Easter road toll was the worst in 16 years

[-df-]

Actually, we do. We ALL do. I think part of the problem is that both fast and slow drivers don't recognise that the other drivers also own the road and have an equal right to use them.

Spot on.

If someone is driving slow, wait until its safe to overtake.

Sure, if we had better roads this wouldn't be such a problem...but guess what...our roads are crap, and will be for quite a while, get used to it and drive safely (that doesn't mean slow btw).

[swbarnett]

If someone is driving slow, wait until its safe to overtake.

And, of course, the reverse is also true. If you're driving slow and there are very few good passing opportunuties pull over frequently and let people past.

[smoky]

Spot on.

If someone is driving slow, wait until its safe to overtake.

Sure, if we had better roads this wouldn't be such a problem...but guess what...our roads are crap, and will be for quite a while, get used to it and drive safely (that doesn't mean slow btw).

And, of course, the reverse is also true. If you're driving slow and there are very few good passing opportunuties pull over frequently and let people past.

Fact; people will always make mistakes, some more than others, and some mistakes will be worse than others

Fact; our roads are not the best, our state highway is not up to a decent standard

Fact; there has been and always will be those in our community who; will drink and drive, fall asleep at the wheel, and most people at some stage will exceed the speed limit

Combine those three factors and you have a real problem

You can't argue against those who say - suck it up and slow down, if everyone did that then yes that will reduce accidents, however it is a short sited wanky argument; my fear is the continuing trend is to ignore the fact that our roads need improving - and concentrate their efforts on controlling the users; more double yellows are planned everywhere, they are already talking about reducing the open road limit to 90 - wont be long and it will be 80, then 70.............. Speed restrictors for cars and bikes, forcing manufacturers to only produce cars that cannot break the law, and so on ...........

The very concept of peoples owner ship of democracy is eroded - what ever happened to the idea that the government is the representatives of the people, elected by the people, to serve the people.
Roads are a public service, it enables commerce and the freedom to travel, we pay for them, we own them, it should not be to much to expect that they are maintained and developed for our benefit, to drive at legally acceptable speeds on open roads - that is not the case currently - try to maintain an average open road pace from Auckland to Wellington of 100 Klm/hr with out having to resort to breaking the law. You can't

Instead of fixing the problem, they set off on a path of constraining the people, restricting the people, punishing the people
That's how dictators and tyrants work - it's not democracy or freedom, it's not representative of the people

And some of you on here don't give a second thought about it - the government said it, so it must be true - so STFU, suck it in and wear it

Young people today - no spirit, when was the last time you saw any of them protesting about anything, bunch of shallow minded wimps

[Jayka]

Yeah I agree that our roads are utter crap and not up to standard compared to roads overseas.

But yeah when you are out an about people need to drive to the conditions- Just because the bloody sign says that you can go 100km per/hr doesnt mean you can do it when its pissing down and near to zero visability!!!!!

I had a near miss this Easter on the Napier- Taupo Road. It was very close. The conditions were horrible, it was pissing down, near zero visability and lots of traffic. I was on one of the last passing lanes near the Tarawera Tea Rooms and pub heading towards Taupo.

Just cruising along doing 70kms (very,very slippery) in the left lane behind a car when this idiot driving a gutless SVU came up my righthand side. The twit didnt have enough power to pass me and the car infront, so hes red lining it and pushing his SVU to the limit, he got past me (I dropped back to let the idiot pass me), but the passing lane finished before he could complete passing the car that was infront of me. Then to just make things worse the guy in the SVU still decided to keep trying to pass as the road went around a blind lefthand corner!!! He goes round the corner still on the wrong side of the road and meets an other motorcyclist (His name was John) coming from the opposite direction!!!! The motorcyclist ended up running off the road and into a dtch!, the SVU swerves and loses it and clips the car he was passing and sends it into a spin and I got hit in the chest by flying car bits!!!!

Lucky for me I could stop in time without crappin off my bike as well. Also lucky that no one was seriously injured. The idiot in the SVU got wiplash from his seatbelt but his SVU was a mess! The people in the car got a massive shock and their car had minor damage, but John the poor motorcyclist completely wrote off his bike, but he walked away with lots of cuts and scrapes!!!!

Another motorist stopped and called the police and ambulance and we all sat on the side of the road in the rain waiting for them to turn up. When the police got there the idiot from the SVU walked straight upto the cop and tried to blame the people in the other car for the accident!!!! WHAT A F#!@KING TWAT!!!! He said to the cop that we wouldnt let him back into the left lane after the passing lane finished!!

