I wish I'd done a runner

[peasea]

Nup.
Just home from work.

You should read what I put on here when I HAVE been drinking.

I can't make sense of what you say when your sober.
Perhaps it's a 'profession' thing.

[scumdog]

I can't make sense of what you say when your sober.
Perhaps it's a 'profession' thing.

Yer, that's it.

I'm very 'professional' ya know.

[peasea]

Yer, that's it.

I'm very 'professional' ya know.

Actually, I don't know; not knowing is what motivates me. I'm a seeker, I question everything.

I'm doing battle on Friday with a lying cop. That should be interesting. I doubt I'll win, but hey, at least I'll have the satisfaction of knowing who's telling the truth.

[scumdog]

I'll have the satisfaction of knowing who's telling the truth.

You don't know already? (Sheesh, are you a worry or what.)

Have YOU been drinking??

[peasea]

You don't know already? (Sheesh, are you a worry or what.)

Have YOU been drinking??

I thought I'd make something up come Friday.
Yes I have, but not enough to be a policeman.

Tell you what; this guy has lied in his submission to the PCA, I know wat he said on the day. I was there, it was 8.00am, Easter Monday, beautiful day etc. I was in fine fettle and recall the whole thing with absolute accuracy; he's lied. That REALLY fucks me off.
Ticket? Fine? Whatever....

Lies? That changes everything.

[The Tazman]

Bud, if you are speeding... then you are his business.

Running could have ended in a tragedy... you just never know what might have come your way as you raced off to avoid the police. And if you crashed then we would all be attending your funeral or sending you flowers in hospital.

You did the right thing by taking it like a man and not running like an idiot. If you ran and he caught you, you would be done for failing to stop and who knows what else.... far worse than a mere ticket for speed.

The thing here is that the way the police are behaving is making people start to think about doing a runner. Because they have had all reason taken from them and made into robots to boost their funds it is pissing people off to this irrational thinking!!!!!!!!!!

If they spent as much time getting the muppets off the road that really can't drive and training new ones so they can drive we'd have the safest roads in the world!!!! BUT that doesn't make money so it will never happen unless people start to snap and do silly things and then they'll have to sit up and take another look at it.

Sorry to hear you got done by the revenue gatherer Viffer

[Sanx]

Transcript follows:
Sir - do you know why I've interrupted your commute and made you late home?
No fargin idea - please elucidate if you would be so kind. But then if you were kind, you wouldn't have interfered with my lawful and pleasant journey.
Well, Sir, you were doing 72km/h, and that's very naughty. Now how do you want it? My partner there's horny, but he won't give me a bit; perhaps you would like to come back to the car and "see the speed on the zappy thing?"
What fargingood would that do, Mr Plod - that doesn't prove anything (and these pants are hard to remove in a hurry). Does it have the date and time?
Ahm.. no Sir. But my offer still stands. And you were the only blue bike going 72 just now.
What what what - does it have a picture of a blue bike on it then?!?
No, it doesn't. But I'm prepared to stand up in a court of law and say it was you.
Then I'm screwed - they're not going to believe a motorcyclist over a police oroficer then, are they?
Here - look at this - see how close the lines'n'numbers are together? It's really easy to be 2.3mm over that number there when you're busy watching where you're going instead of staring at the speedo!
Well, just take this as a "not so friendly" reminder to take more care. Now about that bummaging - if you're not too buggered already..?

Welcome to the NZ justice system, where 'innocent until proven guilty' no longer applies...

[Coyote]

Any suburb, with a VFR in it, is superb!

To be honest, I'm not really enjoying mine.

Suppose I have been happy for a few months now, it was about time I did something stupid that begins to eat away at my mental health. Next time I'll buy from a dealer...

[Toaster]

The thing here is that the way the police are behaving is making people start to think about doing a runner. Because they have had all reason taken from them and made into robots to boost their funds it is pissing people off to this irrational thinking!!!!!!!!!!

If they spent as much time getting the muppets off the road that really can't drive and training new ones so they can drive we'd have the safest roads in the world!!!! BUT that doesn't make money so it will never happen unless people start to snap and do silly things and then they'll have to sit up and take another look at it.

Sorry to hear you got done by the revenue gatherer Viffer

What is irrational about having one rule for all and having a speed limit?

Would you prefer your own open slather on the roads and allow the cops to decide individually what speed level to start giving tickets out at?

I hear what you are getting at and I do sympathise, but quite simply, the speed limits are there to protect us from unreasonably dangerous speeders and have to be set at a level to apply to all - even you shock horror!

I would like to see some limits higher in places and more police discretion too, but then that just blurs the line beyond 'fairness' to all and would likely create more complaints than the current no discretion rule above 10+ km/h and 5+ around schools or towing trailers.

I agree that driver training in NZ is very poor. All they do is teach you how to pass a basic test, not how to drive with thought and skill.

Dont get too obsessed with cops and speed enforcement - they are doing a job that needs to be done in a driver culture of "me first, I am better than everyone else so why ticket me"..... if you ever saw the list of infringements given out you would find a huge number are also issued for red and amber light runners and a large number of other behaviour offences I can't be bothered listing or I would be here all morning.... and it does make a lot of money - none of which goes to police.

