Fast and Safe

**Mongoose** · 14th February 2005, 15:04

Originally Posted by Alan Wilkinson

If we don't even agree on what is happening it's a bit pointless to discuss why. I'll be happy to have people understand what is happening for a start.

To me that means, those that agree with me I will talk to, that is not a discussion Alan.
how abut questions being asked so people can understand what yu are saying? Ever thought of that, huh?
Surely if youuse an example, you understand what is happening, why not, with your sacred facts explain to all and sundry.

ps, What are you other Poltical victories?

**Mongoose** · 14th February 2005, 15:06

Originally Posted by Alan Wilkinson

Like I said, spend less money on cops and "speed kills" programmes and more money on roads, especially upgrade SH1.

I could imagine serious crashes occur disproportionately off-peak for a whole bunch of reasons including alcohol, tiredness, young drivers, less familiarity with route, less care and attention apparently necessary, worse visibility.

All those that you mention are contributing factors, but the main one for injury/death is speed, or more accurately the speed of decelaration.This is what comes into the MoI when some poor bugger has to go veture forth and clean up the mess.

**scumdog** · 14th February 2005, 22:59

Originally Posted by Alan Wilkinson

Like I said, spend less money on cops and "speed kills" programmes and more money on roads, especially upgrade SH1.

I could imagine serious crashes occur disproportionately off-peak for a whole bunch of reasons including alcohol, tiredness, young drivers, less familiarity with route, less care and attention apparently necessary, worse visibility.

"Upgrading" the roads will do diddly-squat with the budget this country has, to get your idea of a 'safe' road (4lane,centre-divider and slow sweeping bends) would be prohibitive, we just have too many km to upgrade and we can't even afford to do SH1..

Look, since so many people can't drive to their ability or the conditions and are going to crash we might as well hold the speed down to lessen the mess (figuratively speaking).

How do you police for innattention, fatigue, drug use, failing to drive to the road/weather conditions? Tell me a way and I'll be all ears.

**speedpro** · 15th February 2005, 07:08

Originally Posted by scumdog

"Upgrading" the roads will do diddly-squat with the budget this country has, to get your idea of a 'safe' road (4lane,centre-divider and slow sweeping bends) would be prohibitive, we just have too many km to upgrade and we can't even afford to do SH1..

Look, since so many people can't drive to their ability or the conditions and are going to crash we might as well hold the speed down to lessen the mess (figuratively speaking).

How do you police for innattention, fatigue, drug use, failing to drive to the road/weather conditions? Tell me a way and I'll be all ears.

Education would be a good start. Teaching people to pull over to let others past would stop a bit of rage and reduce the subsequent silliness. Learning how to drive and actually being tested to see if you can. Making driving without a licence a very unrewarding experiance and making ALL overseas drivers attain some sort of competency before letting them loose, including knowing the road rules. The rules bit applies to everyone, for example I commonly see drivers who don't know the "right hand rule" at intersections, and members of this forum apparently don't know at which point a speed limit sign applies.

**Coldkiwi** · 15th February 2005, 12:46

saying we have no money to upgrade SH1 is arse. Its just that the government have decided to spend our billions and billions of dollars in taxes on other things (like changing to NCEA... well done folks!) and paying for hidden speed camera's (and yes a whole bunch of other good things).

On a slightly different matter, I think that if the HP are going to use 'hidden 'speed cameras then they should be properly bloody hidden so you don't see them at all! I saw three sodding van's in the weekend on the southern motorway that were not visible until about 30-40m from the back of the van (and then very damn obvious). I saw quite a few cars in front of me slam on the brakes at the last minute (lets hear it for rearward number plates fellas!) .
A sudden perceived hazard like that to a driver is just plain freakin dangerous and surely its creating a worse situation than cars travelling on an otherwise very safe piece of road at 120kmhr.
Whether hidden cameras are fun and profitable is a different matter but they should surely be applied in a safe manner.

Any thoughts?

**spudchucka** · 15th February 2005, 12:48

Originally Posted by speedpro

Education would be a good start. Teaching people to pull over to let others past would stop a bit of rage and reduce the subsequent silliness.

I agree but these messages have been around for a long time and people still drive to the standard that they think should apply to them. Then they expect all other road users to conform to their standards, which amounts to pure arogance in my books. What needs adjusting is the attitudes & core beliefs of Joe Public motorist. Thats what most of the hated advertising is trying to achieve, too make people think about what they are doing and the consequences of their attitudes and behaviour on the road.

**Biff** · 15th February 2005, 13:00

Originally Posted by Coldkiwi

saying we have no money to upgrade SH1 is arse. Its just that the government have decided to spend our billions and billions of dollars in taxes on other things (like changing to NCEA... well done folks!) and paying for hidden speed camera's (and yes a whole bunch of other good things).

On a slightly different matter, I think that if the HP are going to use 'hidden 'speed cameras then they should be properly bloody hidden so you don't see them at all! I saw three sodding van's in the weekend on the southern motorway that were not visible until about 30-40m from the back of the van (and then very damn obvious). I saw quite a few cars in front of me slam on the brakes at the last minute (lets hear it for rearward number plates fellas!) .
A sudden perceived hazard like that to a driver is just plain freakin dangerous and surely its creating a worse situation than cars travelling on an otherwise very safe piece of road at 120kmhr.
Whether hidden cameras are fun and profitable is a different matter but they should surely be applied in a safe manner.

Any thoughts?

You've made an interesting observation here, when people notice speed cameras at the last minute they slam their brakes on. Sometimes even when they're well within the speed limit. This is the primary reason (here he goes) why in the UK all speed cameras are now painted an illuminous colour, in order to avoid last minute heavy braking.

