Annual road toll up 44

[Edbear]

When the road toll was 843 (1973) a few more or less was hardly noticeable.

Now that it's down to around 300 a few extra is a significant variation.

The Popos can't influence the weather, recession, fuel prices, blah blah blah, but that's no reason why we shouldn't do what we believe will help the issue.

If we didn't believe what we were doing would help, we wouldn't be doing it. We'd be doing the things we believe would.

All that said, as mentioned previously, I've got strong beliefs that we could do better. But at my level, influencing national policy is a pipe dream.

We can only do what we can do. And I do.

I almost envy the knockers. It must be easy when you actually can't do anything to sit back and tell those who can how to act. All the ideas with no need to actually do anything except bang away at a keyboard.

Few would ever consider getting involved personally. Much easier to be a keyboard warrior.

Bad driving crosses all statuses and types. I had the misfortune to have to follow a distinguished middle-aged driver in a Bentley GT and he was hopeless at all driving skills like keeping in lane, consistent speed, etc. He wasn't even talking on the phone.

I am also not impressed with the number of younger European males who so often turn out to be the culprits in excessively slow speeds on the open road.

[haydes55]

Yeah - funny riding the same places for 36 years - you shoot around corners where 25 years back you'd pass a car - but now on a much better bike I'd not even consider it.



I do feel you may have missed my point re updating licenses or even skills - bad habits creep in, laws change and a refresher may help.



In the States they run a system of if you are ticketed X times they send you on a course. No idea how it works but if they had something here - $150 ticket for your offense or sit a Sat morning course (that you must pass so you can't just fuck around) what would you pick?

I wouldn't give them the choice of paying a fine, I'd force them to pay for the course. If you prove you can't drive safely to an officer, how can they let you carry on your way with a few less $$$ and say problem solved.

[Tazz]

Okay - so a lot of accusations and requests to back what I said up with some data - so here yah go:



And the government transport website:

http://www.transport.govt.nz/research/roadtoll/#5

It is curious that we see a massive dip around 2009 for the price of Crude and a massive increase in the Road toll for the corresponding year, it then increases slightly for 2010, and we see a slight reduction in the toll, then we see another spike in 2011 and we see a big reduction in the road toll and finally another dip in 2012 and the Road Toll goes up.

Man that is a shit graph to try and compare with I see your dip in price in April 12 along with a decrease in fatalities? Case closed! There is maybe a slight trend but nothing really drastic, and again, that first graph sucks. I also see the road toll has been decreasing since the 80's http://www.transport.govt.nz/researc...alinformation/ as the petrol price has been rising, wooo, petrol price saving lives, while conveniently ignoring 1000's of other factors including the hard to explain away constant increase in population and road users?

http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/mo.../docs/2013.pdf

I'll also just leave this here....:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...nnections.html

You say you've present facts but you haven't presented shit. If you're that serious about it for some reason do it properly, get all your facts including the average distance travelled by NZ'ers in the last few years, stack it against the fuel price while also looking at what the weather was for long weekends that may have had a higher or lower number of KM's travelled than anticipated due to other numbers, major events, major road works and so on and so forth. There are just so many factors.
Putting aside new vehicle regos, KM's travelled and the weather at the very least are important factors to add to the mix.

I hope you are laying off the sour cream this holiday season, for safetys sake.

[Murray]

Just got back from driving Auckland to Paihia in the Bay of Islands and back. The state of the driving was absolutely shocking. Drivers going 30-50kph consistently in a 100kph zone, people following each other like sheep, sitting in a line all going 80kph and then speeding up AS A BLOODY LINE to 110kph on the over taking lanes only to drop back to 75/80kph collectively.

Must have been the route you were on. 6 of us did Ham - Whanganui races. Traffic was great even in ran, mist and fog - not even dumb motorcyclists as per last year (2013). Then Whanganui - Palmie to Hastings all traffic travelling 90-100kms apart from a short period following a slow truck. Then over Gentle Annie where all traffic was courteous and well behaved. Then Taihape to Hams and again flowed between 85-100 km no problems. Worst driving on the whole trip was a young asian girl who moved into our lane in Palmerston North with out looking or indicating.