[craigs288]

or be very very good, and never ever kill anyone ever again?
Hmmm... decisions, decisions...

Just keep killing on a regular basis. But be more careful about it. The shitty feelings will pass and you will be back to your old self before you know it.

[vifferman]

Phark, I'm tired.
That ticket upset me more than any of the other ones I've had, so I didn't sleep well tonight.
Luckily it was raining this morning, so I had an excuse not to ride the VFR, and took the Fart Pantso instead. It's possible to get a ticket in that (and there were SO many polices around this morning), but you have to work at it.

After much mulling it over and all that, I'm glad I didn't do a runner, but I'm still pissed off. Yes, the ticket was fair, but there's a whole philosophical debate I don't really want to get into about it. Like, the laws of the land are supposed to be a reflection of the will of the people. Yet if you look at the number of tickets handed out each year, it's obvious the majority of people do NOT stick to the speed limits (either that, or there a re a very few people who get a lot of tickets).

Anyhow, I forgot some comparative shit I was going to post last night, that some of you bike-riding weirdos may be interested in.

Y'remember (or not - if you're like canarlee) that my first bike cost $600 (I paid too much, like all my bikes/cars), petrol was 40 cents a gallon, and fines were what seemed like a pathetic $2/mph over the limit?
Here's some other 1974 prices. IIRC.
Helmet: Star open-face - $23 Shoeis were around $40, but were actually car helmets, not designed specifically for bikes.
Jacket: Leather = $47, plus $6 for a fleece liner Mummy sewed in. If it was really wet, I wore my oilskin raincoat instead.
Pants: jeans. I had some kewl Line7 waterproof pants (vinyl) of the same sort as worn by the bike cops, designed especially for bikers, but I can't remember what they cost. Probably under $20.
Gloves: Leather gauntlets, with what was probably vinyl on the top bit. Not waterproof, no armour or double-thickness overlays. About $7 or $8. I wore them only if it was really cold or raining.
Boots: :spudwhat: I wore shoes, or jandals if it was hot. My first pair of boots were in 1976, and they were army-style lace-up ones, which I wore dirt-biking, otherwise not. Sometimes I wore gummies on the road. I can't remember what they cost, but they were cheap.

Guess what? When I wrote off my first bike, I was wearing jandals, jeans, leather jacket, and my brand-new Star helmet. It was summer (Christmas Day, 1975) so it was hot. I got a few cuts (9 stitches in my right knee) and bruises, and much abuse from the A&E staff. I got off pretty lightly, considering I t-boned a car at about 65 km/h. I think my jeans were somewhat toasted, but my other "safety gear" was umarked. Luckily, I did the "somersault and splat", rather than the "slide and shred".

My next bike was an MT250 Elsinore, which cost $1049 new in 1975. I paid $750 for a secondhand one with piston-slap. The guy selling it thought I didn't know it had piston-slap, or what it was, but I knew, it went OK, so I didn't care.

This all sounds really silly from the perspective of 32 years later, but that's just the way things were back then.

[Toaster]

Welcome to the NZ justice system, where 'innocent until proven guilty' no longer applies...

If only!!!...
Look at all the career criminals in filling our courts daily and wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on legal aid for their 50th or 100th burglary or theft or assault or whatever..... guilty as sin, yet they fight it every step of the way and make the taxpayer pay for their defence, and their prosecution, and their penalty...

...and then they get out and do it again and again and again.... oh and we pay for their sickness benefits, DPB, unemployment benefits and goodness knows what else... hardship grants and food vouchers all while they spend it on takaways and booze, drugs and nothing useful for their kids... who will most likely end up in court themselves, eventually.

Talk about scum around the pulg hole of the drain on society!!

[MSTRS:Me]

... the way things were back then.

How ever did we survive? Must have been the thick pelts we Neanderthals sported when we were kings....

[discotex]

if you ever saw the list of infringements given out you would find a huge number are also issued for red and amber light runners and a large number of other behaviour offences I can't be bothered listing or I would be here all morning.... and it does make a lot of money - none of which goes to police.

I'd like to believe it but having lived/worked in Auckland CBD and watched literally thousands of people run red lights with impunity I'm not convinced.

In the last 5 years I've seen one person pulled for running a red in front of a cop (out of dozens where a police car has been at the intersection) and that was a biker cop who was staking out the Pitt St/K Rd intersection.

I can't ride more than 5km in Auckland without seeing someone run a red. For late amber you can't make it though more than 2 sets of lights without seeing that happen.

[Toaster]

I'd like to believe it but having lived/worked in Auckland CBD and watched literally thousands of people run red lights with impunity I'm not convinced.

In the last 5 years I've seen one person pulled for running a red in front of a cop (out of dozens where a police car has been at the intersection) and that was a biker cop who was staking out the Pitt St/K Rd intersection.

I can't ride more than 5km in Auckland without seeing someone run a red. For late amber you can't make it though more than 2 sets of lights without seeing that happen.

That is a matter for the Auckland city cops. It is a bit beyond a joke to enforce it there now.... and also difficult and dangerous to do in a busy city intersection... hence use of red light cameras etc. Don't forget the rest of the country that doesn't have the density of traffic, making pursuit of red and amber light runners a little safer for the patrols without getting t-boned.