Police killing us again!

[Max Preload]

Now there's an idea - we should be allowed to pick and choose which laws we can be arsed obeying.

Like cops do, you mean?

Any sane person would consider having sufficient visibility to safely perform a U turn and being able to stop within the distance visible to you as being very much on a par with each other.

In this situation the former is in evidence - the latter is not.

People talk about..."being able to stop in the distance ahead", etc, etc, but, the risks of driving, like most of life, is a balance of probabilities to be weighed and acted on by all of us. Does everyone here slow right down when approaching the blind brow of a hill, in case there is something blocking the road! Probably not!

Of course not. There'd be little traffic movement if we did. It's just another 'catch-all' regulation.

Does everyone here ride with sufficient distance from the vehicle in front that they could stop in time if the vehicle miraculously stopped instantly from...whatever speed. Not stopped hard on full brakes, but instantly!

I'm not aware of any such requirement anyway - you must simply follow at the prescribed distance (4m per 10km/h) and be able to stop short. Obviously, if the vehicle in front hits an immovable object (like another vehicle of the same weight travelling the opposite direction at the same speed) then you're fucked but you're not going to be prosecuted, I wouldn't think.

[smoky]

Had the rider been riding at the legal speed limit I think he would have had every chance of stopping, &
The locals had been warned that it would end in tears & someone would get killed.

You don't know what speed he was doing
you have no idea if he could've stopped

I too know that road well, I use to live down there once upon a time. Given some comments from people who happened to have been traveling in the same direction as the rider at the time, it seems he may of been traveling at a respectable speed and at all excessive - but who knows.

But of course feel free to slight him based on your ability to assess the situation from Auckland

[Smifffy]

I'm not aware of any such requirement anyway - you must simply follow at the prescribed distance (4m per 100km/h) and be able to stop short. Obviously, if the vehicle in front hits an immovable object (like another vehicle of the same weight travelling the opposite direction at the same speed) then you're fucked but you're not going to be prosecuted, I wouldn't think.

Actually there is a requirement, and you can collect 20 demerit points for it. I'm not sure how it is measured, it is probably up to the issuing officer's JUDGEMENT

More info available on the NZTA website road code section

[Ixion]

People talk about..."being able to stop in the distance ahead", etc, etc, but, the risks of driving, like most of life, is a balance of probabilities to be weighed and acted on by all of us

Exactly so. When driving , we are all required, sometimes explicitly , sometimes implicitly,to be what the law terms 'a prudent and cautious person'. To take care to guard against such risks as a prudent and cautious person might think reaonably foreseeable. We are not required to guard against freakish and extraordinary circumstances. Were we so required , life and society would be impossible.

Should a prudent a nd cautious person have been able to forsee that performing a three point turn at that point could be dangerous. I think so.

A prudent and cautious driver should allow for conditions that may reasonably be expected in reality. Not for a hypothetical and perfect world, but for the real world we all live in. So, in this case he needs to allow for the fact that traffic will come over that brow at 'normal' open roads speeds for that road. Which may be somewhat greater than 100kph.

He , arguably, does not need to allow for the very improbable possibility that someone in a Ferrari is heading along that road at 350kph. He may ignore that possibility, not because 350kph is illegal, but because it is very very improbable. Taking that into account would not be prudent, it would be paranoid.

Likewise the cautious and prudent rider will allow for a possibility that an obstacle may lurk over the brow of a hill. But perhaps not for a moving obstacle, turning across his path. Cautiously, and prudently, he will , if necessary , reduce speed somewhat. To what extent, I cannot say without riding that road, and taking note.But he should be prudent, not paranoid. Sometimes the degree of risk mitigation required to protect against every improbable but imaginable contingency is impractical.

In this case, did the cop exercise the caution and prudence that we may reasonably expect from a road user (let alone a police officer)? I think not.

Did the rider exercise the caution and prudence that we may reasonably expect from a road user ? I do not know. If he came over the crest at 250kph, probably not. If he came over at 110 kph, probably .

