Police saving our lives again

[HondaSTrider]

Partner and I got up early (for a Sunday!) and rode the bikes from ChCh over to Greymouth and back to watch the street-racing. Left at 6 a.m. and got home at just after 9 p.m.
Saw one "marked" police car on the way over (2 1/2 hrs riding--- yeah I know but we were behaving!)
On the way home saw a couple around the streets of Greymouth and one parked at the round-a-bout @ Kumara Junction. Just around this intersection however, I glanced off-road and saw a black Ford parked back off the road behind some scrub. A couple of K's later this car is right on our tails and followed us for the best part of 30km!!!!!! We were sitting (as near as possible) to the 100 km/hr mark that whole time.
A few obsevations.......
1. He MUST have sped to catch up to us in the first place (without good reason other than we were on bikes!)
2. Having clocked him as a 'bogey' I spent more time in those 30 k's with my eyes OFF the road checking speedo than I ever have in 30 YEARS of riding!
3. 4 km/hr is a rediculous tolerance to try to adhere to, and causes more inattention to travelling than just riding/driving comfortably.
4. I assume they only broke off to "U-turn and investigate" two cars travelling in the opposite direction which appeared to be following too close??? Not really a safe place to U-turn in my opinion either. But then what do I know... only been riding for 30 years and never had an 'incident' with another vehicle whilst riding.

Yup... it's all about the safety folks.

Other than that... had a GREAT day at the races as a first time spectator there.

[trailblazer]

I wonder how many tickets for 105kph were issued over the weekend. Maybe they should look at targeting the drivers that don't do the speed limit and that are just wondering round site seeing because they cause a lot of drivers to get inpatient.

[shrub]

Nope. Crap driving skills and lack of roadcraft.
Of course, that may not be the case with the killed...

You mean speed isn't the primary cause of fatal crashes? Please don't tell me you're daring to suggest that road user skill is the problem?

This is heresy, pure and simple.

[MSTRS:Me]

If you were moving, and had a unopened beer in the boot, then 'speed and alcohol were involved'.
Heretic, eh? So burn me at the stake...

[doc]

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-sto...ith-road-toll/

They think the 104km limits is working, because there have been fewer crashes.

[scumdog]

well we've now exceeded 2008 as of this morning shall we try & beat 2009's? still 2 days to go...
"Five people have now died on the roads in four separate crashes, dashing police hopes of a Labour Weekend free of road deaths."

Place your bets now on the excuses that are sure to follow...

Why?

Will it make those dead people any less dead?

[scumdog]

yeah, fuck the cops

I hate cops

if there are any on here, i suggest we ban them now..

who is with me?

Me! Me! I'm with you!

[Scuba_Steve]

Why?

Will it make those dead people any less dead?

nope but Im always interested in the excuses the cops come up with so they can continue to make $$$ at the expense of lives

[Jantar]

Over Queens Birthday weekend when the reduced tolerance was tried the official line was that is was the advertised police crackdown that resulted in the lowered road toll, and that the weather keeping everyone off the rad had nothing to do with it. This time, using the same logic, then the advertised police crackdown has so far caused 16% more fatalities, with 12 hours still to run.

[Edbear]

nope but Im always interested in the excuses the cops come up with so they can continue to make $$$ at the expense of lives

Pardon?

[shrub]

at the end of the day they have a job to do, and have been instructed (and indoctrinated) to make policing speed the primary solution to the road toll, which is a strategy that is doomed to failure for a few simple reasons:

1. Driving in cars and (especially) riding bikes is inherently dangerous, especially at speeds above around 30 kmh. No matter what laws get passed, no matter how good we are as drivers/riders and no matter how safe cars are made; as long as we have current technology they're dangerous. We either live with that, and accept that people will crash or we take up walking.

2. Speed is not the problem, excessive speed for the conditions present when driving/riding is the problem, and the conditions are not confined to road and weather. A major condition is the ability of the driver/rider to use their machine, and that in turn is influenced by skill and by their personal and immediate condition (tiredness, sobriety etc) and another condition influencing appropriates of a given speed is the level of distraction present - passengers, cell phones, stereos, pretty girls on the footpath etc.

