Separate the Police from the scum...

[smoky]

I have been busted for a 2-stroke 'smoking' too much.....

She got busted for smoking once to

[sondela]

Beware of what you wish for.

IF they do have a 'new' Traffic Department you may well find it is manned by even more zealous types handing out even more tickets for even more trivial offences...53kph anyone???.

Meh, they can't get much more zealous than they already are

[avgas]

Meh, they can't get much more zealous than they already are

And "we can't get ripped off for higher ACC levies"
I said that back in 2004

[Patrick]

Meh, they can't get much more zealous than they already are

Must be waaaaay too young to remember the Auckland City Council Traffic Cops then....

Had one try and push his way into the Armed Offenders Squad Room after a squaddie responding to a callout was caught speeding but continued on to the station to gear up without stopping for him....

Initially, fair enough.... But even after it was plainly obvious what was occurring he still tried to push in past the unit, into the "armoury."

I recall the Police Inspector responding to a call over the radio for advice, asking for his response to be heard by the traffic cop... "If he doesn't get the hell out of there right now, lock him up for obstruction."

He left........

[Edbear]

Before this degenerates completely into a bitchslapfest between who speeds/who doesn't speed/who does the most miles/who has the biggest dick...

What is wrong with riding/driving to the conditions? Yes, we have all been stuck behind trucks, busses, caravans, old people...(said t-i-c) and it's all part of being a mature enough road user to accept that patience must be employed a lot more often than we'd like.

Sometimes I feel motorcyclists in particular are so enamored of their bikes ability to accelerate/pass/blow off other motorists that they consider it a personal insult to them as a rider to be in a situation where they are actually stuck (like everyone else) in a queue.

Trust me, I'm sure most of you are old enough (like me) to remember the bad old days when there were even LESS dual carriage ways on our roads than there are now!

Get over it. Ride to the conditions. Take time to smell the bloody roadside flowers - who knows you might live longer due to less stress. Not to mention not giving in to the temptation to execute a highly dodgy overtake and end up dead.

p.s. I would welcome the split back to Police/MoT (or whatever they'd be called), but then I'm a goody two shoes.

Surely you're not suggesting personal responsibility here...?

You two sound like you only ride a motorbike cause you're too lazy to ride a push bike

If I want to smell the bloody flowers I'd ride a push bike or buy a convertible

You'd be surprised what you cna smell on a bike. While lanesplitting I've smelled cigarettes and cigars, perfume and cologne and I swear even B.O.!

Another puritanical prick

I don't care what anyone thinks, if you do upwards of 1500 ks a week you'll start accumulating tickets in NZ.

I use to drive a lot quicker in the UK, I've had to slow down dramatically in NZ. Fair enough, there seems to be too many idiots killing themselves here and we seem to think more police and wanky ideas will sort it out. (Not enough being done about improving our roads or targeting police where it will make a difference).

The thing with non discriminating cameras are; they don't normally put them at the end of double laned sections of road catching people trying to get passed slower traffic, you don't normally see them 200 meters before open road signs catching those who start accelerating to soon. They don't single out WRX's, Skyline's, Alpha Romeo's... or other particular cars because their owners must be boy racers or drug dealers

Has anyone actually considered the reason for getting speeding tickets...?

Speaking of which, how many serious crashes are 'caused' by bad roads as say opposed to efwitted drivers not paying attention to what is all around them?

Not a lot I expect.

(And yes, before all you start screeching your keyboards off I do realise ANY crash is bad, regardless of cause)

Funny you should say that. I've been driving NZ roads all over the country for nearly 40 years. I've ridden bikes and driven cars at speeds in excess of the old 'ton'.

I used to see if I could beat my time to work from Warkworth to Wellsford on the old T500, (best time was about 8min, from memory), and today that stretch is considered one of the most 'dangerous' roads in the country, yet I was regularly topping 105mph on it on a bike that had weak drum brakes, a flexi-frame, '70's tyres and suspension that would be laughed at today.

I've never had a serious accident. I've slid off metal roads twice, once to avoid a cattle truck and once when rounding a tight bend to find a silly woman stopped in the middle of the road...

Much of my working life has been driving a variety of vehicles daily over all types of roads. I have never claimed insurance for an accident. Am I a super - skilled driver? Why do so many people die and get maimed driving the same roads at slower speeds? Is it the road, or the driver?

I'm sure many on here have similar history to me in this regard. I don't count myself as special in any way...

[MIXONE]

Another puritanical prick

While I don't sacrifice chickens at the altar of Satan I have never been accused of being puritanical.A prick yes many times.
One ticket in the last 6 years tells me that I ride/drive more appropriately then you.
When I was young,dumb and full of cum I could wallpaper my room with the tickets I used to get but luckily I grew up.Try it you might like it.

[smoky]

W.
One ticket in the last 6 years tells me that I ride/drive more appropriately then you.

No tickets on my bike in 20 years, so by your logic it's the other way around smart arse

[rastuscat]

Meh, they can't get much more zealous than they already are

You're having a laugh, surely.

I'm one of the scum (ex-ACC, ex-MoT), and if I was really zealous I'd just wait at a roundabout and ticket every person who didn't indicate. Hell, it would be so much easier than doing what we do now.

