Police traffic enforcement inconsistency?

[rastuscat]

Not at all. Just trying to show that a "lightweight sportsbike" will cause far less damage to anything it hits than, say, a truck at the same .

Application of different speeds for different weights of vehicle. Hmmm. Not sure how that would work.

[gjm]

Calculation of damage sustained/incurred will also require (aside from speed, mass, direction) the relevant area of contact. As such, a motorbike will apply more pressure at 50km/h than a car (probably) would.

Kinda getting off the topic, though. :-)

[rastuscat]

Kinda getting off the topic, though. :-)

Not a problem. This is KB.

[swbarnett]

Calculation of damage sustained/incurred will also require (aside from speed, mass, direction) the relevant area of contact. As such, a motorbike will apply more pressure at 50km/h than a car (probably) would.

Interesting point. You are indeed correct that it's the pressure that's important, not the actual momentum.

If the bike in that photo was replaced my a car then it wouldn't have traveled as far into the other vehicle. Do you know what the impact speed was? I know of a bike that did exactly that at around 50kph and hardly dented the car^*.

Kinda getting off the topic, though. :-)

As with any conversation, you eventually end up wondering how you got where you are.


^*I have it on good authority as my wife was the one that did it.

[swbarnett]

Application of different speeds for different weights of vehicle. Hmmm. Not sure how that would work.

Quite easy actually. Speed cameras are doing the speed measuring work for you now. All that is needed is to add pressure plates to the road beside them. Also, it's not that difficult to electronically determine the frontal area from a photo if you want to add in that to the mix.

Not that I'm advocating any form of speed enforcement, mind you. I am firmly in the camp of leave well enough alone until shit happens and then throw the book at the culprit.

[R650R]

I'm not one of them. I advocate travelling at whatever speed an individual driver/rider feels capable of handling under the circumstances present at the time. I would never advocate 200kph lane-splitting past stationary traffic for example.

And here we are back at square one again and the reason we have road rules.
They tried the no rules thing with that K2 junk, suddenly you had people who might not otherwise try drugs doing stupid stuff and the cops workload exploded dealing with all the nutters.
Something tells me no speed limits would have a similar result as at this time we still have too many bad drivers to start with.
There are just any many people below average in the skills dept on any bell curve, do you really want them speeding???

And as for this whole malarkey of momentum it amuses me the argument about the weight of the vehicle.
I had a head on collision with a double cab ute in a 70 zone. He was DUI doing about 120k and I was accelerating out of a town at 65ish weighing in at 44ton (thank god I was legal that night...)
Now I damn near went through the windscreen/roof of the truck on impact (wasn't wearing seatbelt) but lucky it had a fairly large steering wheel. And it wasn't even full head on, he was lucky enough to slide down the side of chassis rail taking off my steer axle and diesel tank before bouncing back the way he'd come about 10m after leaving his gearbox embedded in road. (he lived btw).
You don't want to be hitting anything else solid no matter what vehicle your in, any impact is bad news.
As Rastus says its the only part of the equation they/we can really influence for the better...
Now I know you harped on about only one vehicle with regard to speed, but that's in some utopia where there are no other road users to upset your physics lesson...

[swbarnett]

And here we are back at square one again and the reason we have road rules.
They tried the no rules thing with that K2 junk, suddenly you had people who might not otherwise try drugs doing stupid stuff and the cops workload exploded dealing with all the nutters.
Something tells me no speed limits would have a similar result as at this time we still have too many bad drivers to start with.

The truth is quite the opposite. As has been shown in a number of countries where speed limits were raised or removed completely.

There are just any many people below average in the skills dept on any bell curve, do you really want them speeding???

Yes. Rather that than have everybody (good and bad drivers) going so slow that they become terminally distracted.

And as for this whole malarkey of momentum it amuses me the argument about the weight of the vehicle.
I had a head on collision with a double cab ute in a 70 zone. He was DUI doing about 120k and I was accelerating out of a town at 65ish weighing in at 44ton (thank god I was legal that night...)
Now I damn near went through the windscreen/roof of the truck on impact (wasn't wearing seatbelt) but lucky it had a fairly large steering wheel. And it wasn't even full head on, he was lucky enough to slide down the side of chassis rail taking off my steer axle and diesel tank before bouncing back the way he'd come about 10m after leaving his gearbox embedded in road. (he lived btw).

