THE EMPIRE
Ok so I want to preface this with a couple of points,
Firstly I have the utmost respect for the police and the job they do, I can’t imagine its fun a lot of the time and this is in no way an attack on the police in general. Second point is this isn’t just a rant cause I got a ticket, which I did.. I broke the law and I have to pay for it I entirely understand that and will pay the price.
The problem lay when, Getting a ticket is supposed to be a “lesson” like, hey mate you were going too fast back there, gimme ya hard earnt money and let this be a lesson that should you be caught again doing this then you would have to give me even more of your moneys!
” Police are promising a “highly visible presence on the nation’s roads”, as part of a road safety campaign that will focus strongly on impaired driving and other high risk behaviour. ”
— via Stuff.co.nz
however I fail to see what lesson can be learnt from a lowering of the speeding ticketable tolerance over the summer period, in fact I didn’t even know at the time that it was in action.. Of course I knew about it seeing all the posts about ” revenue gathering” which to be fair makes quite a bit of sense.. No one likes getting a ticket, even a $30 ticket is a couple hours work for most people to pay off.
Why has the tolerance been 10km/h usually? well,
” Australian and European Design Rules require a vehicle’s true speed must not be higher than the speed indicated by the speedometer. Changing Tyre heights (profiles) may impact on speedometer readings, so everyone should ensure that the tyre specifications are those set by the vehicle manufacturer or have the speedo re calibrated on their vehicle. ”
– comment from our survey
— so why is speedo accuracy not a warrant check if it is such a critical road danger?
So I’m going to assume this means that when you change the wheels on your car or your tires are due replacing, the speedo reading has changed? that’s interested as when I had my old car fitted with a 8% ish larger overall diameter I wasn’t informed that I should have my speedo re calibrated? so in that I assume most people aren’t told this? Infact I’ve not heard ever of anyone I know having re calibrated their speedo, what I do hear a lot more of is tracking speed via GPS which tends to be slightly less than what speeods read.
But lets for a moment assume that the main reason isn’t to gather money from people that drift over the 4km/h tolerance for a moment, but is actually to reduce the risk of accidents by way of speed?
I did some digging and couldn’t find any published results about the speeds at which accidents occur, however I would suspect the amount of accidents that occur between 105 and 109km/h are very few. But if this is the case, Why did the roll toll increase after a summer of lower tolerance? What is it about driving in NZ that makes things so dangerous?
Well,
As far as I can tell, having been doing the drive from Tauranga to Auckland on a very regular basis for some months now. Things I’ve seen the most that have been near misses and things that puckered up my butthole on the road have almost entirely been people making dangerous passes because they are stuck behind someone going significantly less than the speed limit and holding up traffic.. Is this a crime? well actually yes it can be ticketed for..
I was driving my usual jaunt up to the big smoke just last week, for most of the drive I was sat behind people ranging from speeds between 90 km/h to as low as 60km/h on open roads. Now I’m a fairly relaxed driver I’m quite content to sit behind whoever is in front and crank some music and just get on with getting on to get there in one piece.. It’s rare that I’ll even pass cars as I find it difficult to find suitable places to pass on the many windy roads with blind corners on that drive, so I’ll be ok waiting till a passing lane.. ( insert rant about people who speed up from 70km/h to 110km/h in a passing lane here)
Anywho I had just passed ( not in a passing lane) a small car doing around 70km/h on perfectly safe roads to cruise at the speed limit, there was a tail of traffic behind us and we had been passed as a group by 2 cars already. I passed, got up to about 115/120 to scoot around then back into my lane and back onto snooze control at 100km/h .. Came around a corner and over a crest and my snooze control let the car creep up to what the officer said was 107, which I find hard to believe but whats the point in arguing …
I questioned the officer in a polite way, asked if he was pulling people over that were holding up traffic, he said he had, I further asked how many tickets he had issued that day for people doing 15km/h less or more than the speed limit he said none… which made me ask our following on social media, a survey showed that 2 people had been pulled over for going ” too slow” neither of which were ticketed and in contrast over 30 had been ticketed between 104 and 109km/h including myself. which seems to me to be unbalanced when it comes to educating the driving population about what is or isn’t safe on our roads.
Now Just yesterday I was driving to the waikato to a friends birthday party, coming up to the Tahuna roundabout.. There is a police car 2 cars up and had been for some time so it was a nice cruise as speed was consistent bang on 100km/h … but then.. Party lights go on and the cop pulls to the left.. and with 2 cars right behind him swings a U-Turn right in front of us causing the car in front of me to lock up and skid for some distance and I wasn’t far off behind ( yes yes we were at a safe following distance) but what this shows is that the people we trust to keep us safe can actually be just as dangerous as those that travel 5% over the posted speed limit.. I’m gona assume he didn’t ticket himself…
What about statistics? – I’ve been looking for a while to find it, but there was an article end of last summer showing that the lower tolerances hadn’t equated to less road deaths, High speed, alcohol and user error are still the major reasons for deaths in this country.. and we’re focused on this small number like its going to make a difference?
There are so many more pressing things we could do to improve road safety but we seem to be aimed at low hanging fruit to make that money?
Driver skill in this country is abismal, Every single time I drive in Tauranga through a round about, someone fucks it up to a point where its almost been an accident, personally I’m looking forward to my front bumper being resprayed but my point is, people in this country are not taught how to drive, but how to pass a test, same with schools but that’s a rant for another day. Point being is there is so much more to driving than ” can you indicate correctly for a 3 point turn” or “do you know what this obscure road sign means”? where we should be teaching things like how to read other drivers and what happens to your car when you go through a corner too fast, to the body roll, the weight shift things like that..
Now I encourage everyone to be safe on the roads, but how about the people that monitor this stuff? from the Nzherald site..
” Staff at the agency charged with making our roads safer have been caught illegally hooning in work cars at least 8500 times in nine months – twice at 145km/h – and not one will get a ticket.
The speeding staff at the NZ Transport Agency include a member of the senior leadership team and a handful of managers. ”
” Data showed that NZTA cars exceeded the 100km/h speed limit 34,000 times in nine months and went over 110km/h on 2000 occasions. ”
SO this means its totally safe if you work for NZTA?
The biggest problem I have seen on the road is people passing dangerously, mostly due to people doing much less than the speed limit, holding up traffic.. I’ve seen so many near misses in the few months I’ve been back n forth to Auckland, even just yesterday, a 4×4 passing 3 cars on a bend and then a truck over a blind crest.. could have easily been another statistic.. those guys need the book thrown at them 100% but what about people passing tractors? trucks? people towing? people that are taking selfies doing 60km/h? they should be able to pass right?
Anyway, this could go on for hours, I just feel like the 4km/h tolerance is unreasonable and isn’t doing anything to help the road toll other than making the man some extra money..
Stay safe out there people, happy travels
– Nick
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