NZ vs rest of world: Toughness and enforcement of traffic laws

[Macstar]

What's wrong with it is that the effect is not linear wrt the cause.

Check the stat's for fatalities/Km over the last few decades. Large gains slowly reducing to small ones (timing more in line with improved vehicle specifications than anything else) and then for the last decade fuck all improvement in spite of massively increased emphisis on speed enforcement.

We're past the point of deminishing returns and well into the realms of fantasy.

I am impressed with this comment. Anyone who knows anything about statistics & mathematical modelling (and/or just has plain common sense) will know that in real life there are limits to any relationship between two variables i.e. Q: Is this true? - Double the rate of traffic infringements = halve the rate of road deaths, 4 x traffic infringements = 1/4 the road deaths etc.

Conversely - what is the ratio of total estimated Police time on traffic vs non-traffic duties. What impact to actual criminal crime does an increase in traffic duty time have?

My job as a business analyst is essentially all about finding such optimal balances. I too would question the significance further increases of the rate of traffic infringements would have on a reduction in the road toll.

If anyone wants to post a reliable source of the annual number of traffic infringements vs. the annual road toll, I'd be happy to throw the two into a graph for all to see.

Another bit of interesting info would be the historical annual revenue from traffic infringements which I could adjust for inflation and plot again.

Oh, and maybe other developed countries road toll's vs number of traffic infringements or revenue collected which could then be adjusted to a per capita figure and then overlayed with governmental roading expenditure... that would really give some perspective on NZ vs. other countries.

The LTSA, ACC and NZ Police must collectively have hundreds of people with access to this sort of information - though I wonder when they crunch 'their numbers' what the goal is? It may have started out as savings lives and probably still is, though somewhere along the way did making a few dollars get unofficially added?

Hell, we know that sometimes it takes a certain number of deaths on a section of dangerous road before Government authorities will react with improvements to the road or cheaper speed limit reductions, so don't think for one minute that from a Government agency perspective - dollars and traffic deaths aren't linked.

In a nutshell, it's fair to say a number of Kiwis are now pretty suspicious and/or doubting the: thinking behind; and resulting policies that are arising in the traffic relm. We're told the road toll must come down, that it's too high and for that we see a doubling of the number of issued traffic infringements over a 10 year period to the point where 1.6 million were issued in a single year!

Here's my challenge (please don't actually do it):

A. Drive on your local motorway or main highway at 115-120kph - see how far you get before being busted.
B. Phone the Police for a "minor crime" i.e. a stolen car stereo, a spotted tagger in action etc - what is the response?

How many other Kiwi lives could be saved if the equivalent man-power and resources that the NZ police dedicate to traffic were deployed towards other Kiwi-killers? Think obesity related deaths, suicide etc.

[James Deuce]

The goal of any statistical analysis is simple. What does the client want?

Pure research is dead. Expecting "Government" to analyse and react to "pure" stats is a fantasy.

The only solution is revolution.

[Headbanger]

Obviously they will need new and improved plans of action in order to achieve any revised target from year to year.

Is everyone stating the road toll can't be lowered just assuming that no more road improvements, car improvements, and postive police action will ever happen?

Hell, Give me half an hour of power and I'll slash the road toll by a half.

[Macstar]

Obviously they will need new and improved plans of action in order to achieve any revised target from year to year.

Is everyone stating the road toll can't be lowered just assuming that no more road improvements, car improvements, and postive police action will ever happen?

Hell, Give me half an hour of power and I'll slash the road toll by a half.

No!, I/we are saying that what is up with the core focus of road toll reduction being on traffic infringements?! Why isn't more done on road improvements, car safety etc etc?. Oh wait, THAT COSTS MONEY AS OPPOSED TO THE MONEY RECEIVED FROM FINES!

If we all wait a little longer the bloody petrol price rises (another cost punishment) is more likely to reduce the road toll than anything else hapenning right now.

[Headbanger]

No!, I/we are saying that what is up with the core focus of road toll reduction being on traffic infringements?! Why isn't more done on road improvements, car safety etc etc?. Oh wait, THAT COSTS MONEY AS OPPOSED TO THE MONEY RECEIVED FROM FINES!

If we all wait a little longer the bloody petrol price rises (another cost punishment) is more likely to reduce the road toll than anything else hapenning right now.

Funny thing, We are all pretty much in agreement.......

[Pedrostt500]

we know that the government is revenue collecting through speeding fines, we know what the open road speed limit is, 100kmph, we know that there is a tollerance of 10% because most vechicles speedos do not read true for various reasons, if we are obsevant we have a reasonable idea where most of the speed traps are, in our local areas.
So ok if you get a speeding ticket for 112 kmph well i geuss that is your bad luck, you know the rules to the game, you know the risks you take, so dont bleat about it.
When you get on your bike and go out and ride at 180 kmph, hit a bridge and kill your self with no one else involved, the general public isnt that interested, ya mum might miss you so might your girlfriend, but when you cause the bus full of school children to plunge over the bridge and kill every one on the bus, then the Public wants you to be hung drawn and quartered.
Its not when our actions only endanger our selves that is the issue, it is when our actions endanger others, that is the main issue.
So we need to take responsibility for our own actions, and understand that there is a cost when we get it wrong.
speeding is easy to calibrate and there isnt a public road in NZ that isnt covered by a speed restriction, ie open road speed limit, the chioce is ours as drivers and riders if we choose to speed or not.

