Fast and Safe

[Alan Wilkinson]

Then its their own responsibility if they get a ticket, if they elect to exceed a posted speed limit. Where are the tickets primarily being collected? On the back country roads where you say its safe to exceed 100kph or on the main arterials?

I think you missed the point although it was quite simple. Drivers don't need speed limits to control their speeds safely. They do it already without endangering others. Moreover, almost all of them are good at it.

[spudchucka]

The only relevant point here is that the rate of increase in the vehicle fleet has been insignificant compared with the increase in injuries from 2001.

Insgnificant from the point of view of one intent on discrediting police maybe. Its a matter of opinion and yours is rapidly decreasing in value.

Between 1990 & 2004 the vehicle fleet increased 31%.
Deaths decreased 41%.
Hospitalisations decreased 15%.
Police reported injuries decreased 14%.

How are these figures "insignificant"?

You are simply playing on the fact that there was a sharp increase in road fatalities & injuries after the all time low in 2002.

I guess you have worked out some brilliant formula to show that as long as police continue with the targeted enforcement policy then the trend will continue upwards and before long will be up as high as it was in 1990.

[spudchucka]

But the questions will remain.

Go ask it elsewhere.

[Alan Wilkinson]

... the emotive BS question, "Are you happy about working for an organisation like that?"

I still think it is an entirely fair and important question and I had no preconceptions as to how you might have answered it or how you will answer it for yourself in the future. LTSA and the police have misled the public very seriously for years now about the ineffectiveness of their enforcement policies.

You simply choose to ignore all statistics and accuse me of being selective. I am not. I always try to look at all the relevant data in context. In comparison LTSA and the police are highly selective which is why the truth is a nasty shock to you all.

[spudchucka]

First, if any regulation is intended to promote safety then it should be a valid defence for any accused to prove that his/her actions were safe in the circumstances. So if you are doing 60 km/h on a clear wide straight road with no-one in sight then likely you could successfully defend against a charge of exceeding 50 km/h.

I don't hqave any problem with that and its one reason that I think video cameras should be installed in all patrol cars. Caught on radar, caught on video, driver feels hard done by, let the Courts decide.

Second, (and the first change would force this) speed enforcement should revert to common-sense (which seems to be what Spudchucka practices) and prosecute only dangerous and stupid behaviour.

I'm pretty easy going about speed but I have my limits that I'll always tickets for. Do 70+kph in my town and you'll almost always get a ticket. Do 65 past schools, mainly around pick up and drop of times, you'll get a ticket. Same for hospitals. If you are a known criminal then you'll get a ticket because I don't like burglars, thiefs or drug dealers and don't care what these people think.

Third, we need to find ways to cater for different needs and not try to force everyone to the same speed. Different kinds of vehicles and different kinds of people doing different kinds of travelling need to be treated differently and with respect.

Please explain any practical common sense way that this could actually be implimented and enforced?

I don't believe bureaucrats will ever do this, so I think there needs to be a move to private enterprise in the provision and operation of road systems.

Private roads cost a fortune. Who is going to pay for it? Who will be able to afford to use it? Who is going to police it?

Sounds like a rich mans playground for Porche drivers etc. The rest of us plebs will be stuck on the public roads I guess.

[Alan Wilkinson]

Between 1990 & 2004 the vehicle fleet increased 31%.
Deaths decreased 41%.
Hospitalisations decreased 15%.
Police reported injuries decreased 14%.

How are these figures "insignificant"?

You are simply playing on the fact that there was a sharp increase in road fatalities & injuries after the all time low in 2002.

This is getting rather tedious, but I will try once more:

Yes, there is a long term trend everywhere in the developed world to reduced traffic casualties.

However, in New Zealand there has been a sharp upward trend in injuries concurrent with the introduction of rigid enforcement of speed limits. There has been no detectable impact on the long term trends in fatalities.

This has nothing to do with any individual annual totals and the charts are all based on monthly figures in any case.

[spudchucka]

Swap all those gory pseudo accident ads for those of a type that actually educate. Too easy eh

Why not swap them for real life & death footage from actual crashes, where real people died and got badly injured. Real blood, real screams, the freaky silence that follows a serious traffic crash, it would be great entertainment as well as educational and informative. We could follow up with an in depth look at what happens at the mortuary following a sudden death. We could see the cops cleaning the blood, gravel and glass out of the deceased persons face to make the body more presentable for the family members coming to identify their loved one. Not to mention the post mortem, Steven King movies have got nothing on a good PM. And to top it off lets have a documentary following the grief stricken families, it could a longitudinal study about how little kids suffer growing up without a mum or a dad or both.

[Alan Wilkinson]

Please explain any practical common sense way that this could actually be implimented and enforced?.

