Do we have an excess of road policing in New Zealand?

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#1352936 27-Jul-2015 22:11

scuwp:

Unregistered cars are nothing to do with safety. It's a tax

Agreed. But cars that haven't been warranted for years most definitely are. Particularly if its a rusty old bomb, like the one I was referring to. It means that things like structural rust, tyres and brakes are likely not up to the minimum required to be able to deal with stopping suddenly etc.

And, if they are going to go hard on speed, I wish they would go hard on slow drivers as well - particularly riding the outside lane at 70 or less. I saw that the other weekend, the proverbial old man in a cap driving a Skoda, who probably thought they were the safest and most responsible driver on the road. Meanwhile frustrated drivers were doing crazy things to get round them.

I also note that some commentators here seem to think that people who litigate the effort devoted to speed traps are just personally upset at being ticketed. I think the excessive focus on speed/revenue is misguided. And, for the record, in my several decades on the roads I have amassed a grand total of zero speeding tickets. So hopefully my view is a fairly objective one.

RUKI

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#1353376 28-Jul-2015 13:58

Enough or not enough road police is subjective to what one expects them to do.

Highway Patrol and Dog Squad quarters are in Ellerslie, Auckland. Should be enough law enforcement for the area? Should be... Or is it?

Every day dozens (literally and that is only during few seconds I stop there and observe them passing) of impatient idiots are overtaking small road island driving on the other side of the road …creating straight head on collision risks. Never saw an officer near that place...!

Am I wrongly expecting road police to do anythign about it? Or there should be some postmortem article in the NZHerald so that they will pay attention to another deadly spot on our roads - just 8 km from the Auckland Central Police station and 1 km from the Road Police headquaters?

gzt

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#1353994 29-Jul-2015 05:14

It may be wrong to expect they are aware of the issue and the seriousness of it. Have you considered notifying of the safety concern?

RUKI

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#1354122 29-Jul-2015 09:17

gzt: It may be wrong to expect they are aware of the issue and the seriousness of it. Have you considered notifying of the safety concern?

In the Central Office the guy said - that is not his area. Since then noticed him doing breath checks in Muriwai. That is 35 kms further away from his area vs that deadly spot.

P.S.
Auckland transport reacted to the safety consern on the same road in 24 hours and sent contractor to fill in the hole in the footpath.
Just wonder if that road safety issue were brough up with the Auckland Transport instead of Police - would there be any traction at all...

Geese

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#1354661 29-Jul-2015 17:20

WyleECoyoteNZ: A better approach to road safety in my opinion, is to limit new drivers to a lower cc rating of car, similar to the conditions applied to learner motorbike riders…as a learner rider I think you’re limited to 125cc machines, still plenty quick, yes, but not a 1000cc monster.

The limit before 2012 was 250cc, but since then is 650cc (power to weight). I've had my full licence since 1997, but never bought anything bigger than 250cc becaused of increased difficulty selling down the track. But now I can buy a 500/650 and anyone with a learners can buy it :)

Geektastic

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#1355595 30-Jul-2015 22:35

Technofreak: Recently I drove over 3000 km in the US. One thing that stood out to me was the number (or rather lack there of compared to NZ) of highway patrol vehicles. We would have lucky to see one highway patrol per 500 km.

I also noticed a similar thing in Australia last year where their police presence on the highways was far far lower than we have here.

Also while there were plenty of signs warning of radar speed traps we never saw any. The norm seemed to be that 10 mph (16 kph) over the limit was quite acceptable, in fact unless you did that speed you were in danger of holding up the traffic flow. Remember some limits were up to 75 mph (120 kph),

This all made me think about how things are here in New Zealand. We certainly seem to be very highly policed on our roads here and our speed limits are very rigidly enforced compared to some other parts of the world.

Are we being "over policed" on our roads? Could these rescouces be better utilised?

Go and take a drive on UK roads if you think speed limits are over enforced in NZ!!

I see perhaps one police car a week in the Wairarapa.

My commute to the office in the Uk took 40 minutes and offered me enough speed cameras that if I broke the limit all the way there I would have been disqualified by the time I reached the office car park!

Technofreak

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#1355690 31-Jul-2015 08:51

Geektastic:

I see perhaps one police car a week in the Wairarapa.

