Driving penalties to get tougher

[sAsLEX]

I pulled my detector apart for various irrelevant reasons. There is not much in there. I reckon one could tuck the pcb in almost anywhere, assuming the one didn't care about seeing the readout (not really an issue on bikes). But I'm not sure about the antenna thing. can it be remotely mounted and just connected with a long wire ? Does anyone know?

Big radar electronics are heavy, heavy stuff high in a ship is bad, but height is good for range so there is a rather large length of "wire"/waveguide in a few radars I have looked at.

Cant see any problem if its good qual wire and we are talking inches rather than feet seperation

[oldrider]

I pulled my detector apart for various irrelevant reasons. There is not much in there. I reckon one could tuck the pcb in almost anywhere, assuming the one didn't care about seeing the readout (not really an issue on bikes). But I'm not sure about the antenna thing. can it be remotely mounted and just connected with a long wire ? Does anyone know?

Splitting the PCB out, and putting it remotely from the antenna, and ditching the case, would make it very hard for anyone but an expert to find . Could be done if a cop REALLY wanted to, but it's not really likely

Then the issue would be the cops detector detector picking it up. The detector's detector detector detector would pick up the detector detector and alert you, and you would have to quickly switch it off with a not obvious switch (not too much of a problem on a bike I think). And I don't think they can actually search the bike. I'm sure they can't search you, so you could just have the detector in a pocket. Or even buil it into your helmet maybe?

I wonder how many false alarms the detector detecors set off? I suspect quite a few, so if a cop did ping a detector and went looking , without apparently finding anything would he just assume "false alarm".

I have often wondered that myself but in a much more abbreviated form of course. (My brain cells are dying off fast now!) John.

[sAsLEX]

And the ESM suite would have to have multiple aerials to ascertain what bearing they detected the threat and only then could they narrow it you, as I mean all of us who have run with detectors have had false alarms....... so how does the cop know it wasn't one of those? Unless he has your bearing and relative signal strength and freq identified?

[Ocean1]

Speed limiters won't be introduced at all. Privately owned personal transport will be a thing of the past and the 150 years from the 1890s to 2040 or so will be viewed as a mass delusion - humans driving privately maintained vehicles at speeds more than 50km/hr, only mere metres apart? Madness! No wonder they died in droves!

This comes very close to revealing the heart of the issue. Perhaps it's only when we can remove ourselves a bit from an issue that we gain the perspective to see it clearly.

Driving is dangerous, and increasingly so, but only in a modern context. We value safety far more than ever we used to, for good or otherwise, and that skews our asessment of risk. Reality check: our ancestors lived with far more risk every day than we see in a year. Some of them even survived to bounce their grandkids on their knee. Some of them.

Improve safety? Why not, just don't buy into the bullshit. There is a limit to how safe a human can be made and remain sane. It's heartbreaking when serious injuries occur, but it's exactly that which tends, I think, to blind us to the fact that we are by nature risk takers. It's a nescessary survival trait, barely modified since eating itself depended on it.

Removing risk takers from the roads to prevent them endangering the rest of us ain't a bad idea. But if you lower the bar beyond a certain point none of us will be driving. I think we're almost there.

And back to my threads original question.

If you fluffy tissue box does contain a radar detector wont they need a warrant to search it?

And if geeks like jrandom et al make one and hide it in various places on the bike how are the going to know what is what? I mean a cheap alarm box looks like an alarm smells like an alarm but........

Yup, if you're going to make a law you better be bloody sure it's enforced. Searching cars is no a good idea from an enforcibility point of view. Using evidence based on detector detectors is legally dodgy. I can't see it working well at all.

[Ixion]

The other thing is, if detectors are illegal. most cops will stop using instant on, cos it's more hassle. So the detector if you DO have one will be more useful.

Speaking with someone who has a "bit of knowledge" on this issue...
Cages will be able to be controlled "en-masse" within 10 years.
Driver input can be zero.

Technically,maybe. But practical realities are another matter. In 100 years, who knows. But certainly not within my lifetime.

consider. Apart from the enormous safety hoops such a scheme would have to go through , what of the existing fleet? It would be impossible to retrofit such technology (safely). And older vehicles wouldn't have the electronics that would make it possible. And if the government brought out some rule about new cars having to have it sales of new cars would plummet and everybody would buy older secondhand ones. Which would make the economics impossible - the control process wouldn't be cheap to run.

I guess some very limited variation might come along. say a roadside box that slowed down or stopped vehicles at an accident scene ? Even that is really tricky. You'd either have to control ALL vehicles on the road, or have radar on them all, so that non fitted vehicles would realise that the car in front was being stopped.

A warnng type scheme where going too fast made a siren go off or something might work. But would any government be willing to cough up the money required, for such a small return? I think not.

And of course trying to do it with bikes would be a techo nightmare. And I don't see a NZ government being able to get away with banning bikes nowdays. In the 90's they might have done it, but now there are too many middle class wealthy bike owners.

No, more likely the unspoken agenda is just to make private vehicle ownership MUCH more expensive and MUCH more difficult. So that only the rich can afford it.

The Grey Sheeple really hate seeing poor people able to come and go as they choose. They really really want the masses confined to public transport.

[Ocean1]

The Grey Sheeple really hate seeing poor people able to come and go as they choose. They really really want the masses confined to public transport.

I agree that extensive and sophistocated public transport systems are far more economically socially and technically likely, (so not very) than automotive autopilots.