[Max Preload]

Actually there is a requirement, and you can collect 20 demerit points for it. I'm not sure how it is measured, it is probably up to the issuing officer's JUDGEMENT

More info available on the NZTA website road code section

There is no specific requirement to be able to stop if for any reason the vehicle in front stops 'instantaneously' just as you're not required to be able to stop if someone pulls out from a side road. Trust me, I know the regulations inside out. Forget the 'Road Code' - it's just a guide to the regulations. There is only following distance, stop within distance of clear road ahead on a road marked in lanes, or½ the distance clear road ahead on a road not marked in lanes.

Should a prudent and cautious person have been able to forsee that performing a three point turn at that point could be dangerous. I think so.

So that means not the cop, right?

[idleidolidyll]

Havent you realised by now that money is the reason for everything.

Why is it that someone who pulls off a million dollar robery will get 20+ years inside whilst another who kills will get "life" and be out in 8 years if a good person.

The reason--- Money.

The police are only falling in line with everyone else and worshipping the all mighty dollar. If they kill someone in pursuit of such then its not their fault as they were only following orders. Mmm where have I heard that before?

Only to a point Merde:
we all 'know' that a burglar caught stealing from a home is often treated harsher than a white collar embezzler stealing millions of $$$ from Mom and dad accounts. And the white collar guy is quite likely to have a nice soft bed in a low security prison where he can get out and go shopping for the day while the other guy is probably sent to Pare or Mt Eden.

It's not just the money, it's WHO does the stealing. The wealthier criminal who starts an 'investment company' then rips it off is likely to have friends in high places who will make sure he gets a lighter sentence: judges, lawyers, politicians, senior coppers etc

[idleidolidyll]

People talk about..."being able to stop in the distance ahead", etc, etc, but, the risks of driving, like most of life, is a balance of probabilities to be weighed and acted on by all of us. Does everyone here slow right down when approaching the blind brow of a hill, in case there is something blocking the road! Probably not! Does everyone here ride with sufficient distance from the vehicle in front that they could stop in time if the vehicle miraculously stopped instantly from...whatever speed. Not stopped hard on full brakes, but instantly! No. Why...because such things almost never happen so our internal risk assesment drops it way down the scale and we carry on as if it won't, whilst (some of us) keeping a weee bit of margin, because , it might - but never really enough!
If people drove constantly aware of all the multitude of events that COULD happen on the roads, traffic would come to a crawling, erratic, standstill. So, to say Paul should have ridden in a manner that he would be able to come to a complete stop because of a blockage just over the brow of a rise, is not particularly valid. Is was a risk that was, perhaps, not as high on the scale as it should have been (given the number of prats that do U turns in similar positions), but is understandable. The only way you eliminate what he was doing would be to slow, markedly, approaching each and every rise, on high alert and covering the brake. And on the acceptable risk scale, most of us assume the road ahead will be clear and, at most, ease off on the throttle a bit.

Attempting a U turn, or worse, a 3 point turn, just over the brow of a rise, is less understandable. It is a risky manoeuvre, showing a total lack of thought and a cavalier disregard towards traffic, that was able to be easily eliminated (do it where the road is clear and visibility is good in both directions - as most sensible people would). On his risk assesment, habits of chucking U'ies to pursue errant motorists had over ridden his thought processes, and, throwing on the lights would warn off any traffic, wouldn't it...no worries mate!

This crash was not an accident! It was the result of a culmination of events that could have been averted if one or other of the parties had acted differently with regard to where he was!

unfortunately "You have given out too much Reputation in the last 24 hours, try again later." so I'll say it in person: perfectly stated SPMan

[scumdog]

Actually, rather than just a simple single post, I offered an entire thread; one in which you and the other coppers all closed ranks and posted lies, bullshit, evasion and just plain nonsense almost every time you typed.

I'm more than happy to start that entire thread again as it was only deleted when you and the other coppers were getting your asses kicked. As usual, you'd descended into ad hominem and fallacy.

