Lost in the rush

[scumdog]

It's not always about you..

(In best olde comedy voice: "Oh yes it is".

This is KB - it's ALWAYS about 'me'.

[cooneyr]

........To that end, how's about getting rid of that kamikaze left-turn-right-turn rule that Victoria introduced (erroneously, they've since revoked it) and NZ copied and still persist with in the face of all the evidence internationally?

........ "I can drive like shit as long as it is 100km/h or lower." Good driving is not enforced nor encouraged; the holy grail of speeding revenue is persecuted with a vengeance, all other sins are ignored (except alcohol, which has a solid argument).

Dont start this man - I had to listen to an hour of his ausi ramblings on these topics amongst others. Problem what I agreed whole heartily (especially on the second point quoted above) and he still wouldn't shut up!

If you ask me (no dont) I reckon poor basic skills is the biggest issue and it is not being enforced as it is too objective and hard to prosecute. Speed, alcohol, fatigue etc are just contributing factors that can result in dangerous driving.

The weekend and holiday thing is easy to explain - more entropy. More of the car drivers and doing different things hence traffic conditions are more chaotic. There often is less cars on the road but the greater entropy means the roading network operates in a crappier state.

I analysis Police traffic crash reports for a crust (traffic and transportation engineer). It is often obvious the factors they are pushing but they mostly include the real details, i.e. failing to look, distracted, to hot into a corner etc. There are 86 basic crash types codes and in the order of 900 cause codes i.e. alcohol, diverted attention etc etc. Interesting thing is that on the lists to pic from the speed ones occupy the second block and contribute a sum total of 10.

Speed might kill but that doesnt mean it is the cause of the crash in the first place. Common engineering knowledge Traffic signals have higher speeds associated with them than roundabouts yet roundabouts have more crashes. Net result roundabouts have less serious but more crashes. Now I'm not saying that we should get rid of all signal either OK!

Cheers R

[rwh]

Speeding and/or drink driving are components in just about every serious or fatal accident we attend, it's not rocket science to figure that if you remove those variables, things will be a lot more pleasant on the road.

Given your job, I assume that motor vehicles are components of nearly all those accidents. Removing those would cut down the road toll hugely. I guess rockets aren't, so rocket science is probably useless, but you might need to at least use some kind of science.

Richard

[vifferman]

Speed does kill, so does drinking and driving.

Could you at least please not talk/write in simplistic advertising slogans?

How about: "driving at an inappropriate speed for the conditions increases the risk of possible injury or death".
Yes, I'm a pedantrist, but I know what I like, and it's not sloganeering and propaganda.

[warewolf]

especially the "I am the uber biker and will travel and what speed I like, for as long as I like and drink when I like" brigade.

No-one is saying that at all, nor trying to debate Newtonian physics that "speed kills". We are annoyed that an inappropriate focus on "speeding" does more harm than good.

[Usarka]

Get your head out of the sand guys. Speed does kill, so does drinking and driving. They are all too often ingredients in what turns out to be a bloody mess on our roads.

I told a story on here a while ago, was following a car that lost control on a corner in maramurua. Under the posted speed limit, and the corner was more than suitable for taking at 100kph. It was a hairs width between an oncoming car that it wasn't a head on and I could have been collected in the carnage.

The woman driving:
1. Speed NO (I was behind her doing 95kph)
2. Alcohol NO (the cops turned up pretty quick and tested her)
3. Fatigue NO (she looked awake when i saw her)
4. Inattention NO (I was following and she was watching the road)
5. Mechanical NO (car was fine, albeit a crappy daihatsu).

I'd just been riding at speeds of up to 1xx km/hr on quiet roads with plenty of visibility, slowing down for hazards. I'd committed sin number one but evidence proves that day I was the safer driver/rider. Sure if I'd hit something at 120 instead the mess would have been higher than at 100, but it would also have been higher than 80, 60, 40 or even 20.

[yungatart]

Get your head out of the sand guys. Speed does kill, so does drinking and driving. They are all too often ingredients in what turns out to be a bloody mess on our roads.

Speed does not kill! If what you say is true, then allthe astronauts who ever left Earth's orbit would be dead. Their speed far exceeds anything a car or bike can produce.
Inappropriate speed, however, does kill.
So does inattention, lack of skill, fatigue, drug or alcohol addled brains, failure to keep left ....
the focus in NZ is on speed because it is easy to police and gathers in large amounts of revenue. The powers that be want you to believe that speed and alcohol are the only demons...you, my friend, have swallowed their BS, hook, line and sinker.

[rwh]

Not at all. Someone who runs a machine capable of in excess of double the speed limit , but condemns others for exceeding it does not command much credbility.

And I never believe those folk who possess high performance machines and claim "oh but I never use it". Yeah, right. Tui , anyone.

Someone on a GN250 who says "I never break the speed limit, and I condemn those that do", I will accept this views as valid (wrong, but valid).

