Average speeds dropping, yet road toll increasing

[riffer]

And herein lies a big part of the problem red mermaid. Because the advertising and media releases have so often used the word "speed" when what they actually mean was "speed inappropriate to the conditions" that many have inferred that its the actual velocity that's the problem.

How do we educate people that velocity isn't the problem?

[James Deuce]

Massive face palm inducing post Mr Mermaid. Do all accident reports involve conjecture extracted from anecdotal third hand witness reports or just some of them?

If we all stood still speed would never be an issue? Explain why all accidents involving a motorcycle are listed as motorcycle accidents despite things like brand, capacity and model being omitted from the report and definitive causes being other vehicles or road surface related issues being listed as "factors".

You never see an accident report that says truck collides with motorcycle. They all say motorcycle collides with truck. Why is that? I wrote my TRX off on a diesel slick around a blind corner. It was recorded as rider loses control on bend. I couldn't stand up on the road and had to crawl to get out of the way of the spinning RAV4 heading toward me. Apparently she lost control on a bend too. No one mentioned the inch thick layer of diesel and the rocks all over the road from where the truck had clipped the hillside and ripped his tank open did they. Or that he would have had to have been on the wrong side of the road to do that. My red Yamaha was recorded as a white Ducati.

[PeeJay]

You are wrong, so very wrong, as so many of the posts on this subject are.
MoT are a policy advisory ministry.
NZTA are predominantly policy and educative.
Police are predominantly enforcement.

You answer also shows the lack of knowledge of the systems in place on crash analysis (not the anecdotal rubbish you get on KB), and other objective analysis by all these agencies that leads to police targetting there enforcement on behaviours that have been proven to cause crashes, and increase fatalities and injuries.

Objective analysis of accident data shows the primary cause of vehicle accidents is human error. Speed in itself doesnt cause accidents. Excessive speed (for the conditions) is generally due to human error.
Changing driver behaviour has been put into the too hard basket, instead by concentrating on speeding they are just trying to mitigate the effects of poor driving.

They could issue drivers licences along the same lines as you get a private pilots licence, ie training, exams, and the investment of money. While this would probably cull the majority of poor drivers, and likely bring the road toll way down, a cost/benefit analysis would show the 300 odd lives saved would not make up for the economic and political repercussions of only 20% of the population (a wild guess) being allowed to drive.
So it aint going to happen.

[sondela]

Shall we start with speed, whereby it seems to be accepted on this site, as per the post by Shrub above, that if you are not exceeding the speed limit then it can not be a factor.

This is wrong, speed is driving to the conditions, and from the information given by shrub it was excessive. A person, or persons, in that group was travelling at a speed above there experience, the conditions at the time, and that associated with inattention has been a contributing factor to the crash.

For a proper analysis of crashes, ALL factors have to be considered and recorded, not just the ones you may like to include.

For goodness sake!! If the guy had made a mistake and looked the wrong way as he stepped off the pavement and a bus had hit him, it would have still been a dreadful accident and he would have still been dead. There would have still been a moving vehicle that caused his death.. but long as he wasn't on a motorbike, it wasn't speed , right???

You just can't generalise!

[crazyhorse]

I hear the road toll is 11 - and nearly all of them are cages................. Good on us bikers!

[PrincessBandit]

Objective analysis of accident data shows the primary cause of vehicle accidents is human error. Speed in itself doesnt cause accidents. Excessive speed (for the conditions) is generally due to human error.
Changing driver behaviour has been put into the too hard basket, instead by concentrating on speeding they are just trying to mitigate the effects of poor driving.

They could issue drivers licences along the same lines as you get a private pilots licence, ie training, exams, and the investment of money. While this would probably cull the majority of poor drivers, and likely bring the road toll way down, a cost/benefit analysis would show the 300 odd lives saved would not make up for the economic repercussions of only 20% of the population (a wild guess) being allowed to drive.
So it aint going to happen.

Green on the way once bling function back up and running.

[James Deuce]

I hear the road toll is 11 - and nearly all of them are cages................. Good on us bikers!

As has been pointed out many times by ambos and firecrew, the Holiday road toll is no different to any other time of the year. NZ generally averages between 1.2 and 1.3 people dead on the road per day. It's business as usual. The "Holiday Road Toll" is a construct of bureaucrats with their heads up their arse running communication plans to inform credible dummies. Bike deaths run between 35 and 50 per year. So about 0.8 per week. Looks like that's on target too.

[riffer]

As has been pointed out many times by ambos and firecrew, the Holiday road toll is no different to any other time of the year. NZ generally averages between 1.2 and 1.3 people dead on the road per day. It's business as usual. The "Holiday Road Toll" is a construct of bureaucrats with their heads up their arse running communication plans to inform credible dummies. Bike deaths run between 35 and 50 per year. So about 0.8 per week. Looks like that's on target too.

