This should raise a few temperatures around here...

[Jantar]

'National operations manager for road policing, Inspector Carey Griffiths says New Zealand speed limits are too high for the roads.'

Cracks me up when I see him on telly now.
He's a biker, or was, when I knew him when he was a Sgt prosceutor here, not too long ago.
He brought my 1200 Bandit, and rode, shall we say........similar to most bikers.......

He sold the Bandit in mid 2006, and had a look over my VStrom as he was considering one to replace the Bandit. As far as I know he still didn't have a new bike when he transferred out of Dunedin 12 months ago.

However, he is just repeating the official line, and I don't think he actually believes what he has to say. Mmmm? Would that make him a dishonest cop?

[MisterD]

It's the silly season. Apart from the road toll and church-fulls of people being incinerated in Kenya, there is nothing else happening apart from cricket. As long as policy-makers and others who don't understand statistics or actuarial risk don't have a mental infarction, all should be well.

There's the link Hitch, all the people that do understand statistics are using their skills to monitor batting averages...

[Dooly]

He sold the Bandit in mid 2006, and had a look over my VStrom as he was considering one to replace the Bandit. As far as I know he still didn't have a new bike when he transferred out of Dunedin 12 months ago.

However, he is just repeating the official line, and I don't think he actually believes what he has to say. Mmmm? Would that make him a dishonest cop?

Actually from my memory, he was'nt a bad bloke at all. Hell, even 'normal' for a cop
Was part of a group of local cops here who rode big bikes, and rode them 'well'

[AllanB]

Back in the 80's during the petrol crisis (ha ha its was cheap then!) the speed limit was reduced to 80kmph to help conserve the nations fuel supplies.

Mind you you could fat along on your motorcycle at 120, get pulled over by a cop and get off with a verbal warning. Or so I believe.....

I can just see all the litre plus bikes farting along in 4-5 gear keeping to 80.

Regarding the roads - over the past holiday weeks I've been clocking up a few ks on the Hornet on roads I have been riding for 26 years or so and my conclusion is YES they are worse, but its not surprising with the volume of traffic that is now using them, it must easily be ten-fold on what is was 20 years ago. NZ owns a huge number of vehicles per head.

Also there are bits of road I fail to understand why they do not fix them - the CHCH Akaroa run - there are about 3-4 evil bumps on that road that are hell on the bike if you don't avoid them (a virgin on this road on a bike could easily come to grief on one), and very messy in a car. I'm tempted to spray paint the bastards bright orange!

[oldrider]

I think these people go to meetings where you would get more sense out of a group of blow-up dolls.

The rantings of people who are devoid of original thought and to whom saying "anything" is better than saying "nothing"!

"Nothing", is really all that they have to contribute but they don't get paid for saying "nothing"!

There are more people killed by the medical profession annually than are killed on our roads!

Are they going to put a ban on going to the doctor or the hospital?

Bureaucratic wankers but there dozens of replacements waiting in the wings to replace this lot.

My guess is, they wont be much difference if they do replace them! (JMOFWIW) John.

[AllanB]

Also consider the following - the Government and their staff are hell bent of spending zillions on lowering the road toll.

They do not fund NZ life saving
Drowning is the third leading cause of unintentional injury death in New Zealand.
New Zealanders drown at twice the drowning rate of Australians.
The most common cause of drowning is accidental immersion (falling into water unintentionally).
The average drowning toll for 2001-2005 was 125, compared to the 1990s average of 140 and 180 in the 1980s.
The national drowning toll hit an all-time low (since records began in 1980) in 2006 with 87 drowning deaths.

7000-8000 a year die from Cancer
6000 plus from heart disease
And they do what to hospital waiting lists.

Just remember all a general election is on its way this year - tell the buggers how you feel - write your MP a letter and vote accordingly.

[madandy]

I can just imagine all the impatient, tailgating drivers hanging out on the centre line, steaming away under their collars at 90km/h under a new, reduced speed limit...oh wait that's the norm right now isn't it?
Drop the limit to 80km/h then...so when everyone hits a passing lane 90 will be fast enough to overtake the slow vehicle up ahead - so long as it doen't speed up
Will there ever be a goverment that tackles a problem rather than a symptom?

[HenryDorsetCase]

I heard that too and frothed at the mouth a bit. As others have said over the last five or so years the number of cars on the road (and vehicles of all descriptions) has increased, as has the population, as have the number of kilometres travelled. Yet the road toll (number of deaths per km travelled) has decreased.