3. Policing 2 very limited influencing factors (speed relative to arbitrarily decided speed limits) and sobriety) at the expense of managing and influencing almost every other factor is almost dishonest.

The modern politically correct nanny state way is to pass a law against something, and we will see the tolerance dropped to 4 kmh soon enough. We will also see laws passed against other stuff, but they will achieve little and cost freedom. What needs to happen is to educate the public and make driving a privelege not a right. If people switched their brains on before they got behind the wheel/behind bars the cops could go and do something useful and prevent crime.

[Scuba_Steve]

Pardon?

as posted before, some abstracts from UK studies

Between 1980 and 1995 UK road death rates were falling 7.1 per cent a year. But since speed cameras arrived, deaths have fallen just 2.8 per cent annually. Experts say that if the pre-1995 rate had continued 9,674 lives could have been saved.

The UK Department for Transport funded, then suppressed, a study that shows a 55 percent increase in injury accidents when speed cameras are used on highway work zones and a 31 percent increase when used on freeways without construction projects. According to the Transport Research Laboratory, the "non-works [personal injury accident] rate is significantly higher for the sites with speed cameras than the rate for sites without.

Another one I can't find right now again paid for then suppressed by the UK MOT showed these scams cost up to 1000 lives each year in the UK, not only on the road but this study took policing as a whole into account so lives were being lost to domestic abuse, child abuse, assault, rape, thefts etc, etc these obviously only being the ones possibly preventable had the cops not been out scamming.
Sounds like here really, so if we do a straight population difference comparison (yes I know very primitive & inaccurate) thats up to 69 New Zealanders potentially losing their lives each year because the cops are out scamming, instead of their job (purpose)

[Edbear]

as posted before, some abstracts from UK studies

Between 1980 and 1995 UK road death rates were falling 7.1 per cent a year. But since speed cameras arrived, deaths have fallen just 2.8 per cent annually. Experts say that if the pre-1995 rate had continued 9,674 lives could have been saved.

The UK Department for Transport funded, then suppressed, a study that shows a 55 percent increase in injury accidents when speed cameras are used on highway work zones and a 31 percent increase when used on freeways without construction projects. According to the Transport Research Laboratory, the "non-works [personal injury accident] rate is significantly higher for the sites with speed cameras than the rate for sites without.

Another one I can't find right now again paid for then suppressed by the UK MOT showed these scams cost up to 1000 lives each year in the UK, not only on the road but this study took policing as a whole into account so lives were being lost to domestic abuse, child abuse, assault, rape, thefts etc, etc these obviously only being the ones possibly preventable had the cops not been out scamming.
Sounds like here really, so if we do a straight population difference comparison (yes I know very primitive & inaccurate) thats up to 69 New Zealanders potentially losing their lives each year because the cops are out scamming, instead of their job (purpose)

So are you saying that speed cameras are the cause of the increase in deaths? Is it less cops on the road?

[Scuba_Steve]

So are you saying that speed cameras are the cause of the increase in deaths? Is it less cops on the road?

I would say speed scams cause accidents as they force people to look at an insignificant needle on an insignificant dial instead of the road & the decrease in fatalities we observe is only because of an increase in safety devices in vehicles. I also believe the general public is put in greater danger by cops running these scams instead of doing their job, we've all heard of the child abuse cases going un-investigated, & alot of rape victims will tell you they feel ignored (for want of a better word) after talking to police.

[Jantar]

So are you saying that speed cameras are the cause of the increase in deaths? Is it less cops on the road?

I believe the data showed that it isn't the speed cameras themselves that cause accidents, its the downstream effect that drivers are spending too much time watching their speedo's, and less time watching the road. It is a similar effect noticed in other countries that where speed enforcement is reduced and/or speed limits raised there are fewer accidents, and where speed limits are reduced and/or speed enforcement is increased the accident rate also increases .