A first step is simply to build at least four lane divided highways on the main arterials and make slower traffic keep left.

Then we could have toll lanes and routes for higher speed travel.

Hans Monderman is producing better human engineering for urban road sharing in Europe which puts more responsibility on the road users.

Private roads cost a fortune. Who is going to pay for it? Who will be able to afford to use it? Who is going to police it?

Sounds like a rich mans playground for Porche drivers etc. The rest of us plebs will be stuck on the public roads I guess.

No, private roads cost the same or less than public roads. Only the way they are paid for is different. That goes for both initial capital funding and user pays.

[spudchucka]

Yet Alan Wilkinson this 'crusader' for truth and fact takes this episode after reading a ridiculously biased Sunday Star Times Article (you know that crappy tabloid) and posts it on his site as fact. He labels the officers who were trying to catch a burglar and acting entirely within the law as "A disgrace to my sex, three carloads of cops bullying a teenage mother. Just a gang of low-life thugs in my book". This genius in his quest then claims that Police were only acting to gain revenue off poor criminals.

Yes Alan Wilkinson is definately an impartial crusader for truth, justice and fact.

Thanks Indo, you took the words right out of my mouth.

[James Deuce]

It's a shame to waste my 3000th post on this, but rather than developing respect for your position Mr Wilkinson, it has plummeted rather quickly.

You have resorted to patronising questions, attempting to bait a policeman I happen to respect into defending his career and labelling him as tedious, and fundamentally showing a lack of respect for your position as a very new member of a forum devoted to the social aspects of motorcycling. Not only that, you take an intellectual stance on your viewpoint, and contradict that by using emotive arguments when pushed hard to explain your position by someone with a differing view.

You have demonstrated an attitude that is merely the flipside of the former LTSA. They have their propaganda, and you have yours. I rather suspect that the common sense solution lies somewhere in between.

All in all, not a very politic way to attempt to recruit supporters.

[spudchucka]

So the police were using the road tax law as a pretext to forcibly extract information from a suspect's partner regarding another matter?

So you are against police using whatever lawful means available to them to catch burglars. Don't moan when your place gets knocked over then.

[spudchucka]

Drivers don't need speed limits to control their speeds safely. They do it already without endangering others.

So why do so many of the idiots crash then?

Don't tell me, I know, its because there are cops out on the road that might give them a ticket for speeding.

Sounds pretty ridiculas doesn't it but thats what you are saying has happened since the HP was introduced.

[spudchucka]

I still think it is an entirely fair and important question and I had no preconceptions as to how you might have answered it or how you will answer it for yourself in the future. LTSA and the police have misled the public very seriously for years now about the ineffectiveness of their enforcement policies.

You simply choose to ignore all statistics and accuse me of being selective. I am not. I always try to look at all the relevant data in context. In comparison LTSA and the police are highly selective which is why the truth is a nasty shock to you all.

You are no better than any of them. You are simply promoting stats that support your own world view.

[Waylander]

You are no better than any of them. You are simply promoting stats that support your own world view.

Kinda like the american nation aye.....

[modalx]

God Almighty here we are again. Why is it so difficult to have a discussion about this without immediately climbing into entrenched polarised positions and personal attacks? Could we consider for a moment that Alan Wilkinson might not be an anarchistic crackpot with a chip on his shoulder? Maybe we could even imagine that our leaders and their enforcers might have at least begun with our best interests at heart however misguided they seem now?

Reading this thread I can sympathise with Spud and co for whom the burden of the defence weighs so heavily. The thing is that this is not actually about you or your colleagues Spud. The reason it is a hot topic for most people is that the current situation feels bad. It feels unfair when you get a ticket for 111ks in the middle of nowhere. It feels that way because you can't make yourself believe that what you have done is so dangerous or so wrong when the rule is so arbitrary. They know that the 111ks they were doing on the highway was definitely safer than the truck that passed them doing a legal 80ks on the Kopu hill. They recognise BS when they get handed it.

So you could argue that this is just overconfidence or some lack of understanding about the nature of vehicles and driving. Interestingly though, in places where speed limits are raised, the average vehicle speed only rises a few ks (Montana experience amongst others). Why? Because people are actually taking responsibility for their speed. They are not, in fact, speed crazed lunatics straining to be let off the leash. Most people (no not all people but this is about a population based approach to reducing harm on the road and there will always be a few...) have a good feel for what is safe for their skills, their vehicle and the conditions.

Now you can crush this sense of personal responsibility with draconian controls (as has been ably demonstrated in Victoria) with the intention of 'resetting' attitudes and I guess that might be an acceptable way to go if the benefits could be clearly demonstrated. Thats why the stats are so important. We spend a mountain of cash on trying to crack this nut but the evidence is that we are definitely not making much of a difference and quite probably throwing good money after bad.