Bikers collide with Police car in Buller Gorge (1 December)

[spudchucka]

No it won't but if he states to the enquiry that the bikes 'were' speeding In all probability they will take his 'experiance' into account.

Skyyrder

Not if there is scientific evidence from a surveyed scene that contradicts his opinion.

[spudchucka]

Does not say anything about driving ability. But you need to be a competent swimmer?

You need to hold a NZ driver licence, class 1 full.

You attend additional driver training and are assessed as part of your recruit training and then receive further training and assessment at district level once you graduate.

[Grahameeboy]

You need to hold a NZ driver licence, class 1 full.

You attend additional driver training and are assessed as part of your recruit training and then receive further training and assessment at district level once you graduate.

To be honest given the standard of NZ driver licence holders I still wonder how good the training is as cops are human and have bad habits, however, it would be interesting to know the full detail of the training.

I mean if a cop is trained to do a u-turn close to a blind bend then I have concerns.............safety first or pursuit first.

Don't get me wrong not bagging cops but just looking at from an arnchair perspective.

[JimBob]

Skyryder
I agree with you in regard to Scott Watson, a shonky investigation from start to finish, and we have a lot of parallels here.
Jumping to conclusions on the flimsiest of evidence.
Suppositions being treated as fact
Vilification of one party to create a good versus evil scenario
I could go on but I'll jump to a conclusion and assume it wouldnt be worth the trouble
My personal view is both parties share responsibility for this crash. How it will be apportioned will be determined by the scu investigation.

[Grahameeboy]

Skyryder
I agree with you in regard to Scott Watson, a shonky investigation from start to finish, and we have a lot of parallels here.
Jumping to conclusions on the flimsiest of evidence.
Suppositions being treated as fact
Vilification of one party to create a good versus evil scenario
I could go on but I'll jump to a conclusion and assume it wouldnt be worth the trouble
My personal view is both parties share responsibility for this crash. How it will be apportioned will be determined by the scu investigation.

Why?....................

[Ixion]

..

I'm not making anything up. I've been to hundreds of crashes and have completed crash investigation course, (not to the SCU level though). The pictures of the scene that I saw showed the car with its front wheels well off the edge of the road and in fact they appeared to have dropped down slightly into a ditch. If it wasn't stationary at the time of impact it would have been very close to it.

..

Hang on, that's arse about.

The picture certainly shows a car with its front wheels off the road, in a ditch. And, in that position I very much doubt it would be moving. But that picture was taken long after the actual crash. So the question is , was the car in that position at the moment of impact, or did it move into that position after the impact.

I doubt that a driver would deliberately run his wheels into the ditch like that when making a turn. It's possible, but unlikely. But it is quite possible that a driver moving across the road , intending to stop short of the ditch, suddenly and unexpectedly hit by a motorcycle might continue forward into the ditch . Especially in an automatic. Remember, the car's side air bags deployed, the driver would have gotten a hell of a fright. A side impact wouldn't do much if anything to reduce the cars forward speed.

So either the driver deliberately ran his car into a ditch and sat there waiting for someone to hit him, or he was moving across the road when he was unexpectedly hit and the shock of the impact meant he didn't brake as he intended to, and ended up in the ditch AFTER the impact. I know which one I reckon is more likely.

[JimO]

would the result be the same if it was a fully loaded logging truck that came around the corner and tboned the cop, could the cop get away with saying the truck was speeding, or do people just accept that because it was a couple of road bikes capable of more than doubling the speed limit that they would be speeding

[spudchucka]

Hang on, that's arse about.

The picture certainly shows a car with its front wheels off the road, in a ditch. And, in that position I very much doubt it would be moving. But that picture was taken long after the actual crash. So the question is , was the car in that position at the moment of impact, or did it move into that position after the impact.

Have a real close look at the pictures.

It will give you an indication.

The actual positions would be pretty obvious to anyone that was there but we'll have to wait for that info to be published.

[spudchucka]

To be honest given the standard of NZ driver licence holders I still wonder how good the training is as cops are human and have bad habits, however, it would be interesting to know the full detail of the training.

I mean if a cop is trained to do a u-turn close to a blind bend then I have concerns.............safety first or pursuit first.

Don't get me wrong not bagging cops but just looking at from an arnchair perspective.

1: Join up and do the training then judge for yourself.

2: No, they don't train you to do that.

3: No worries.

[MSTRS:Me]

If a Traffic Cop was standing at a petrol station off centre to the road it would be very straight forward to aim and lase a vehicle which was in a row of cars. Have you ever used a Police laser?

Oh dear, you really are having trouble with this, aren't you? Were you deprived of oxygen at birth? At no point did I claim that the cop using the handheld device would not know which vehicle was being targetted. The device by it's very nature, has an extremely narrow, focussed beam and it can be assumed that, as in the case of a rifle with a (sighted-in) telescopic sight, the user of such a tool will be in no doubt that his intended target and the actual return are one and the same.
Now... I ' l l . s p e a k . s l o w l y . s o . y o u . c a n . f o l l o w . . . .
T h e . m a n . i n . t h e . c a r . w i l l . n o t . k n o w . f o r . s u r e . t h a t . h e . i s . t h e . t a r g e t
To sum up, M'Lud, I put it to the court that the officer known as Dynamytus50 is too stupid to remain an officer of the Law and should be promoted to Assistant Commisioner since Rickards is now unable to take the post.

[MSTRS:Me]

I'll keep bringing some balance to the situation.

OK. This is beginning to piss me off.