At this point I was very pissed off, my chest hurt and I was cold and wet and had enough of this guys bullshit so I picked up my helmet and smacked him square in the face with it!!!! I know that volience is not the answer but I was beyond the point of caring!!!

The guy in the SVU is no being charged with dangerous driving causing injury and goes to court next week. John the motorcyclist said that he gona wait for his insurance to pay out then hes gona get another Triumph and new riding gear.

The moral to the story is to drive/ride to the conditions and make sure that there is 100m of clear road throughout the whole movement when overtaking!!!!!!!

[Toaster]

Very sad to hear of the tragic loss of life and injury - so many families hurt and lies ruined. Stupid drivers driving badly and making stupid mistakes, fast, slow, unattentive or otherwise.... it just doesn't need to happen.

So.... over Easter how many BURGLARIES were there while people were on holiday? or do we just keep bending over and taking it as volume crime?

[swbarnett]

At this point I was very pissed off, my chest hurt and I was cold and wet and had enough of this guys bullshit so I picked up my helmet and smacked him square in the face with it!!!! I know that volience is not the answer but I was beyond the point of caring!!!

I can certainly understand how you felt. I hope you don't get charged for this, the bastard deserved it!

[Berries]

Lots of talk about slow drivers not pulling over. Isn't this a bike forum ? I would hate to drive a car on a long holiday weekend, I can think of nothing worse than a three hour drive having to deal with all the dicks on the road and sitting in traffic doing 90 wishing for more overtaking opportunities. On a bike though it is a different matter. I like the busy roads because it livens up a trip that could otherwise be mindnumbingly boring.

Maybe it's a North Island vs Main Island thing. Even when it's "chock a block" down here it's not quite the same as the clips they show on the TV news of traffic crawling somewhere on the outskirts of Auckland.

[quickbuck]

Lots of talk about slow drivers not pulling over. Isn't this a bike forum ? I would hate to drive a car on a long holiday weekend, I can think of nothing worse than a three hour drive having to deal with all the dicks on the road and sitting in traffic doing 90 wishing for more overtaking opportunities. On a bike though it is a different matter. I like the busy roads because it livens up a trip that could otherwise be mindnumbingly boring.

Maybe it's a North Island vs Main Island thing. Even when it's "chock a block" down here it's not quite the same as the clips they show on the TV news of traffic crawling somewhere on the outskirts of Auckland.

Fair point about a bike being able to pass almost anywhere....

I can say though, many of the drivers up here think they are all in Chevy Impalas, or Humvees, and hug the centre line....
This means there isn't quite the space to pass safely.
Now, pulling over, could be as simple as hug the white line to the left, and that will make most motorcyclists happy.... Even on a yellow line, as it is legal to pass, as long as you don't cross it.

[mashman]

they are already talking about reducing the open road limit to 90 - wont be long and it will be 80, then 70.............. Speed restrictors for cars and bikes, forcing manufacturers to only produce cars that cannot break the law, and so on ...........

No need to restrict the car... the human will be chipped with a financial balance and GPS chip.

[motor_mayhem]

It's f@cking great to see that blame is spread around like machine gun fire, the general theory being if you spray enough bullets around you might eventually hit an actual target (cause of road accidents).

I would like to see someone say "Well it's not just as simple as us having a few less or more deaths this year" as road changes, licencing changes, population density changes among the various other ones are not added in for some sort of weighted figure that can actually tell the guy who writes the cheques for whatever advertising campaign etc if what he's doing is making a difference. No matter how good/appropriate/(other positive adjective) your rules and regulations are there are some stupid c's out there who still won't pay attention and will still cause accidents. And find me a crash that's purely based on only two issues, let alone one, I would be doubtful there are many if any in that set. And finally there's no acknowledgement of Luck as a factor, some people seem to make repeatedly stupid mistakes or bad driving decisions and get away with it while some others make a minor mistake and it costs them everything.

Sometimes it seems like the public as a group are a mangy mutt sprinting off to eat the first road kill(no pun intended) it sees, never questioning whether the meal will help continue the mutt's existance or hinder it by containing disease etc. Put simply the public/government jump on an idea so we can say we're doing something sometimes with no proof that what we're doing is worth the effort. I am sure there are things to do but I think more time needs to be spent figuring out what will really make a difference.

[smoky]

I think I know what you thought you said, but I'm not sure what i thought you said was what you were thinking

[Pixie]

Yeah I agree that our roads are utter crap and not up to standard compared to roads overseas.

