All charges dropped

[Berries]

Caught? doing what? Nothing illegal, the charges were dropped.

That's why I can't see the point of this thread.

You get a ticket you don't think you deserve. You take it to court and they agree with you and cancel the ticket. BFD. Isn't that what the courts are for ?

[yod]

That's why I can't see the point of this thread.

Mate, I can't find the point to 90% of the threads in here, but they're still in here.

[marty]

So I'm assuming that when using instant-on there would be a 3 second delay from when the Stalker is turned on till the cop can lock the speed

the 3-second rule only applies to donuts that have been dropped on the ground.

[awayatc]

That's why I can't see the point of this thread.

You get a ticket you don't think you deserve. You take it to court and they agree with you and cancel the ticket. BFD. Isn't that what the courts are for ?

well............
you been to court here?
to defend an undeserved ticket?

Good luck!

Great thread BTW

[Eyegasm]

I love threads like this...

Keep my mornings busy while I am supposed to be working.
I also like the fact that your taxes pay for me to sit here and browse KB!!

Thank you, from one Government Employee!!!

Continue

[Jack Miller]

Cool discussion.
So, how do we enforce inappropriate speed?
It might not be over the limit, but it might be totally stupid. How do we enforce that?
How do I then convince a judge that it was inappropriate? Worse yet, how do I convince the JPs?
I know it can be done, but the process is a beast, and to be avoided. So it is.
For example, I come across an idiot riding at 70 km/h in a 100km/h zone through fog thicker than a whale omelette. I issue the ticket, coz it's bloody stupid. The ticket would be for careless driving, as it can't be for exceeding the speed limit.
...
Then I have to get in front of the JPs and convince them that it really was too fast. And the poor, poor subject prostrates himself on the altar of justice and pleads innocence because he was doing less than the speed limit.
Cool. Yeah, I need that like I need a hole in the head.
So, how do we avert this?

So you're admitting that Popos are lazy, greedy and couldn't care less about road safety. You'd rather issue lucrative speeding tickets to people doing 110 in passing lanes during fine weather (when your own statistics show that exceeding the speed limit contributes to less than 1 in 20 accidents) than get out of your car in the fog and ticket someone actually doing something dangerous. If you can't convince a judge it was dangerous then it wasn't dangerous. If it was dangerous the judge will see it.

[Jack Miller]

however, upon the introduction of the Higway Patrol in the Waikato in 2000, instead of attending multiple deaths every week, and ambulance and fire being called out daily for serious, mostly speed related crashes, the amount of emergency work required by the 3 ERTs dropped dramatically. in the early days of HP, and prior to it, from a daily capture rate of 5 to 10 people over 160km/h, the capture rate not only dropped dramatically, it became unusual to get such high speeds, and captures in the 140-150k range became the norm instead.

OK, this challenged me so I did the research. It turns out that the raw data used by the AA was actually the Police's own data, including the Waikato. The top end speed reduction from 150-160 to 140-150 was part of the general trend. It occurred steadily and was not influenced by the rate of ticketing. Obviously it is appealing for those involved to believe that they have made a difference but the facts do not support it. The AA has issued a serious challenge to the current crime/enforcement regime in it's submission to the Road Safety Strategy Review. Do you not think Paula Rose would be making much of the Waikato situation if it genuinely challenged the AA's conclusions. The facts are it doesn't.

[Jack Miller]

Very good reading.No doubt the popo will claim this long weekends 4kph over limit a huge success, even though the crap weather will keep a lot of people at home.

One day Mainstream TV will actually correlate a long weekend road toll with fuel sales for the same weekend. It would be childishly easy and would result in some actually meaningful news. However it will also confirm the AA's research that speed-limit enforcement has had no effect on the road toll so I doubt we'll see it reported as long as the NZTA and Police remain significant TV advertisers.