**Mongoose** · 15th February 2005, 13:32

Originally Posted by Coldkiwi

saying we have no money to upgrade SH1 is arse. Its just that the government have decided to spend our billions and billions of dollars in taxes on other things (like changing to NCEA... well done folks!) and paying for hidden speed camera's (and yes a whole bunch of other good things).

Whiule you are correct on the Govs ability to flog money that is meant for roading upgrades etc and that they should spend the money there, they (the Gov) has got so used to this stream of income to do as they please with,to stop now would mean the finding of the same ammount elsewhere. The where could be quite frightening!
As for education, the graduated license should do at least some of this as compared to when a lot of us got our license, I know I had less than a five minute drive with a snake in a nice quiet country setting. Since then I have had advanced driver training, but still remember good old daddys words, "Son, treat everyone on the road as an idiot, and that includes yourself"

**spudchucka** · 15th February 2005, 14:31

Originally Posted by Coldkiwi

I saw quite a few cars in front of me slam on the brakes at the last minute (lets hear it for rearward number plates fellas!) .
A sudden perceived hazard like that to a driver is just plain freakin dangerous and surely its creating a worse situation than cars travelling on an otherwise very safe piece of road at 120kmhr

If people observed proper following distances then this wouldn't be a problem at all. Its just another reason why the bulk of drivers aren't "fast & safe".

Speed cameras aren't meant to be hidden anymore.

**Timetogo** · 15th February 2005, 15:19

GOOD point about the UK, most of the f..'n things aren't be hidden they're permanently mounted in the proverbial black spots and as suggested clearly signposted plus they don't drive around with them mounted on there dashboards

In fact they they seem to have far more important things to do than stopping people for minor infringements, perhaps the NZ police should take a leaf from their book.

Funnily enough people there drive a damn sight faster than here and they seem to be better drivers AND a lot more aware of bikers, even with all that extra traffic. WHAT does that say about the speed limit

**Biff** · 15th February 2005, 15:32

It's also worth noting that the number of traffic police on UK roads is very, very low compared to NZ (per head of population).

I know what you're all thinking - wooohoooo, fewer nasty people to catch us. But there is a more sinister downside to this trend, and that is that the number of fuckwits in cages going un-checked is increasing at an alarming rate. From jumping red lights, to driving while drunk, unlicensed drivers, unfit vehicles and so on are increasing at an alarming rate.

I know that this may sound perverted, but I'd much rather see a traffic cop on the road capable of doing several duties associated with traffic/crime related issues than a freaking Polaroid camera on a stick.

**speedpro** · 15th February 2005, 18:28

Quote:
Originally Posted by speedpro
Education would be a good start. Teaching people to pull over to let others past would stop a bit of rage and reduce the subsequent silliness.

I agree but these messages have been around for a long time and people still drive to the standard that they think should apply to them. Then they expect all other road users to conform to their standards, which amounts to pure arogance in my books. What needs adjusting is the attitudes & core beliefs of Joe Public motorist. Thats what most of the hated advertising is trying to achieve, too make people think about what they are doing and the consequences of their attitudes and behaviour on the road.

"these messages" may have been around a long time but you see them a whole lot less than the "speed kills" messages. Most of the "hated advertising" I see anywhere is all about speed. In fact I don't recall seeing any "hated advertising" for anything else except speeding.

**Blakamin** · 15th February 2005, 18:40

that the German Autobahn costs 900,000 euro per mile per year just to maintain???
and they have 12,000 miles of it!!!
who will be paying for our 2000k of SH1????

what do we maintain it with... and I hope no-one says tolls as we would be paying thru the nose for the amount people that use it (how many of the 4 million kiwis use SH1 daily?)

[off topic]
btw, the Germans ADAC (equivilent of AA) fix 80% of vehicles on the side of the road and they have 36 ADAC rescue choppers... how many do the AA fix? (not tow).. 5 cars with flat batteries per week??

**hobdar** · 15th February 2005, 20:20

I went to look at the study Alan quotes on his website that supposedly refutes the LTSA stating speed kills, The Us Study he mentiones "Spatially Disaggregate Panel Models of Crash and Injury Counts by Kockelmann & Kweon, Univ of Texas, presented at Transportation Research Board annual meeting in Washington, DC, January 2004. "

their final paragraph is as follows

"Taken all together, these results suggest speed limits play a central role in driving safety and traffic fatalities. They dominate most other factors, and the estimated cost impacts of raised limits overwhelm even the most liberal time saving estimates. Though increasing speed limits may have some positive network or system effects (as suggested by work by Lave and Ellias
(1994, 1997) and Houston (1999)), they appear to rather dramatically raise local crash injury counts and fatalities. Though crashes claim more human lives in the U.S. than any other disease or accident, they remain a rare event. And, in the long term, vehicle design and driver choices
may counteract more of the risks that Americans seem to be facing due to the raised speed limits."

Some of you are way smarter than I and here is the link to the study

http://www.ce.utexas.edu/prof/kockel...CrashCount.pdf

BUT what it does say in the conclusion is that SPEED IS A FACTOR...........please correct me if i misinterrput the data...

**Mongoose** · 16th February 2005, 03:59

Originally Posted by hobdar

I went to look at the study Alan quotes on his website that supposedly refutes the LTSA stating speed kills, The Us Study he mentiones "Spatially Disaggregate Panel Models of Crash and Injury Counts by Kockelmann & Kweon, Univ of Texas, presented at Transportation Research Board annual meeting in Washington, DC, January 2004. "

their final paragraph is as follows

"Taken all together, these results suggest speed limits play a central role in driving safety and traffic fatalities. ...

Awwww crap Alan, someone who read to the bitter end of the report, how come this was not hi-ligted by yourself?