[spudchucka]

tag threatening to come and get me when you are back on duty on Monday.

You mean the "its booked in on Monday" one? No that's not a threat its just one of the typical excuses heard by the traffic enforces, as the "I was just" line, which was in the tag line too but for some reason has now disappeared.

[RDJ]

This says more about the stupidity of the average motorist than anything else.

Mmmm I think we're all familiar with your opinion of the rest of us.

[RDJ]

Here's my challenge (please don't actually do it):

B. Phone the Police for a "minor crime" i.e. a stolen car stereo - what is the response?

(Stereo stolen, windows broken, seats slashed etc.)

Quote - "Come to the station and fill out a report if you want but if it's under your insurance excess you might as well just buy another one".

Mmmkay.

[Titanium]

NZ got it easy ....

Victoria Australia

3 km over the limit you get a ticket
24 km over the limit you are walking, bike / car impounded
Demerit points on speed camera tickets
Most overhead bridges and tunnels have speed cameras attached to them.
Distance over time cameras in most states on main highways.
Victoria, the most taxed, regulated and policed state in Australia.
Alcohol interlock devices on drink drive offenders vehicle.
Rego on a bike $550 or more per year.
Police allowed bait you (entrapment) to "make" you infringe.

But ...

They do have CTP (compulsory third party insurance in your registration fee).
$750 fine for not driving with rego, therefore no CTP Insurance.
Bikes exempt from tolls on toll roads.
Drivers licencing more stringent than NZ.

[Ocean1]

If anyone wants to post a reliable source of the annual number of traffic infringements vs. the annual road toll, I'd be happy to throw the two into a graph for all to see.

The goal of any statistical analysis is simple. What does the client want?

Pure research is dead. Expecting "Government" to analyse and react to "pure" stats is a fantasy.

Douglas Adams postulated a sort of reverse-logic software in “The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul” whereby one defined the answers/results one wanted and the program defined the questions/variables required to produce them.

I strongly suspect our leadless fearlers, having cottoned on to the fundamentals of the basic protection racket, have carefully defined how data used to answer certain questions should be collected using just such. Any genuine attempt to use official data available on road stat’s (or anything else of a nature useful in describing how effectively our public purse is spent) would be well fooked. The data simply ain’t clean.

The only solution is revolution.

See you tonight at the rate-payers association meeting Jim.

Bring yer 12 gauge.

[CDFloss]

Never rode bikes back home (S.Africa), but it was normal to cruise on the highways at around 140-150k. Limit is 120, traffic cops wont do much until its over 130. I never got a ticket except once when I got pulled over doing 147k passing a truck. I only got the ticket cos I was in a bad mood, so made the cop walk the 100-odd meters to where I had eventually stopped. She wasn't happy either.
Also drove past a cop at 175, but he didn't even bother getting in his car (with a top speed of around 150; 1.3 VW Golf Chico).

But plenty of friends on bikes, who were admittedly hoons, and never heard of any of them getting caught. Licenses were pretty much optional depending on how much cash you had on you at the time.

Even road blocks were ok if you were over the limit and slipped the nice occifer a 50/100. (very foolish days/nights)

And of course there's no WOF system, and probably 40% of the cars on the road aren't roadworthy by any stretch of the imagination. Cardboard brake pads and vice-grip steering wheel anyone?

I'm not sure which is better, but it was pretty good having separate "real" police and then traffic police. The "real" cops could get on with more serious crime, and wouldn't give a shit if you went past them at whatever speed, and the revenue collecting was left to the traffic police (or as we used to call them; those who couldn't finish high school).

Ooh, and the cops back there didn't have radar equipment mounted in the cars either (scared me shitless when I first got here!) - so you only had to worry about static speed traps.

This was all 5 years ago though, and sounds as though its gone even more downhill since.

Overall the NZ cops are strict, which I don't have a problem with mostly. Its just the blatant revenue gathering that ticks me off. A friend got a ticket in the city the other day for going through an orange light!? He was on a bike, with a car on his tail, and was only meters away from the line when it switched, so thought nothing of going through. He asked the cop if it was dangerous, or where they draw the line; is it "x" meters or seconds etc - but the cop didn't answer and said "I just have to give you the ticket".

[scumdog]

I'm not sure which is better, but it was pretty good having separate "real" police and then traffic police. The "real" cops could get on with more serious crime, and wouldn't give a shit if you went past them at whatever speed, and the revenue collecting was left to the traffic police (or as we used to call them; those who couldn't finish high school). :

NZ use to be like that.

Then they gave Traffic Officers and Police the same uniform.

Now a lot of people expect traffic laws to go unenforced and a total focus on 'real crime'.

And these people also pull the 'good' bits out of other countries traffic laws, enforcement of same and road conditions - and expect NZ to be just like that.

Dreamin' frikkin Pollyannas the lot of 'em.

Gaaagh!

[Headbanger]

Dreamin' frikkin Pollyannas the lot of 'em.

Gaaagh!

Hand out any tickets to the Mongrel Mob today?

If so, Thank you for making the world a better place.

[scumdog]

Hand out any tickets to the Mongrel Mob today?

If so, Thank you for making the world a better place.

Nah, not today, (have done so though) 'cos I was too busy cruising in my Thunderbird after spending some of the money gleaned from the tax-payer on fuel, as gas is now $9:80 a gallon I suggest you tax-payers pay me more.