More restrictions and speed limits coming up. Announcement 13 December

[Flyingpony]

I noticed a change in speed zone for a road in Chch recently.

Get this, it has gone from a 80km zone to a 30km zone

[davereid]

Accidents are caused by one thing - someone making a mistake.

Lowering speed limits gives you more time to make a decision, but that does not necessarily mean you will not make a mistake. It also tends to reduce the severity of injuries, but most of all its easy and profitable to enforce.

Alcohol is another factor in bad decisions. But last time they came up with the idea of reducing from 80 to 50mg, they couldnt find any accidents caused by people in the 50-80mg range, so it became a hard one to sell. Realistically most people who drink are either well under 80mg, and still quite capable of making good decisions, or they are past decision making and drive anyway ! So a reduction in the DD limit will be a good coffer filler, but its unlikely to reduce the road toll.

Tiredness is another major factor. Reducing speed limits is likely to increase the time of your journey. So this will get worse, not better.

General bad driving - tailgating, etc etc etc - hard to police, so will be ignored.

Road engineering is the best place to reduce the road toll. Simple thing help. For example, traffic lights are a place where a mistake can be fatal. And they are a place where sudden decions have to be made - ie the light has gone orange.. should I go thru and risk smacking that motorcyclist or should I brake hard and get rammed by the truck behind me.. Yet if replaced by a roundabout, they get much safer. And even if you make a mistake you are likely to get away with it.

Passing lanes help, people don't get to make bad decisions about passing. Central barriers help avoid head ons too.

So actually, we know how to solve the problem. But we wont do it because its too expensive. Instead we will just keep on fn around with "solutions" that we know wont work, but hey we have to be seen to be trying.

RAVE OVER

[Indiana_Jones]

One thing these people saying we need to reduce deaths forgets the fact that man wasn't meant to buzz along at 100kph+ in a cage or on a bike lol

-Indy

[Big Chim]

Heres an idea,

why don't we take whats not work and run with that,

Hang on a sec not only run with it but double our efforts on whats not working.

Bright, Real Bright

[sunhuntin]

stupid.
while i do sometimes ride quite happily at 80k, there are times when you physically cant ride at that speed. while riding from dunedin to invers, i had to ride at 110k just to keep from being blown into a ditch. do away with the learner speed too.
they say speed causes all accidents, but they never include the other surrounding factors [wet roads, drunk, windy patch etc]
my only accident i was speeding [about 5k over the limit] but would have been fine aside from the other factor, which was a car pulling out of a stop sign.
i think the orange lights should stay orange for a little longer too...very hard to slam on the brakes in the wet and stay upright.
they need to focus on the more important things [tail gating, overtaking when unsafe, following distances etc]

davereid...you raise good points towards tiredness. as above, most of my south island trip was done at about 80k, but when i arrived at my destination each night, i was always physically exhausted, even on the first day when i was still quite fresh. whether the same would have happened had i been riding at 100k, i cant tell.

[BAD DAD]

80kpa is way too slow for motorways. Most of the time 80 should be the minimum. Remember that motorways were originally built to acheive rapid transit. Part of the frustration for this rider/driver is that many people are not fully engaged in their driving and "multi-task" on the motorway, like texting, talking to and looking at their passenger rather than out of the windscreen, yapping on the cellphone while checking notes, fiddling with the radio, sortingout the baby, etc.
Driving slowly and erratically, leaving TOO much of a gap, giving way unneccesarily while hold up everyone behind, fucking about at the traffic lights when they should already be well underway, obeying the road rules to the letter while making sure every poor sod behind them ends up missing every phase of the lights, bla bla bla.
This is the sort of stuff that drives even a usually quite peacefull sort of person like myself into the blackest depths of frustration...I feel a rant coming on.

[Kickaha]

Imagine 80kph on the open road! It'd be like the 1950's again. I think it's a great idea, as my GN250 doesn't do more than 80.

the 1950's? we had a 80kmh limit in the 80's

[Ixion]

Actually, in the 50s it was 90kph. Which was actually pretty reasonable on the roads sof the day. Go find a narrow windy gravel road and blat down it at 90kph.Then see if you'd want it any faster.

But of course cops didnt have radar then,either. And the MK 1 Zephyr was only good for about 85mph.

[scumdog]

But of course cops didnt have radar then,either. And the MK 1 Zephyr was only good for about 85mph.

It sounds so much faster when you say 130kph

And with 3.9 dif and 13" tyres what d'ya expect??

[Dadpole]

the 1950's? we had a 80kmh limit in the 80's

And then my average speed would have been 120. 80 was too slow and the fines for 120 were not much more than 100. When the limit went up to 100 I slowed down.
Perverse, but true.

[Big Dave]

New restrictions could include

Blanket 80kph speed limit except for motorways.

If that happens I'm out of here. Tassie is nice. no blitz.

[padre]

Its only propaganda so everyone breathes sigh of relief on the day.

Predictions - 3rd party insurance compulsory, subsidised drriver training with "brain gym" for teens that credits to NCEA run by AA, cellphone ban, new demerit system, red light cameras, reduce trucking hours and increase regulation of industry, they'll throw a bone to the anti speed lobby - it exists - oh yes it does! And they'll throw the greenies a bone - legalise marijuana perhaps in return for their votes and responsibly using pedal power to save this rock we consort on. Sheesh - maybe it helps to be stoned under Helens rulership.

[Kickaha]

Go find a narrow windy gravel road and blat down it at 90kph.Then see if you'd want it any faster.

I have no problems hitting 120-140+ down gravel roads even on a road bike (closed private road of course)

[SlashWylde]

How sad. They have locked the figure of 300 into their brain and the population refuses to comply with their budgeted amount of road deaths per year.
The population growth may or may not have been taken into account. The state of the roads will not sway them.

This is a good point. I'd like to know where the figure of 300 comes from. I would have thought a percentage of active motorists would have been a better target.

Also this is likely to be one of those statistics which asymptotes at around the level proposed, so no matter what measures the govt implements the toll may not reduce below this level.

Personally, given our societies attitudes towards driving (and drinking etc), I'd say we've already reached that asymptote and the road toll won't go down without implementing truly draconian measures.

[Lou Girardin]

The poor blind fools are still focussed on enforcement as a cure-all.
What they aren't telling the great unwashed is that since they introduced stricter enforcement, hospitalisations have increased and the number of fatal accidents, as distinct from the number of deaths, have increased this year compared to last.
So people are crashing more but killing less often. Could this be due to safer cars and roading improvements?