There are a few idiots out there but on our trip away everyone was courteous and travelling well and safe.
Thank you to all those on the road when and where we were!!

[gjm]

In the States they run a system of if you are ticketed X times they send you on a course. No idea how it works but if they had something here - $150 ticket for your offense or sit a Sat morning course (that you must pass so you can't just fuck around) what would you pick?

The UK has something similar. Most people take the course... It's not difficult and seems aimed more at awareness than skills.
However, the course leader does have discretion in requesting people take further instruction, so turning up, messing around and passing a test isn't an option.

[TheDemonLord]

Man that is a shit graph to try and compare to I see your dip in price in April 12 along with a decrease in fatalities? Case closed! There is maybe a slight trend but nothing really drastic, and again, that first graph sucks. I also see the road toll has been decreasing since the 80's http://www.transport.govt.nz/researc...alinformation/ as the petrol price has been rising, wooo, petrol price saving lives, while conveniently ignoring 1000's of other factors including the hard to explain away constant increase in population and road users?

http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/mo.../docs/2013.pdf

I'll also just leave this here....:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...nnections.html

You say you've present facts but you haven't presented shit. If you're that serious about it for some reason do it properly, get all your facts including the average distance travelled by NZ'ers in the last few years, stack it against the fuel price while also looking at what the weather was for long weekends that may have had a higher or lower number of KM's travelled than anticipated due to other numbers, major events, major road works and so on and so forth. There are just so many factors.
Putting aside new vehicle regos, KM's travelled and the weather at the very least are important factors to add to the mix.

I hope you are laying off the sour cream this holiday season, for safetys sake.

I don't like Sour Cream anyway....

I'm not going to address anything directly per se in that post - I am well aware that causation and correlation are different and the fun you can have with stats (my personal favorite is proving fire engines cause fires). the reason I am not going to address anything directly is because I stated quite explicitly:

No I am not going to commit the police fallacy and say that Petrol price is the only factor, but it certainly is A factor

[Tazz]

Each to their own. Posting up that fuel graph and a fatalities list then calling it fact is a pretty poor way to roll though, given the overall absurdity of saying you can blame a car crash on fuel prices..

I'll remember this if I have an accident. 'If it wasn't for the low petrol price this month he wouldn't have even been in my lane!'

[TheDemonLord]

Each to their own. Posting up that fuel graph and a fatalities list then calling it fact is a pretty poor way to roll though, given the overall absurdity of saying you can blame a car crash on fuel prices..

I'll remember this if I have an accident. 'If it wasn't for the low petrol price this month he wouldn't have even been in my lane!'

Well, The fuel graph is fact, the Fatality is fact, unless you wish to present your own contradicting evidence (something I have noticed you have not once done) - there is positive inverse correlation between the two and the two are related.

There is no absurdity to say that more cars on the road, driving more kilometers on account of cheap fuel is likely to lead to an increase of accidents, some of which will be fatal, therefore a higher petrol price is likely to reduce the number of cars on the road and reduce the overall kilometers driven which will likely lead to a decrease in accidents.

To clarify - I am not blaming the petrol price for car crashes, merely stating that it is a factor and as a factor it appears to be more effective at changing the road toll than the police's lower speed tolerance

As to your attempt at reducto ad absurdium if petrol was $100 a ltr, he probably wouldn't have been in your lane as he probably wouldn't be able to afford to drive - infact you probably wouldn't be on your bike either.....

[Tazz]

Well, The fuel graph is fact, the Fatality is fact, unless you wish to present your own contradicting evidence (something I have noticed you have not once done) - there is positive inverse correlation between the two and the two are related.

There is no absurdity to say that more cars on the road, driving more kilometers on account of cheap fuel is likely to lead to an increase of accidents, some of which will be fatal, therefore a higher petrol price is likely to reduce the number of cars on the road and reduce the overall kilometers driven which will likely lead to a decrease in accidents.