But yeah when you are out an about people need to drive to the conditions- Just because the bloody sign says that you can go 100km per/hr doesnt mean you can do it when its pissing down and near to zero visability!!!!!

I had a near miss this Easter on the Napier- Taupo Road. It was very close. The conditions were horrible, it was pissing down, near zero visability and lots of traffic. I was on one of the last passing lanes near the Tarawera Tea Rooms and pub heading towards Taupo.

Just cruising along doing 70kms (very,very slippery) in the left lane behind a car when this idiot driving a gutless SVU came up my righthand side. The twit didnt have enough power to pass me and the car infront, so hes red lining it and pushing his SVU to the limit, he got past me (I dropped back to let the idiot pass me), but the passing lane finished before he could complete passing the car that was infront of me. Then to just make things worse the guy in the SVU still decided to keep trying to pass as the road went around a blind lefthand corner!!! He goes round the corner still on the wrong side of the road and meets an other motorcyclist (His name was John) coming from the opposite direction!!!! The motorcyclist ended up running off the road and into a dtch!, the SVU swerves and loses it and clips the car he was passing and sends it into a spin and I got hit in the chest by flying car bits!!!!

Lucky for me I could stop in time without crappin off my bike as well. Also lucky that no one was seriously injured. The idiot in the SVU got wiplash from his seatbelt but his SVU was a mess! The people in the car got a massive shock and their car had minor damage, but John the poor motorcyclist completely wrote off his bike, but he walked away with lots of cuts and scrapes!!!!

Another motorist stopped and called the police and ambulance and we all sat on the side of the road in the rain waiting for them to turn up. When the police got there the idiot from the SVU walked straight upto the cop and tried to blame the people in the other car for the accident!!!! WHAT A F#!@KING TWAT!!!! He said to the cop that we wouldnt let him back into the left lane after the passing lane finished!!

At this point I was very pissed off, my chest hurt and I was cold and wet and had enough of this guys bullshit so I picked up my helmet and smacked him square in the face with it!!!! I know that volience is not the answer but I was beyond the point of caring!!!

The guy in the SVU is no being charged with dangerous driving causing injury and goes to court next week. John the motorcyclist said that he gona wait for his insurance to pay out then hes gona get another Triumph and new riding gear.

The moral to the story is to drive/ride to the conditions and make sure that there is 100m of clear road throughout the whole movement when overtaking!!!!!!!

Excellent!
It's important to identify when you are in the vicinity of morons and take precautionary measures.

P.S. the bikers killed in the Dome Valley were hit by an overtaking driver.

[peasea]

Lots of talk about slow drivers not pulling over. Isn't this a bike forum ? I would hate to drive a car on a long holiday weekend, I can think of nothing worse than a three hour drive having to deal with all the dicks on the road and sitting in traffic doing 90 wishing for more overtaking opportunities. On a bike though it is a different matter. I like the busy roads because it livens up a trip that could otherwise be mindnumbingly boring.

Maybe it's a North Island vs Main Island thing. Even when it's "chock a block" down here it's not quite the same as the clips they show on the TV news of traffic crawling somewhere on the outskirts of Auckland.

I laugh when people talk of 'traffic jams' in Nelson. I think even on a hot summer's day with thousands of transient holiday-making loopies crawling around the foreshore the longest delay I've had in the time we've been here is about ten minutes! I've never understood why Aucklanders even go away on long weekends or annual holidays all at the same time.

[Tink]

My sentiments exactly. There will always be a percentage of Morons. Thats' never going to change. We need to make roads more user friendly before we make any headway into stopping deaths. Need to give the morons more room. Look at the crash stats in the USA and see what makes their deaths lower than ours per capita. It's the wide open roads that help.

Maybe its about time drivers at fault had the USA system to think about... you cause the accident you don't just face the law and get a slap on the hand... you face the victims lawyer.

At this point I was very pissed off, my chest hurt and I was cold and wet and had enough of this guys bullshit so I picked up my helmet and smacked him square in the face with it!!!! I know that volience is not the answer but I was beyond the point of caring!!!

I hate violence, but in this case I think I would have done the same thing... the guy obviously had nothing tween his ears, and deserved your wrath!

[Jayka]

I can certainly understand how you felt. I hope you don't get charged for this, the bastard deserved it!

Nope Im not being charged (thank god!!!) The police officer said that I was 'shock' and couldnt be held responsible for my actions when I smacked the twat!!!!

After I smacked the idiot the cop had a dirty big smile on his face, he probably wouldnt admitt it now but Im sure he was glad I shut the twat up!!!!