• Speed was a factor in the accident. Namely, the fact that the cop was near enough stationary on the wrong side of the road round a blind bend. Even if he was moving whilst doing the three point turn, he was moving at pretty much 90 degrees to the road, therefore his relative movement compared to that of the bikers was near enough nill.
• Trying to judge, by eyesight alone, the speed of an object coming towards you is bloody difficult. Calculating speed relies on either a time / distance measurement or the dopler effect. As only the former is possible using the human eye, the cop would have been relying on his mental measurement of the speed of the object approaching him. The smaller the distance over which one can make an observation, the greater the margin of error. As the bikers did not have time to come to a stop, or at least scrub a significant portion of their speed off before impact, then the distance was pretty bloody small. Any suggestion therefore by the cop involved that these particular bikers were speeding is laughable, and his assertion should be treated accordingly.
• Spudchucka et al have suggested that we all wait until the SCU investigation has been completed before commenting further on the causes of the crash and apportioning blame. Sorry, too late. The investigating officer has already said that 'speed was a factor'. This was without the benefit of the results on the SCU investigation and as the bikers had not been interviewed at that stage, his sole source of information was the cop concerned. And I've already mentioned, the cop concerned was in no position to estimate speed to any level of accuracy. Should the investigating officer have kept his mouth shut and not immediately tried to blame the injured parties for the accident, Spudchucka might have had a point.
• The fact that this officer is back on the road is indicative of the seriousness with which the Police are treating the case. Even if the officer is not 100% to blame for the accident, there should be enough doubt about his decision-making and risk-assessment to remove him off the road until such time as the SCU has fully determined the cause of the accident.

The manner in which this accident is being treated smacks of arse-covering. The investigating officer has publically pre-empted the investigation's findings. To make a comparison, if a detective says publically at the start of an investigation that "We haven't actually examined the scene or any evidence yet, but Mr XYZ did it", then any resultant court case would be laughed out of court. Why is this incident any different?

There's your balance

[JimBob]

Why?....................

Because I am starting with an open mind.
For all I know the bikes were doing 140k, for all I know the cop saw them and turned in front of them. For all I know they might have been doing 80k,
In other words I dont know anything, so until some relevant facts (rather than heresay and innuendo) come along to move my opinion one way or another thats how it will stay.

It has been reported that they didnt even have time to hit the picks.
Common sense and experience tells me that if you are riding so fast (even at 90k) that you can only see a second ahead, you will have no hope of stopping or even slowing down in an emergency. You are probably going too fast.

90k is 25 m/s, 120k is 33 m/s
How far away was the car when it was first sighted?
25m? 50m?

I am quite happy to wait for the SCU to do their thing.

I used to ride that road on a regular basis so used to see how quick I could get through. As you do. So I know all about doing 100k around a corner with only about 10m of visible road.
I was lucky.

[Jantar]

.. The police car was stationary, ....

Isn't that also just speculation? From the crash photos I have seen I believe it very unlikely that the the HP car was stationary.

One of the early reports (unverified) stated that the cop had not seen any other vehicles prior to commencing the turn, and the first indication of the bikes being present was the impact. Now I still place a lot of faith on first statements as they are made before anyone has a chance to try and rationalise their thoughts.

As for judging the speed of on oncoming vehicle purely by sight: Simple maths will show that it is not possible. There must be a cross vision component or there is no relative motion.

[Grahameeboy]

1: Join up and do the training then judge for yourself.

2: No, they don't train you to do that.

3: No worries.

Fair call...too old now...........

[Grahameeboy]

Because I am starting with an open mind.
For all I know the bikes were doing 140k, for all I know the cop saw them and turned in front of them. For all I know they might have been doing 80k,
In other words I dont know anything, so until some relevant facts (rather than heresay and innuendo) come along to move my opinion one way or another thats how it will stay.

It has been reported that they didnt even have time to hit the picks.
Common sense and experience tells me that if you are riding so fast (even at 90k) that you can only see a second ahead, you will have no hope of stopping or even slowing down in an emergency. You are probably going too fast.

90k is 25 m/s, 120k is 33 m/s
How far away was the car when it was first sighted?
25m? 50m?

I am quite happy to wait for the SCU to do their thing.

I used to ride that road on a regular basis so used to see how quick I could get through. As you do. So I know all about doing 100k around a corner with only about 10m of visible road.
I was lucky.

Okay was just interested.

I guess travelling at 90k = 25m/s and allowing for co-efficient of road surface, tread depth of tyres, thinking distance before braking, a bike can travel a fair distance.

x² ÷ 20 + x = Overall stopping distance in feet.

x = speed

For example: If you are travelling at 30 mph

[INDENT][INDENT][INDENT][INDENT][INDENT][LEFT]30² ÷ 20 + 30 =
(30 x 30) ÷ 20 + 30 =
900 ÷ 20 + 30 = 75 ft.

SPEED	THINKING DISTANCE	BRAKING DISTANCE	OVERALL STOPPING DISTANCE
20 mph	20 ft. (6 m)	20 ft. (6 m)	40 ft. (12 m)
30 mph	30 ft. (9 m)	45 ft. (14 m)	75 ft. (23 m)
40 mph	40 ft. (12 m)	80 ft. (24 m)	120 ft. (36 m)
50 mph	50 ft. (15 m)	125ft. (38 m)	175 ft. (53 m)
60 mph	60 ft. (18 m)	180 ft. (55 m)	240 ft. (73 m)
70 mph	70 ft. (21 m)	245 ft. (75 m)	315 ft. (96 m)

So if they were travelling at 90-100k it would have taken them 240 Feet / 74 metres which is a long way,