To clarify - I am not blaming the petrol price for car crashes, merely stating that it is a factor and as a factor it appears to be more effective at changing the road toll than the police's lower speed tolerance

As to your attempt at reducto ad absurdium if petrol was $100 a ltr, he probably wouldn't have been in your lane as he probably wouldn't be able to afford to drive - infact you probably wouldn't be on your bike either.....

If I plot the numbers of cats that have overdosed on heroin in the last few years, add one marker for a month every two years and compare it to tidy road toll data showing deaths per months for the last few years and find a correlation, can I have a cookie?

I'm not posting bullshit stats and statistics because my point was they are bullshit stats and statistics that have been fucking half arsed together. Get all your ducks in a row and I'll happily accept what you're peddling and we can put fuel prices up to stop people crashing and save the world.

[R650R]

Traffic school... yeah right, something like this would make you better????????

Someone mentioned the UK, don't know about ordinary drivers but for commercial operators they have local 'traffic commisioners'. If you get too many speed tickets or have dodgy maintenance records they limit how many vehicles you can operate, this hits way harder than fines so generally companies toe the line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJA4k9smwfE

[TheDemonLord]

If I plot the numbers of cats that have overdosed on heroin in the last few years, add one marker for a month every two years and compare it to tidy road toll data showing deaths per months for the last few years and find a correlation, can I have a cookie?

I'm not posting bullshit stats and statistics because my point was they are bullshit stats and statistics that have been fucking half arsed together. Get all your ducks in a row and I'll happily accept what you're peddling and we can put fuel prices up to stop people crashing and save the world.

No, I think you are missing the point - Cars and Petrol are complimentary goods - you use one when you use the other, so it stands to reason that a change in one will have an effect on the other. To ram this point home - imagine that there is no petrol/diesal/LPG/electricity anywhere in NZ tomorrow (so none in anyones tank either) No one can drive - the road toll would be 0 for car and motorbike related fatalities. Changes to petrol (either the price, or supply) has a direct flow on effect to cars - this is not bullshit stats or statistics. Unless you are implying that the actual data sets are bullshit (however these were sourced from reputable sources)

Now to progress the discussion - do you concede that Petrol and how we drive have direct consequences on one another? or do you believe that in the thought experiment above, somehow people would still be able to drive?

If you concede that Petrol and driving are directly related - then we can confer that the correlation we see in the 2 datasets may be one of the many factors that increase/decrease the road toll. I will grant you at this point however that yes, more study would be needed to definitively prove an absolute causal link - to the point where further discussion would be needed as to whether it needs to be controlled to reduce the road toll - however I for one would not be in favour if this, even if a direct causal link was verified and peer-reviewed.

Cats on Herion and anything to do with cars are not complimentary, they are in no way related - I get the point you are attempting to make, but since the products are not related in anyway - I may dismiss your comparisson.

However I think your last sentance gives away your hand and spirited resistance - I am not in anyway advocating or suggesting that we should change fuel prices - only stating that it is a factor that based on the data above appears to have greater impact than the police speed tolerance.

[Edbear]

Fuel prices definitely influence me. I was seriously looking at buying a Mitsubishi PHEV. But now I am considering a Falcon XR8.

[gjm]

The only thing about the fuel prices is that they were at their lowest some time before Christmas. Cynically, it could be suggested prices were hiked over Christmas (wholesale oil price hasn't really changed) in order to cash-in on all the travelling that goes on. As such... Are fuel prices during the period discussed actually all that much cheaper?

Probably find they come down again in a week or so.

[Berries]

Fuel prices definitely influence me. I was seriously looking at buying a Mitsubishi PHEV. But now I am considering a Falcon XR8.

You should try a motorcycle.

Or perhaps not according to that wanker from the TV -

He said 80 per cent of road deaths happened under the speed limit.

The remaining 20 per cent of fatalities were caused by high-risk drivers who were "almost exclusively yobbos, impaired drivers or motorcyclists - all of whom are basically immune to road safety messages"

http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/6465...tactics-failed

[Edbear]

You should try a motorcycle.

Or perhaps not according to that wanker from the TV -



http://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/6465...tactics-failed

If only my surgeon would let me!!!