There are 100 ways we could write more tickets, but we don't as we tend to target specific offences. My team now stake out intersections and deal with people who crash traffic lights, or who fail to stop at stop signs.

Hell, if I was zealous my lot could triple our output.

[98tls]

You're having a laugh, surely.

I'm one of the scum (ex-ACC, ex-MoT), and if I was really zealous I'd just wait at a roundabout and ticket every person who didn't indicate. Hell, it would be so much easier than doing what we do now.

There are 100 ways we could write more tickets, but we don't as we tend to target specific offences. My team now stake out intersections and deal with people who crash traffic lights, or who fail to stop at stop signs.

Hell, if I was zealous my lot could triple our output.

To be honest fella after 39 odd years riding bikes i have to agree that your job is akin to taking candy from babies,sure theres the odd bloke who approaches it with glee never missing a chance but hey lets face it road users no matter how many wheels underneath them make it farkin easy to do so in this country.

[Winston001]

This discussion overlooks the fact that the NZ Police have had a dedicated Highway Patrol section operating since 2000. Essentially they are defacto traffic officers.

So splitting off a Traffic Unit is dead easy provided they are offered the same terms and conditions.

I do note that Howard Broad isn't in favour.

[red mermaid]

This discussion overlooks the fact that the NZ Police have had a dedicated Highway Patrol section operating since 2000. Essentially they are defacto traffic officers.

So splitting off a Traffic Unit is dead easy provided they are offered the same terms and conditions.

I do note that Howard Broad isn't in favour.

Your statement above shows your total lack of understanding and knowledge of the job that HP officers do.
I just love how everyone is an expert of the job that police do, and especially traffic staff, but have never done the job.

[Ronin]

Your statement above shows your total lack of understanding and knowledge of the job that HP officers do.
I just love how everyone is an expert of the job that police do, and especially traffic staff, but have never done the job.

Not sure what your getting at there. There is a dedicated HP whom are all sworn officers. They even have different cars and they are as a rule not tasked to general police work. Winston sorta has it nailed.

[Winston001]

Your statement above shows your total lack of understanding and knowledge of the job that HP officers do.
I just love how everyone is an expert of the job that police do, and especially traffic staff, but have never done the job.

Hmmm.......I'm completely open to being corrected - please explain. Perhaps you are thinking about the Commercial Traffic unit (known by truckies as the God Squad) which focus only on trucks. I know a couple of constables who transferred to the HP and happy to do so because they saw it as a lot less pressure.

[scumdog]

To be honest fella after 39 odd years riding bikes i have to agree that your job is akin to taking candy from babies,sure theres the odd bloke who approaches it with glee never missing a chance but hey lets face it road users no matter how many wheels underneath them make it farkin easy to do so in this country.

Ain't THAT the truth huh!

No end of road users (they would like to think of themselves as 'drivers'/'riders') out there who are as *dumb as a sack of nails when it comes to being on the road - kinda like shooting fish in a barrel really.

*Quite a few seem to post on KB....

[oldrider]

Good move!

Nothing damaged respect for real police more than combining them with over officious revenue collectors with radar guns: split them back up and restore the good name of the NZ Police (the unsworn pigs with radar guns will never have respect)

Merging the traffic service with the police force was a bureaucratic bungle, says Garth George.

As all of us who have had dealings with them can attest that the brains of bureaucrats grind exceeding slow. Which is why it has taken Police Commissioner Howard Broad 3 years of his five-year term to conclude that traffic enforcement should be separated from traditional policing.
In the demented "reform" era of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the police took over traffic enforcement from the almost universally despised traffic cops section of the old Transport Department, it seemed like a good idea. As did the earlier takeover by the Transport Department of municipal traffic departments, which saw the end of the more despised traffic cops who were employed by cities.
But within a short time it proved to be a serious error of judgment, for nothing has so damaged the public's regard for the New Zealand Police as the decision to turn sworn police officers into radar gun operators and ticket-writers.
Mr Broad told the parliamentary law and order committee last week that he was "quite uncomfortable" with fully sworn police being used for road policing, since they were often just "sitting there with their radar gun".


I suspect he's been uncomfortable for a long time, for I well remember him squirming beside his then political mistress, Annette King, back in 2006 while he tried to explain the difference between "quotas" and "performance targets" imposed on frontline police officers.
Mrs King had called a press conference to deny that police had a quota system for the issue of speeding tickets, yet all it served to do was to drive another nail into the coffin of public respect for the police.
There was a time - most of my life, in fact - when the police were held in higher regard than in almost any other country.
That hasn't been the case for nearly 20 years now, and the decline in the public's esteem for the police dates from its 1992 takeover of traffic enforcement.
But now, at last, the powers-that-be have decided that the two should again be separated, although remain under the umbrella of the police. I have no argument with that, but the separation of traffic enforcement must not just be done - it must be seen to be done.
It will not be sufficient simply to recruit and train "transport enforcement officers", dress them in a police uniforms and assign them a car. It will have to go much further than that if the public is to be persuaded that the new traffic cops are not just ordinary cops in disguise.


Continues: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/n...ectid=10615932

Respect is subjective and can only be earned not demanded or legislated for!

The real reason there is no respect for the police is because members of New Zealand society have lost their own "self respect"!

Physician, heal thy self!

In other words take a good look at the man in the mirror!