.

[scumdog]

Maybe a 'gentlemans agreement' would be useful in this context - certainly if there is a queue of traffic behind a 90 km/h vehicle, it would be more efficent for them to pass it at 125km/h than 109km/h in a passing lane.

You'd get more vehicles past the slower vehicle, in the same length of passing lane, and I would assume that passing lanes are located in 'safe' stretchs of road?

Ii hear what you're saying but just want to point out that a lot of serious crashes occur during an overtaking manouevre, from the plain old head on caused by a dick-head that only ever looked 50m ahead of themselves to other dick-headed types that actually hit the rear of the vehicle they are attempting to pass!

Also saw a close call by a teenage dickhead that was sitting so low in his already lowered seat that he did not see the oncomming car in a hollow in the road, would have been a head-on if the other driver hadn't hit the brakes and pulled to his left - d/h argued with me that "there wasn't another car coming, I'd have seen it, you're just making it up so you can take me licence off me" wasn't happy to hear a smart arsed cop (who shall remain anonymous) tell him he could get another one out of his next packet of Weetbix - same way he got the one he had at the moment.

[rodgerd]

Where I am referring to discretion is, to quote my previous example of Middleton Road, which, along with Makara Road, are the only two rural roads in the Wellington Area where you can legally do 100km/hr.

Anyway, you could legally ride on those roads at 100, but its probably not safe. In fact 80 is sometimes not safe.

Hell, going out to Makara there's rarely the sight line/space combination to go much over 50 - 70.

However, you can ride at 115km/hr on the Porirua motorway safely, but get done for speeding.

Indeed. And that's an artifact of having to pick a number to enforce. It's no different, to my mind, to the fact there's a particular amount of blood alcohol I'm allowed when driving. Is it an arbitary number? In a sense, yeah. But in a practical sense it's almost impossible to write laws without 'em.

If we think it's hard getting people to accept a speeding ticket, imagine if we just had a genuine "open subject to condition" limit, and the police gave tickets for travelling too fast for conditions. Now *that* would kick off some real shitfights...

And another of my pet peeves is the speed camera vans which frequent the passing lanes on River Road (Upper Hutt). Totally unnecessary. Cars are stuck behind idiots who travel at 80, then accelerate as soon as there's a passing lane to 100-ish.

A huge pet peeve of mine, although I see it more commonly on rural roads, where the driver who dawdles along a narrow road at 80 in a 100 zone then continues past a village shopping strip and school at the same time, and is gone past the passing zone on the other side.

Part of the problem is lack of *enough* enforcement, in the sense that you and I get aggrieved by this bad and dangerous driving (which ought to have a cop pulling the driver over for a chat, at least), so it makes us annoyed when someone says, "sure, you were on a straight, clear, wide road, but you're being fined for being over an arbitary limit."

You have to do 120 to pass them and sometimes its just safer to wind on the gas, an on my bike you're at 140 as you go past, immediately releasing the throttle. I'm at 140 for maybe 5 seconds.

Do we consider time exposed to danger in speed statistics? No! In LTSA's opinion, you are better off taking 30 seconds to pass at 100km/hr on the wrong side of the road, than to spend 5-10 seconds at 120-140 and then slow down. Even accounting for covering more distance per second at 140, I would speculate that I would spend less time in a passing lane or on the wrong side of the road than if I was doing 100.

And I agree that this is bollocks: less time passing is better. That said, how would you write the law to make it practical for enforcement? If you gave a blanket exemption for passing, then everyone will pile into the rightmost lane on the motorway at 140, and claim to be passing the slower traffic. If you make it discretionary, you're back to where we are now, with people complaining that a police officer's interpretion of safe isn't the same as theirs.

And it does the LTSA no good when they appear to be arguing the point just because.

Again, driver education is more important than attacking those who exceed the limits (which I agree are there as an example of a safe average maximum speed for everyone to travel at.)

Agreed *to a point*, although New Zealand has come a long way on driver licensing and training. It irks me when older people whine about it too easy to get a license, because I think they're severely out of touch; our staged regime is pretty good, although I'd like some modifications (like power/displacement limits for car learners and big 4WDs reclassified as Class 2 vehicles), and ideally integrate driver's ed into the school system (although I suspect teachers would groan about *yet another thing* they're supposed to do, along with raising the kids of parents who can't be bothered, on top of reading, writing, and maths...).

It was noticeable on that "test the nation's driving" show that it was the middle-aged and older drivers who were complete rubbish and didn't have a clue what the law is.

That's one reason I'd regard re-testing as a pre-requisite for raising the limits in places where it's appropriate. If you can't pass a license test every 10 years, you shoudn't be on the road...

Overall though, it's not an either/or, to my mind. There's no point putting a huge effort into education and then dropping the ball on enforcement.

[riffer]

Speaking of Middleton Rd, what do you think of the new road surface. Sure wouldn't like to go down on that. Some of the realignment is interesting as well.

No, I wouldn't like to hit that surface. Same as the one on the old Hutt Road too... any surface hurts when you hit it. But those surfaces would rip your gear apart, not to mention cause unbelievable damage to the bike.

I hate to think what its doing to the tyres as well...

[riffer]

Roger - I agree with everything you said there. Particularly the graduated licence system/displacement limits.

[Posh Tourer :P]

Maybe that was a bit harsher than I meant it to be. I just hate the fact that more ideas like this are actually brought in costing Joe average yet more money, when it is probably not Joe who is the problem.

......