In spite of this the argument about momentum still stands. Given the same collision and the option of scrubbing 5kph from only one vehicle I know which would do the most good. And it's not the ute.

You don't want to be hitting anything else solid no matter what vehicle your in, any impact is bad news.

No argument there.

As Rastus says its the only part of the equation they/we can really influence for the better...

Ah, but can we? If lowering the average speed results in more collisions we haven't necessarily reduced the amount of overall carnage.

Now I know you harped on about only one vehicle with regard to speed, but that's in some utopia where there are no other road users to upset your physics lesson...

What you can't seem to grasp is that considering only one side of the equation is perfectly valid. Whether or not there is another vehicle. What I said just applies to both sides. Often in physics one side of the collision is assumed to be stationary and the other side is considered in this context. For example, the equations for a head-on collision between two cars each travelling at 100kph are the same as for one stationary and the other doing 200kph.

[Ocean1]

Something tells me no speed limits would have a similar result as at this time we still have too many bad drivers to start with..

Whatever that something is I'd take it out and shoot it, because it's not only wrong but its opinion betrays it's political roots and it's complete lack of technical awareness.

Apply this: https://doclib.uhasselt.be/dspace/bi...adaptation.pdf

...to traffic regulation and you get this: http://www.godutch.com/newspaper/index.php?id=1557

Which proves to have worked rather well.

[rastuscat]

Quite easy actually. Speed cameras are doing the speed measuring work for you now. All that is needed is to add pressure plates to the road beside them. Also, it's not that difficult to electronically determine the frontal area from a photo if you want to add in that to the mix.

Not that I'm advocating any form of speed enforcement, mind you. I am firmly in the camp of leave well enough alone until shit happens and then throw the book at the culprit.

We did that back in 1973. 840ish people died on the roads that year, and it was a catalyst for action.

[rastuscat]

Whatever that something is I'd take it out and shoot it, because it's not only wrong but its opinion betrays it's political roots and it's complete lack of technical awareness.

Apply this: https://doclib.uhasselt.be/dspace/bi...adaptation.pdf

...to traffic regulation and you get this: http://www.godutch.com/newspaper/index.php?id=1557

Which proves to have worked rather well.

I'm with ya on a lot of that stuff. I'll be reading the whole PDF tomorrow, but had a quick glance at the seatbelts bit.

It appears to say that if we make the roading environment really dangerous, and make our cars really dangerous too, people will quickly adapt and drive like they're in a dangerous vehicle in a dangerous environment.

Hard to argue, but do you really think we're going to do that?

I have already campaigned to remove all the stop signs in my town, but the engineers are very nervous about it. I personally think the compulsory stop rule is a misguided attempt to increase safety. Just my personal view.

Good that we can discuss the ideas though.

[scumdog]

Application of different speeds for different weights of vehicle. Hmmm. Not sure how that would work.

Disasterously??

[scumdog]

yea!
but i give not a fuck when cunts end themselves.

So nobody is ever going to crash into YOU then?

Man, you're one lucky mutha...

[Ocean1]

It appears to say that if we make the roading environment really dangerous, and make our cars really dangerous too, people will quickly adapt and drive like they're in a dangerous vehicle in a dangerous environment.

Hard to argue, but do you really think we're going to do that?

Risk homeostasis. The safer people feel the less attention they pay to immediate risk. Demonstrably correct in describing human driving behaviour. The root cause of most accidents is the huge diversity of personal perceived risk on the roads, if everyone was similarly risk-adverse you'd have a deal less accidents. Isn't this stuff introduced at traffic policing 101 level? I'm not trying to be a smartarse but it's pretty basic and extremely relevant.

Worth noting that that's why traffic calming devices work. And that the correct term is probably perceived risk, (although personally I find being so "managed" contrarily infuriating).

And no, I think you'll continue to succumb to the politics of blame.

I have already campaigned to remove all the stop signs in my town, but the engineers are very nervous about it. I personally think the compulsory stop rule is a misguided attempt to increase safety. Just my personal view.

I think you're right. Anything that gives the punter the message that someone else is responsible is bad juju. Also, enforcement policy is patently a response to the heavily political "DO SOMETHING", (about the "carnage"). I can easily see how your engineers might be nervous of removing a previously required "safety feature", even if it actually produced the exact opposite of the required effect.

