Speed limits

[Motu]

Of course speed doesn't kill - to prove it,I suggest you ride your favorite ''easy'' stretch of road at whatever speed you feel safe - MINUS HELMET,gloves and jacket.

Is it still safe to ride at those speeds??....??

[Gremlin]

Easy, there are a bunch of muppets that aren't competent to drive at 100, let alone anything more.

[Ixion]

Of course speed kills. This I know, for the gubbermint tells me so.

[MaxCannon]

We fail to teach people how to control vehicles properly.

With the possible exception of Truck and Bus licensing (never sat one) the licensing test doesn't test your ability to operate the vehicle properly. It only goes as far as making sure you can follow a random selection of road rules without crashing for 30 minutes.

We then let people out on the roads and cross our fingers that they don't wipe someone else out.

100 kph is too fast for some of these people.
Teach everyone how to control a car (and bike) properly first - then we can worry about letting them go faster.

[scumdog]

That, good sir, is where you are mistaken. If they raised the speedlimits most people would most likely still speed

So no need to worry about that

What he says is true - about ten years ago almost nobody got pinged for doing 20kph or less over the speed limit - yet heaps of tickets still got handed out to those who still wanted to drive/ride at 121kph+

[ManDownUnder]

Of course speed doesn't kill - to prove it,I suggest you ride your favorite ''easy'' stretch of road at whatever speed you feel safe - MINUS HELMET,gloves and jacket.

Is it still safe to ride at those speeds??....??

Conversely if I'm wearing ATGATT and I jump off my bike and tumble down the road at 20kph, then repeat the exercise at 300kph being very careful to fall off at the same spot, same conditions etc... and I end up dead.

But I only changed the speed... so it does kill.

It's not as simple as saying it does or does not kill. It's a variable - one of multiple applied to the situation. Sadly we share the road with mortals not so highly evolved as you or I and they need prescriptive rules in order to live within accpetable and predictable bounds. The rule of law is also applied a lot more fairly when there's a clear test oof a rule - whether it has been broken or not.

[Mully Clown]

If you want to variably adjust speed limits, the idea would be to send out a signal to the cars which electronically restricted it.

[crash harry]

I always love these threads. There are always the same groups of responses:

1. "Everyone else except me is a bad driver so we need speed limits to keep them safe (I'm good though...)"
2. "It's all a scam to give more speeding tickets"
3. "Why dont we have what they do in XXXX country where it's better and they have autobahns paved with gold and everyone is a perfect driver etc"
4. "It's all because of asians, they can't drive blah blah blah I think racist comments are clever"

Seems to me that speed limits are a necessary evil, though I tend to think that the open road limit is a bit low and a bit heavily enforced - particularly in areas that are not accident blackspots but do just happen to be easy to hide a speed camera in. But seriously, the chances of the national speed limit being raised is about a million to one against. For a start, it would undermine all of the "Speed Kills" campaigning. And for another, it would potentially reduce revenue from speeding fines, which is budgeted for.

[crash harry]

If you want to variably adjust speed limits, the idea would be to send out a signal to the cars which electronically restricted it.

Bugger that. You're half-way through overtaking a car that's doing 80 in a 100 zone, and they choose that moment to decide to restrict your car to 80 - so you get stuck out in the passing lane in front of oncoming traffic?

If they (whoever "they" is) ever have the power to override the wishes of the driver of a vehicle like that, and we let them, then there is something very wrong.

[SteveC45]

I have been riding/ driving for over 20 years, and driven most of the roads in the country. The speed limits are there for a reason, most people out there don't know how to take lines on corners, handle cars that get out of control, understand what a wof is actually for, and don't even know how to use their indicators. Do you really want the limits raised? 20 years ago maybe, but now ?? Far too much traffic. Save it for the track.

[scumdog]

I have been riding/ driving for over 20 years, and driven most of the roads in the country. The speed limits are there for a reason, most people out there don't know how to take lines on corners, handle cars that get out of control, understand what a wof is actually for, and don't even know how to use their indicators.

Of course that doesn't apply to anybody on KB, right?

[alanzs]

I have a radar detector, therefore I never speed.

[Mully]

This reminds me of the "WOFs are a waste of time" thread.

NZ doesn't train it's drivers well. I was speaking to a German girl at work the other day. In Germany it costs thousands of Euros to get a licence and includes training on a skid pad. And if you lose your licence, you start again. Here, you let a 15 year old do a scratch and win, and his parents get to teach him their bad habits, so by 16 he's in whatever car he wants doing whatever he wants with the youthful testosterone pumping in his veins.

NZ also doesn't have high quality roads. It's far cheaper (and therefore preferable) to build cheap roads many times over. Anybody been on the freshly sealed bit of Don Buck Road - it's already fucked and it's only been in a couple of weeks.

Simply put, like WOFs, speed limits have to allow for the lowest common denominator. Muppets who don't realise their tires are underinflated/balding or bits are about to fall off the car need WOFs, and idiots who can't control a car need speed limits.

I am (usually) aware of the prevailing speed limit of the road I am on. If I CHOOSE to disregard it, I am aware of the potential consequences (hopefully my judgement means that I only speed where the consequence is a ticket, and not killing myself) and I am prepared to take those consequences if I'm caught.

[tychver]

Having recently spent 3 months living in Germany I can tell you the Autobahn arguement is bollocks.

The drives are required by law to do around 20 hours practical tutition by an instructor before they're even allowed to drive with their parents. They also can't drive with anyone except their parents for a year.

Then you get onto the German equivilent to WOF. It's much, much stricter. They change their tires every 6 months too, with new tires each time.

The roads them selves have a fantastic surface and have a traffic and weather monitoring system that automatically ajusts the speed limit to conditions. Busy road? Sorry guys 100km/h. Weather? 130km/h. They also run about twice as much runoff into the on off ramps as we do in the UK or NZ to give people time to slow down from or speed up to warp.

Comparing the Autobahn system to NZ or even the UK is just asinine.

Oh, and on their straight single lane empty rural roads the speed limit is still 100km/h.

[FJRider]

I have been riding/ driving for over 20 years, and driven most of the roads in the country. The speed limits are there for a reason, most people out there don't know how to take lines on corners, handle cars that get out of control, understand what a wof is actually for, and don't even know how to use their indicators. Do you really want the limits raised? 20 years ago maybe, but now ?? Far too much traffic. Save it for the track.

It never ceases to amaze me, the number of people that, after driving/riding for 20+ years, feel confident at travelling at speeds over the posted speed limits. Is it just that the fact that they have survived travelling at speed, so often ... (regardless of the number of tickets they had issued to them) ... means they always will survive. AND ... their road skills are beyond reproach.

At least the young and stupid have an excuse...