But someone who never rides at > 100kph, yet has a bike capable of double that is either running with both the hare and the hounds, or a poser. He either does himself exceed 100kph , while condemning others for it; or he wants observers to think he does.

Can't agree with this line of reasoning. Yes my bike (when running) is capable of over 200k, yes I've done it. That does not imply that that's the reason I bought it. Even if you never went above 100km/h, would you really want a bike/car that couldn't? If the engine was only powerful enough to get you to the limit, it would be doing so pretty slowly - wasting time and causing a hazard. Imagine trying to pull onto the motorway in one of the shorter acceleration lanes, when there aren't many decent gaps.

Ok we may all go a bit quicker than the law allows at times, and many of us might want those speeds to be legal, but that doesn't justify using the capabilities of the bike to judge the person. The logic doesn't stack up.

Richard

[scumdog]

[B].
Inappropriate speed, however, does kill..

Uh, no.... inappropriate stopping does the killing.

Ya need to have speed before you can stop, inappropriately or otherwise.

[car]

not being enforced as it is too objective and hard to prosecute

Good old arbitrary limits, however they might mask the complexity of the situation, are much easier to enforce.

[Matt_TG]

Uh, no.... inappropriate stopping does the killing.

Ya need to have speed before you can stop, inappropriately or otherwise.

Yeah, that's what i was getting at... when you go too fast you also stop too fast if you hit something. Add in piss and tom foolery into the mix and she's all shits and giggles for sure.

Speed all ya like, of course it's your right to. Don't worry about the other idiots on the road, it's their right to drink and drive. Right.

Do they not do a common sense gene anymore?

[Hitcher]

That article is just about the biggest pile of steaming BS I've ever wandered across!

Don't play the anecdotal game. Where's your data?

As for the Australian article? I could kiss its author for a well crafted and reasoned article. I await with interest somebody submitting credible data to refute his assumptions.

[swbarnett]

He's analysing numbers to form his opinion, and I'm actually out there seeing it first hand to form my own.

No, he's analysing numbers with no preformed opinion to see what falls out the bottom. Rather like a cook throwing a couple of ingredients together to see what they taste like. The trouble is that you're interpreting your every day experiences and drawing conclusions that are based on suspect observation.

Something from my earlier school years to illustrate the point:

"A scientist hung a piece of meat in their garden and watched it for a week from their kitchen window what. They concluded that the meat underwent a metamorphosis and turned into flies."

Today we all know that the conclusion was flawed because the observation was insufficient. A closer inspection of the meat over the week would have revealed the true story. It's the same problem when we try to interpret anecdotal evidence. The conclusions you draw are what you think might be happening but until you conduct a proper scientific study that can stand up to the intense scrutiny of a peer review prior to publication you don't really know anything with any degree of certainty.

This is why I don't think what you say has much credibility. Not because of the bike you ride. Hell, if truth be told most owners of 200km/h+ bikes probably bought them for the acceleration anyway (just my opinion, I haven't studied this).

What you say is just opinion and does not have weight just because you happen to see the accidents first hand.

[vifferman]

I told a story on here a while ago, was following a car that lost control on a corner in maramurua. Under the posted speed limit, and the corner was more than suitable for taking at 100kph. It was a hairs width between an oncoming car that it wasn't a head on and I could have been collected in the carnage.

Hmmm...
I would venture to guess (without knowing any more than what you've posted here) that in this case the woman lost control because she was going too fast for the conditions (these being her ability to handle that particular corner in that particular car at that time). Another driver might have been fine, or maybe the car had some minor defect(s) not readily apparent, that contributed, like a worn or underinflated tyre or tyres, sub-optimal suspension and/or steering, etc. Maybe she was momentarily distracted and instead of 'finessing' the car around the corner she jerked the steering wheel and overcorrected?
Or maybe it was just an act of Satan. Let's blame him - he doesn't get enough credit for the shit that happens in the world.

In any case, assuming this had resulted in an collision, what conclusions would the crash investigators have drawn? Once again assuming, I reckon it would be very difficult for them to ascertain the facts and cause. Would it just end up in a "one size fits all" box? How does this work?
As humans we want simplistic and snug answers, particularly if they match our own personal gut feelings, predispositional biases, vision of reality or whatever.

[SPman]

An interesting article. Bill Tuckey has been around cars all his life and has seen a lot. What he brings up, is really common sense and obvious to anyone with half a brain (which excludes most politicians - particularly Aussie politicos..)
I think what Monsterbishi and others who actually work on the roads sees, is the utter arrogance a lot of road users display about their "god given right" to have unimpeded access to all roadways, at whatever speed they want, despite and regardless of conditions (roadworks, rain, sleet, livestock, traffic,etc etc).
You really have to work on, or next to, a (particularly) main road,to see driver stupidity in all its unfettled glory. The anecdotes come thick and fast......