Indeed. And also, with 1 motorcycle death and 10 car deaths it's in keeping with the 1:10 motorcycle to car ratio as well.

[FJRider]

How do we educate people that velocity isn't the problem?

Darwin had a theory on that subject ...

[MarkH]

Green on the way once bling function back up and running.

Bling is working - just moved to the little star on the lower left.

[HondaSTrider]

As has been pointed out many times by ambos and firecrew, the Holiday road toll is no different to any other time of the year. NZ generally averages between 1.2 and 1.3 people dead on the road per day. It's business as usual. The "Holiday Road Toll" is a construct of bureaucrats with their heads up their arse running communication plans to inform credible dummies. Bike deaths run between 35 and 50 per year. So about 0.8 per week. Looks like that's on target too.

That's just another little 'quirk' of the media that pisses me off! Every damn holiday we're subjected to "DING DING DING.. NEW TOTAL!!!! Death toll now stands at...."
All said by some smiling ventriliquists' dummy at prime-time on the idiot-box.
It's like something out of a 1980's Telethon FFS! And now I know that there's really no difference between holidays and normal every-day-of-the-year days it just makes it all the more macabre.

Since I came back from Oz two and a half years ago I got my first speed related "enforced contribution" to the road safety fund a couple of days ago. $120 for 118 kph on a dead straight, open country road in perfect weather conditions, with bugger all traffic about, in a car riddled with air-bags, ABS brakes, crumple-zones etc etc etc ....shit it was dangerous, hair-raising stuff!
I'm so pleased to finally be able to" financially assist" in getting that nasty road-toll down though. Feck-it all... shoulda left one of the kids home and gone on the scoota!

[shrub]

Shall we start with speed, whereby it seems to be accepted on this site, as per the post by Shrub above, that if you are not exceeding the speed limit then it can not be a factor.

This is wrong, speed is driving to the conditions, and from the information given by shrub it was excessive. A person, or persons, in that group was travelling at a speed above there experience, the conditions at the time, and that associated with inattention has been a contributing factor to the crash.

For a proper analysis of crashes, ALL factors have to be considered and recorded, not just the ones you may like to include.

You've made a decision without any knowledge of the situation. I have ridden that road many times and the speed we were riding was, if anything, conservative for the conditions. The guy who binned his bike was not paying attention, which I understand is the single largest cause of traffic crashes in NZ and overseas. Not paying attention can bite you in the arse at 5 kmh or 105 kmh, but it's my experience that generally when I'm riding fast I am absolutely paying attention. Without wanting to endorse speeding, it is not the blanket evil Our Masters would have us believe it is, and in some cases I believe 100 kmh is too slow.

[Monkeynz]

You've made a decision without any knowledge of the situation. I have ridden that road many times and the speed we were riding was, if anything, conservative for the conditions. The guy who binned his bike was not paying attention, which I understand is the single largest cause of traffic crashes in NZ and overseas. Not paying attention can bite you in the arse at 5 kmh or 105 kmh, but it's my experience that generally when I'm riding fast I am absolutely paying attention. Without wanting to endorse speeding, it is not the blanket evil Our Masters would have us believe it is, and in some cases I believe 100 kmh is too slow.

Yep well said, I couldn't agree more. I know from my own experience that my inattention is usually at low speeds. I don't think the coppers will understand my excuse for speeding as "I'm speeding because my concentration levels remain at 100% so I'm less likely to crash". As nice as that would be. But 100km is definitely too slow, in the dry anyway. (Drive to the conditions)

[Monkeynz]

You've made a decision without any knowledge of the situation. I have ridden that road many times and the speed we were riding was, if anything, conservative for the conditions. The guy who binned his bike was not paying attention, which I understand is the single largest cause of traffic crashes in NZ and overseas. Not paying attention can bite you in the arse at 5 kmh or 105 kmh, but it's my experience that generally when I'm riding fast I am absolutely paying attention. Without wanting to endorse speeding, it is not the blanket evil Our Masters would have us believe it is, and in some cases I believe 100 kmh is too slow.

Yep well said, I couldn't agree more. I know from my own experience that my inattention is usually at low speeds. I don't think the coppers will understand my excuse for speeding as "I'm speeding because my concentration levels remain at 100% so I'm less likely to crash". As nice as that would be. But 100km is definitely too slow, in the dry anyway. (Drive to the conditions)

[shrub]

Overseas experience is that when speed limits are raised, accident rates actually decline, but as I pointed out earlier it is politically expedient to make speeding the bogey man of highways safety.

The easy solution isn't always the best solution.