I guess my point if ever I was to have one is that in general if we were all more courteous to each other on the roads "We could actually get from A to B without raising speed limits or driving faster, but.............. but...................That would be in a Perfect world I guess!"

Again 10/10 for that driver tonight tho. :twothumbsup:

So. Is it about the average Joe or not?

[Posh Tourer :P]

I agree, the 'speed' thing is a bit of a misnomer but it is easier than saying "slow down and drive to the conditions" or similar.
As I've said before, a lot of so called 'drivers' (and 'riders') out there would be out of their depth in a sideshow dodgem.

Speed killed nobody but the stopping from speed does kill quite a few, the faster the speed - the more likely such stop will kill, ergo less speed = less death.

Yes. But lets keep separate here the issues of legally "Speeding" ie exceeding the speed limit, and going fast.

There should be some sort of risk balancing going on here - called driving to the conditions. Ideally, the better the conditions, the faster you go (more risk if you crash) but good conditions = less chance of crashing.

For the statistically minded, combined probability ought to be similar at all times. Bad conditions = slower speed.

[marty]

advisory speeds are just that, there is no enforcment action per se, but if logging trucks are caught exceeding the posted (advisory) speed 3 times, then they are taken off the road for 24 hours (this is an LTSA/CVIU/Logging industry initiative to reduce the roll-over incidents).

i do know of a guy who has been ticketed in a 100km/h speed limit area for doing 103km/h around a 55k corner in the wet though. He should have been charged with careless driving, but he was happy to take the $30 fine and 10 demerits....

[Lou Girardin]

I really need to spend more time on this forum, it's hard to keep up.
I promise you scumdog, that if we see appropriate speed limits and sensible Policing, ie, cops allowed to use their discretion, no more quotas and simple commonsense. Such as recognising that it is safer to go a bit faster while overtaking rather than sitting right on the limit. I will stop writing critical letters/posts. After all, you wouldn't have seen any letters from me prior to 2001.
And rogerd, interesting nom de net that, anyway, the prima facie speed limit you refer to has been in effect in the Northern Territory for ages. It seems to work well except for carloads of Aboriginees killing themselves regularly. But that's a function of things other than speed. Drink for one.
As for Spudmund Freud, thank you for the, very, amateur psychoanalysis. It's good to see that you have a career opportunity when Policing palls.
Then I'll have another windmill to tilt at, the low standard of Psychologists being admitted to the profession.

[spudchucka]

And what about posted advisory corner limits? Are these enforceable? I've not heard of it happening, but is it possible to be ticketed for exceeding the posted advisory speed? Or would this come under driving without undue care and attention to other road users?

Advisory speeds are not enforcible but they are taken into consideration if a person is charged with an offence following a crash.

[spudchucka]

As for Spudmund Freud, thank you for the, very, amateur psychoanalysis. It's good to see that you have a career opportunity when Policing palls.
Then I'll have another windmill to tilt at, the low standard of Psychologists being admitted to the profession.

Do you want your horoscope too??

[marty]

sorry lou, but i can't agree. when the generally accepted discretion speed was 120k - (countrywide, 'even' in the north waikato), the road toll was over 500. i attended 19 (nineteen) deaths due to car crashes one month....that was on top of the 1/2 dozen others i attended in the previous and following months. speed was pretty much a factor in all of those. naturally, some form of carelessness/unluckyness/etc was also involved. having been at the coal face at the introduction of HP (and a vocal opponent of the 110k 'discretion' limit i must add), but seeing the reasonably dramatic drop in high speed related crashes on sh1 in the waikato, even i wrote out a few for 112/113k, depending on the circumstances.
you come on here trolling about lack of discretion, yet when i was 15/16, and being policed by black and white uniformed traffic cops, i don't recall discretion being a word that they could even pronounce, let alone invoke. geez, when road policing was being looked after by so called 'experts' like yourself, it was out of control.


Year Road deaths
1980 599
1981 669
1982 673
1983 644
1984 669
1985 747
1986 766
1987 795
1988 727
1989 755

(from ltsa website)

[Velox]

Well I just read that article and got pretty worried, because it could eventually mean that it's no longer legal to have fun on the Rimutakas. If they set a new speed limit for specific areas like they're proposing, it would no doubt be a limit set for cars at a 'safe' speed which is pretty slow by motorbike standards. That bit of road is one of the only legally fun bits left, and I know that I personally don't boot it on 'normal' bits of road as often, but save it for places like that.

Also I think you can't wrap people in bubble-wrap when setting speed limits. Yep - definitely have low limits in rural areas where there are people etc, but changing the limit in areas like Makara (not counting the villiage) really isn't going to do much because you can't go near 100 there anyway. Seems like it would just be putting the limit nearer to the speed that people already drive at on a particular road, resulting in the fact that you'll be had up for speeding suddenly.

[Posh Tourer :P]

Whatever your opinion on speed limits, and other road rules, the simple fact is that those are the rules. I can choose to ignore them if I choose but I can't complain if I get ticketed etc, even if I feel that my ability etc

So you dont want to try and get it changed?

[Posh Tourer :P]

you come on here trolling about lack of discretion, yet when i was 15/16, and being policed by black and white uniformed traffic cops, i don't recall discretion being a word that they could even pronounce, let alone invoke. geez, when road policing was being looked after by so called 'experts' like yourself, it was out of control.


Year Road deaths
1980 599
1981 669
1982 673
1983 644
1984 669
1985 747
1986 766
1987 795
1988 727
1989 755

(from ltsa website)

So given the recent innovations in education and enforcement, imagine what the road toll would be at if we still had a dedicated traffic dept.