While I will give the cop the benefit of the doubt and say he is sincere in a wish for better-er road safety (and he presumably has attended a lot more fatal wrecks than I have, chapeau! to him). what this looks like is someone who should know better taking advantage of the verrrrrry slow news situation and using their position to make a political point while they can get their message out with even less opposition or critical thinking in opposition than they usually face.

My point which I will reiterate is that NZ drivers are unsafe at any speed, so speed limits are irrelevant. If however a driver is careless, or reckless, or dangerous in any given situation then that behaviour should attract consequences, not just a random velocity picked arbitrarily.

I reckon there is a good book somewhere waiting to be written about speed limits and speed enforcement thru the ages. If anyone cares to send me a decent advance cheque, I'll get right on it.

[HenryDorsetCase]

I think these people go to meetings where you would get more sense out of a group of blow-up dolls.

I hardly get anything done at THAT sort of meeting.......

[Jantar]

...Drop the limit to 80km/h then...so when everyone hits a passing lane 90 will be fast enough to overtake the slow vehicle up ahead - so long as it doen't speed up..

It appears that politicians and policy makers can't do simple math.

To go from 2 seconds behind a vehicle to 2 seconds in front of a vehicle with a 10 kmh speed differential (ie 90 kmh vs 80 kmh) will still take 36 seconds with over half of that on the wrong side of the road. Increase that overtaking speed to 120 kmh and the manouver only takes 8 seconds with 5 seconds on the wrong side of the road.

Ummm, Which is safer?

[disenfranchised]

They do not fund NZ life saving
Drowning is the third leading cause of unintentional injury death in New Zealand.
New Zealanders drown at twice the drowning rate of Australians.
The most common cause of drowning is accidental immersion (falling into water unintentionally).
The average drowning toll for 2001-2005 was 125, compared to the 1990s average of 140 and 180 in the 1980s.
The national drowning toll hit an all-time low (since records began in 1980) in 2006 with 87 drowning deaths.

A very valid point considering this holidays drowning toll was pretty comparable to the holiday road toll.

They're wanting to lower the speed limit, but how many speed related accidents occur at or just over the speed limit? Most likey they're all up at the 130+ mark

They're also wanting to lower the legal drink driving limit, and again, how many alcohol related accidents occur at or just over the limit? Bugger all...they even said it on the news. Most accidents where alcohol is the contributing factor involve around 5x the legal limit.

They don't need to lower the current limits at all.
They just need stricter penalties for people exceeding the liits by dangerous amounts
And not just fines cause they don't work....at least some of the new measures they're taking seem to reflect that they understand this.

[vifferman]

I'm tempted to spray paint the bastards [evil bumps] bright orange!

What a capital idea, Sir!
That's what we need - people taking responsibility for things, instead of just bleating, "There should be a law against it! The Gummint should do something!"

[TOTO]

Seventeen people were killed in 15 crashes over the holiday period, including six drivers, five passengers, two motorcyclists, a tractor driver and a horse rider

NZ Herald

I didnt know they counted horse riding and a road toll... is that a first or always been like that ?

[madandy]

It appears that politicians and policy makers can't do simple math.

To go from 2 seconds behind a vehicle to 2 seconds in front of a vehicle with a 10 kmh speed differential (ie 90 kmh vs 80 kmh) will still take 36 seconds with over half of that on the wrong side of the road. Increase that overtaking speed to 120 kmh and the manouver only takes 8 seconds with 5 seconds on the wrong side of the road.

Ummm, Which is safer?

That's too bloody right...a simple enough defense for speeding while overtaking that I'd hope Police would be able to understand!
I've had to back right off during an overtaking manouver (as I'm sure many here have) due to either my Bel. warning me of an oncoming HP vehicle or me sighting a Cop. Partly thanks to the 'passee' speeding up and mostly because I have no faith that the Cop'd wave me on while doing 110-115 overtaking said 'passee' on a nice, wide, flat passing lane etc.
I generally cruise around 110-120 both in cars and on bikes unless traffic or conditions dictate otherwise. In my car, I'll usually grab 2nd or 3rd gear , use full throttle and shoot up to 140-160, pass the slow vehicle and be back down to an accpetable speed with in a few seconds. I figure the quicker the job is done the less likely I am to be caught both on the wrong side of the centre line and the law. I like the acceleration a lot On the bike there's less need to wind it on as much as being so narrow I perceive much more room to work with.
I'm a terrible law violator I know

[madandy]

I didnt know they counted horse riding and a road toll... is that a first or always been like that ?

Horses have been used as transportation for a looong time. If the incident ocurred on a public road then I accpept that statistic as one worthy of inclusion in the road toll.
Pretty unrelated to issues regarding speed limits & driving a car though