And if we get to that stage would not the drop in commuter traffic make the roads safe enough to be considered a recreational facility? P'raps not, be a very expensive asset to maintain for mere entheusiasts.

[sAsLEX]

10 years ....

Well they have been working on single motorways where auto driving takes place, fairly controlled and benign environment compared to suburbia and there isnt too many of them about yet.

Throw in variables such as driveways, multiple intersections, breakdowns, road works, kids, dogs, homeless people, Green party protesters.... et al. And all of a sudden the problem of getting a car to navigate this safely has just gone up exponentially.

And are the cars self-controlling to a strict set of rules uploaded to them at the LTSA? Or do they need a communication link and be constantly monitored/controlled like some of the current systems that have wires in the roads......

10 years, if the Govt. can complete something that complex in 10 years I will instantly burst into flames and explode I guarantee!


And how many people have completed DARPA's self driving vehicle challenge. Considering the challenge has a 2 million dollar odd reward USD that is, and is about the worlds biggest robotic geek award?

[Ixion]

I..
And if we get to that stage would not the drop in commuter traffic make the roads safe enough to be considered a recreational facility? P'raps not, be a very expensive asset to maintain for mere entheusiasts.

Oh. Me likes. Wouldn't cost anything to maintain. Just get the cages off the roads and leave them alone. It would be centuries before they became unnavigable for a chook chaser.

Once the sheeple forced the plebs into public transport, they (the sheeple) wouldn't use buses. Too convenient and not regimented enough. trains would be it I reckon.

[Ocean1]

Oh. Me likes. Wouldn't cost anything to maintain. Just get the cages off the roads and leave them alone. It would be centuries before they became unnavigable for a chook chaser.

Once the sheeple forced the plebs into public transport, they (the sheeple) wouldn't use buses. Too convenient and not regimented enough. trains would be it I reckon.

Fuck that was easy. Maybe I'll go after Jim's job next year...

And yes, trains, even in a geographically wrinkley terain, are the answer. At least thay're tha answer to getting the real culprets off the road: freight.

But the investment required is simply huge, beyond the scope of any administration of the last several decades. Doesn't make the proposition wrong though, "think big" only leaves a bad taste today because the proponents of the time also "thought wrong".

Edit: Ohyez, I could live with having to ride a big adv machine, at a pinch. Almost required equipment for most of the current roads already anyway.

[Ixion]

I don't think any modern goverment could do it,in the absence of some massive external disruption, like a major war. There is just too much investment (both in terms of dollars and sociology) in the existing infrastructure.

Only someone like Hitler or Stalin could force through a change of that magnitude quickly.

But slow attrition could gradually reduce private vehicle numbers, just as they slowly increased over 60 or 70 years. Just make the car a bit more expensive, a bit more hassle, a bit more difficult to use each year.

[Ixion]

Incidentally, the new licensing rules are bound to cause a significant increase in the numbe rof young people on bikes.

Cos if you have a cage L licence, you a re stuckwith having to have the olds along with you for a whole year. What 15 year old wants *that*. And maybe even have to have Mum or Dad sign a logbook (did anyone notice that?). But with a class 6 L you can have your own independent transport, no need for a supervisor. Got to be more attractive.

Of course, the whole thing with these new rules is how will they be enforced? The cops could ticket half the vehicles in south Auckland today for licence breaches if they wanted to. Same with the 75 demerits for running a red light. Yeah, but the cops don't give a stuff about it at present, why will they in t he future? It's only speeding they'll be heavy into.

An interesting point. The new rules have obviously taken up the police position hook line and sinker. But there's one thing the police have been pushing for ages that is missing. No demerits for speed cameras. Why is that I wonder? I'm sure there would have been if the cops had wanted it . So what underhand scheme have they got up their sleeve that they're not interested in speed cameras any more ?

[Ocean1]

Swot I said. Few individuals seem capable of sustained effort towards a better life, joint efforts seem doomed from the get-go. China's doing impressive things in infrastructure, but I wouldn't want to live under such close constraints.

Not sure what the answer is, usually the only way to elicit my co-operation is to prove it's a good idea. Then I'd sign up to a long term commitment. But offering clean data on choices relating to societal issues seems to have gone out of fashion lately...

[The Stranger:Me]

Well, it's only a matter of time until they decide they have the same problem with motorcyclists.

They already do have the same problem with motorcyclists.
Many years ago for example ACC were on record as wanting motorcycles taxed off the road and lets face it they still try each year.

But thanks to your dire warnings, I have been out speeding, lane splitting, performing dangerous overtake proceedures, drinking and binning on the Coro loop etc. Best I get it out of my system before they make it illegal. You're a real champ.

Oh, hows your progression to riding instructor going?

[sAsLEX]

China's doing impressive things in infrastructure, but I wouldn't want to live under such close constraints.

Yeah they are getting a new 500MW coal fired station every week, and not one of those new clean burning ones either, the proper planet destroying ones..... and yet no one is pressuring them to utilise clean technology in their rush to catch up to the "developed" world.

Meanwhile NZ will be having blackouts next winter.

[jafar]

And yes, trains, even in a geographically wrinkley terain, are the answer. At least thay're tha answer to getting the real culprets off the road: freight.

Next time you go shopping, tell the shopkeeper that you will only purchase things that didn't make the journey by road. Your diet of fuck all & fresh air will be of great benefit to your waistline.
The things in your house or business didn't get there on a train.