[oneofsix]

One day Mainstream TV will actually correlate a long weekend road toll with fuel sales for the same weekend. It would be childishly easy and would result in some actually meaningful news. However it will also confirm the AA's research that speed-limit enforcement has had no effect on the road toll so I doubt we'll see it reported as long as the NZTA and Police remain significant TV advertisers.

the petrol retailers might have an issue with providing the commerically senistive information required to allow this to happen.
Don't know if the are partly to blame or victims of propaganda. I suspect they are subjected to NZTA and Government propaganda, and lets not forget the marketing spiel from the camera/radar companies.

[Jack Miller]

The data would be there but I have no intention of finding it. It was a personal observation on my behalf as a highway cop working in the killing fields of the north and south Waikato through the 90's and 2000's.
My record was 19 deaths due to crashes in 30 days. That was just when I was rostered on - there were others in that time.

I found the data. It doesn't support your hypothesis. Assuming the 19 fatalities were the result of 10-15 accidents then chances are that exceeding the speed limit was not a factor in any of them. It is only a factor in 1:20 accidents.
The contributing factors were much more likely to have been:
Poor Observation: 48%
Failed Give-Way/Stop: 25%
Poor Handling: 23%
Poor Judgement: 18%

It must be very traumatic to be involved following road fatalities. It is a tragedy that the resulting zeal to make an improvement gets sidetracked into ticketing a few ks over the speed limit, which has almost nothing to do with fatalities.

[rastuscat]

So you're admitting that Popos are lazy, greedy and couldn't care less about road safety.

Hi Jack................DOH !!!!! Really have to stop saying that. Don't want to upset the air hostesses.

Don't really recall having said that. But hey, I must have , coz you're always right.

Harumph

[scumdog]

It must be very traumatic to be involved following road fatalities. It is a tragedy that the resulting zeal to make an improvement gets sidetracked into ticketing a few ks over the speed limit, which has almost nothing to do with fatalities.

Don't forget that speed tickets are just part of the picture.

(OK, the least positive, most complained of part)

[Kickaha]

I found the data. It doesn't support your hypothesis. Assuming the 19 fatalities were the result of 10-15 accidents then chances are that exceeding the speed limit was not a factor in any of them. It is only a factor in 1:20 accidents.
The contributing factors were much more likely to have been:
Poor Observation: 48%
Failed Give-Way/Stop: 25%
Poor Handling: 23%
Poor Judgement: 18%

It doesn't support yours either when you're using words like "assuming" "chances are" and "much more likely"

[rastuscat]

I found the data........It is a tragedy that the resulting zeal to make an improvement gets sidetracked into ticketing a few ks over the speed limit, which has almost nothing to do with fatalities.

Hi Jack.............DOH

Look at the bigger pikkie, Obiwan.

No matter what causes your crash (Poor Observation: 48%, Failed Give-Way/Stop: 25%, Poor Handling: 23%, Poor Judgement: 18%, your stats) , the higher the impact speed, the greater the kinetic energy to disperse.

Or, in simpler terms, the faster you go, the bigger the mess. It's the law. Newtons third law of physics. The law you can't break.

People say a couple of things in social situations about speed. They tell you how bad everyone else is as a driver, then they tell you the speed limit should be higher, coz they are safe at 120 km/h. Hmmmmm, not sure how that works.

Have pondered a few schemes over the years, like how we could let qualified people drive at higher speeds. Too many curly issues for it to be practical. More practical just to set a limit, then deal with that. Today the tolerance is normally 10, sometimes down to 4. Seems fairly simple. Sure, it ain't perfect, but it's an honest attempt to minimize the harm of excess kinetic energy on the roads.

The management talks about speed control, I think of it more as kinetic energy management. You call it revenue collecting. Whatever you want to call it, don't speed and don't get a ticket. Simple advice, normally always the best.

Donuts.

[Kickaha]

They tell you how bad everyone else is as a driver, then they tell you the speed limit should be higher, coz they are safe at 120 km/h.

Dead fucking right it should be 120kmh especially in urban areas