You might have noticed the extraordinarily high skill level apparent here, most noticeable in the numerous and protracted criticisms of your average Kiwi driver/rider. You might have noticed similar abuses of the average Kiwi driver amongst your colleagues, it's a perfectly normal part of human nature to blame everyone else collectively for any negative outcomes whatsoever, in spite of the obvious fact that most people behave exactly the same way.

That leads to a whole range of silly rules and restrictive policy which has mostly the opposite of the desired effect. The sooner you get science involved in defining driver behaviour and how best to shape an environment that allows for it with minimum damage instead of simply reacting to yet more political pressure driven by supposed public outrage at the personal costs then the sooner you'll see some actual results.

And not until.

[caseye]

Risk homeostasis. The safer people feel the less attention they pay to immediate risk. Demonstrably correct in describing human driving behaviour. The root cause of most accidents is the huge diversity of personal perceived risk on the roads, if everyone was similarly risk-adverse you'd have a deal less accidents. Isn't this stuff introduced at traffic policing 101 level? I'm not trying to be a smartarse but it's pretty basic and extremely relevant.

Worth noting that that's why traffic calming devices work. And that the correct term is probably perceived risk, (although personally I find being so "managed" contrarily infuriating).

And no, I think you'll continue to succumb to the politics of blame.



I think you're right. Anything that gives the punter the message that someone else is responsible is bad juju. Also, enforcement policy is patently a response to the heavily political "DO SOMETHING", (about the "carnage"). I can easily see how your engineers might be nervous of removing a previously required "safety feature", even if it actually produced the exact opposite of the required effect.

You might have noticed the extraordinarily high skill level apparent here, most noticeable in the numerous and protracted criticisms of your average Kiwi driver/rider. You might have noticed similar abuses of the average Kiwi driver amongst your colleagues, it's a perfectly normal part of human nature to blame everyone else collectively for any negative outcomes whatsoever, in spite of the obvious fact that most people behave exactly the same way.

That leads to a whole range of silly rules and restrictive policy which has mostly the opposite of the desired effect. The sooner you get science involved in defining driver behaviour and how best to shape an environment that allows for it with minimum damage instead of simply reacting to yet more political pressure driven by supposed public outrage at the personal costs then the sooner you'll see some actual results.

And not until.

Wot he said!

[rastuscat]

Risk homeostasis. The safer people feel the less attention they pay to immediate risk. Demonstrably correct in describing human driving behaviour. The root cause of most accidents is the huge diversity of personal perceived risk on the roads, if everyone was similarly risk-adverse you'd have a deal less accidents. Isn't this stuff introduced at traffic policing 101 level? I'm not trying to be a smartarse but it's pretty basic and extremely relevant.

Worth noting that that's why traffic calming devices work. And that the correct term is probably perceived risk, (although personally I find being so "managed" contrarily infuriating).

And no, I think you'll continue to succumb to the politics of blame.



I think you're right. Anything that gives the punter the message that someone else is responsible is bad juju. Also, enforcement policy is patently a response to the heavily political "DO SOMETHING", (about the "carnage"). I can easily see how your engineers might be nervous of removing a previously required "safety feature", even if it actually produced the exact opposite of the required effect.

You might have noticed the extraordinarily high skill level apparent here, most noticeable in the numerous and protracted criticisms of your average Kiwi driver/rider. You might have noticed similar abuses of the average Kiwi driver amongst your colleagues, it's a perfectly normal part of human nature to blame everyone else collectively for any negative outcomes whatsoever, in spite of the obvious fact that most people behave exactly the same way.

That leads to a whole range of silly rules and restrictive policy which has mostly the opposite of the desired effect. The sooner you get science involved in defining driver behaviour and how best to shape an environment that allows for it with minimum damage instead of simply reacting to yet more political pressure driven by supposed public outrage at the personal costs then the sooner you'll see some actual results.

And not until.

Yup, agree with most of that too.

However, one example of a divergent opinion.

Would the Auckland Harbour Bridge be safer without the movable barrier preventing head on crashes? A bloke called Hei Hei killed some folk in 1989 be crossing the centreline and hitting an oncoming car. No barrier back then. The only thing separating the opposing traffic was a white painted line between lanes. Biggest issue is that it went from 5 lanes south in the morning to 5 lanes north in the afternoon, indicated by overhead gantry lamps.

People died more often, despite it being more dangerous. What happened to risk compensation there?