As for my "top rant", that's a simplistic childish brush off because you and yours once again refuse to honestly debate the topic raised. Here's the main point raised identidied by you as a "top rant":

"speed does NOT kill; that's one of the dumbest absolute statements made by dumb ass coppers

i could drive up and down some roads in canterbury at 200kph for the rest of my life and never have an accident let alone die.

on the other hand, i could be killed by a fuckwit while doing 30kph"

Are you and yours ready to debate the disgraceful collection of road taxes, the idiot savant mindset of coppers who will chase people until they are dead for the crime of speeding (upon whence you generally declare "I stopped the pursuit 3 seconds before the accident") and the idiocy of the "speed kills" absolutist statement yet, or are you, as above, merely going to waffle and run away again?

Remember the analogy of wrestling with a pig in mud?
Remember the moral?

Well guess who's the pig in this instance????

(Hint: It aint you!)

[idleidolidyll]

I think that's exactly what we're saying.

There is no one person at fault here.

There almost never is but the accident happened BECAUSE the cop seems to have performed a really stupid action not because the biker was going too fast for the road (as observed by SPMan in refernce to well understood driving habits by pretty much EVERY Kiwi including coppers). The majority of fault should lie with the cop regardless of the speed of the bike.
Frankly, despite your rhetoric here; I very much doubt that you always follow at a distance in which you can stop for any event................I think that makes you a hypocrite doesn't it?.

The upshot is that the cop should be charged with dangerous driving causing death. If he is subsequently acquitted, there had better be a very clear explanation why and that should then apply to all ordinary motorists as well.

[idleidolidyll]

Remember the analogy of wrestling with a pig in mud?
Remember the moral?

Well guess who's the pig in this instance????

(Hint: It aint you!)

So once again you evade the questions in favour of a little nonsense. As I said; you coppers are easy, you destroy your own credibility without us even tapping a key.

Once again scummy and in simple language that anyone can understand: Is it speed that kills or bad driving?

I hold that the statement "speed kills" is a ridiculous absolute and that it is in fact bad driving that kills.

[Smifffy]

There's only 3 people that might know exactly what happened:

1 of them is dead - RIP
1 them was so traumatised he was unable to operate a cellphone
1 them is a mysterious civilian passenger

Apparently, at the time, none of them knew what hit them.

I find it incredible that the ute is even up for discussion. Is the pursuit of a ute (poetry) a greater imperative for turning there, than say going back for a pie, or missing a turn off, or maybe granny just called me on my cell and told me she was having a heart attack, and I had to go back to help her?

There's no doubt in my mind that if I was in a cage and did that, and offered any of those excuses for the turn, the book would be roundly thrown at me.

Tell me it would be any different for any of you.

[scumdog]

So once again you evade the questions in favour of a little nonsense. As I said; you coppers are easy, you destroy your own credibility without us even tapping a key.

Once again scummy and in simple language that anyone can understand: Is it speed that kills or bad driving?

I hold that the statement "speed kills" is a ridiculous absolute and that it is in fact bad driving that kills.

Why ask me? eh? eh?
I'm pretty shit-hot but it wasn't ME that invented that phrase, ask whoever decided it was the phrse de jour..

It it HAD been me I would have said: "Stopping too quickly will kill you"

[idleidolidyll]

Now there's an idea - we should be allowed to pick and choose which laws we can be arsed obeying.

Katman; That is actually what almost everyone on the planet does. I very much doubt that there are ANY people out there who can honestly say they have NEVER broken ANY laws; you included

[idleidolidyll]

why ask you scummy?

because you're a cop and in the past you've held hands with your brother coppers to obfuscate, divert and lie about the statement

i'm inviting you, as a cop, to have an honest debate: but i'm not holding my breath

[MSTRS:Me]

- you must simply follow at the prescribed distance (4m per 100km/h)...

I am aware of the 2 second rule...It replaced the 'old' method of 1 car length/10mph.
But never heard of 4 metres /100kph.
4m is about the length of an average car.
How would anyone stop in that distance?