Where do you live? I'm betting not in a main centre. I saw 8 plus a mobile speed camera on my return drive to AA yesterday. That's one every 30 km or so mostly on dual carriageways with median strips/barriers.

Contrast that with a recent trip of 600 km on single carriageway state highways with no median barriers where I saw two to three police cars. One every 200 km or so.

There's certainly an imbalance in the way our roads are policed. Perhaps I should have headed the thread, "Do we have an excess of road policing on some roads in New Zealand?

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#1355694 31-Jul-2015 08:54

Geektastic:
Technofreak: Recently I drove over 3000 km in the US. One thing that stood out to me was the number (or rather lack there of compared to NZ) of highway patrol vehicles. We would have lucky to see one highway patrol per 500 km.

I also noticed a similar thing in Australia last year where their police presence on the highways was far far lower than we have here.

Also while there were plenty of signs warning of radar speed traps we never saw any. The norm seemed to be that 10 mph (16 kph) over the limit was quite acceptable, in fact unless you did that speed you were in danger of holding up the traffic flow. Remember some limits were up to 75 mph (120 kph),

This all made me think about how things are here in New Zealand. We certainly seem to be very highly policed on our roads here and our speed limits are very rigidly enforced compared to some other parts of the world.

Are we being "over policed" on our roads? Could these rescouces be better utilised?

Go and take a drive on UK roads if you think speed limits are over enforced in NZ!!

I see perhaps one police car a week in the Wairarapa.

My commute to the office in the Uk took 40 minutes and offered me enough speed cameras that if I broke the limit all the way there I would have been disqualified by the time I reached the office car park!

its the ones you don't see that will get you speeding through the back roads around Gladstone and the wild west aka Featherston

Geektastic

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#1357728 3-Aug-2015 12:41

MikeB4:
Geektastic:
Technofreak: Recently I drove over 3000 km in the US. One thing that stood out to me was the number (or rather lack there of compared to NZ) of highway patrol vehicles. We would have lucky to see one highway patrol per 500 km.

I also noticed a similar thing in Australia last year where their police presence on the highways was far far lower than we have here.

Also while there were plenty of signs warning of radar speed traps we never saw any. The norm seemed to be that 10 mph (16 kph) over the limit was quite acceptable, in fact unless you did that speed you were in danger of holding up the traffic flow. Remember some limits were up to 75 mph (120 kph),

This all made me think about how things are here in New Zealand. We certainly seem to be very highly policed on our roads here and our speed limits are very rigidly enforced compared to some other parts of the world.

Are we being "over policed" on our roads? Could these rescouces be better utilised?

Go and take a drive on UK roads if you think speed limits are over enforced in NZ!!

I see perhaps one police car a week in the Wairarapa.

My commute to the office in the Uk took 40 minutes and offered me enough speed cameras that if I broke the limit all the way there I would have been disqualified by the time I reached the office car park!

its the ones you don't see that will get you speeding through the back roads around Gladstone and the wild west aka Featherston

Curiously they won't. I don't speed.

I do, however, keep my doors locked when driving in Featherston!

Geektastic

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#1357729 3-Aug-2015 12:42

Technofreak:
Geektastic:

I see perhaps one police car a week in the Wairarapa.

Where do you live? I'm betting not in a main centre. I saw 8 plus a mobile speed camera on my return drive to AA yesterday. That's one every 30 km or so mostly on dual carriageways with median strips/barriers.

Contrast that with a recent trip of 600 km on single carriageway state highways with no median barriers where I saw two to three police cars. One every 200 km or so.

There's certainly an imbalance in the way our roads are policed. Perhaps I should have headed the thread, "Do we have an excess of road policing on some roads in New Zealand?

That is just a waste when Gatso cameras will do the job, rain or shine, with no salary, no ACC and so on.

MikeB4

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#1357771 3-Aug-2015 13:49

Geektastic:
Curiously they won't. I don't speed.

I do, however, keep my doors locked when driving in Featherston!

Only time we stop in Featherston is to visit the specialty cheese shop.

Geektastic

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#1360020 6-Aug-2015 14:11

MikeB4:
Geektastic:
Curiously they won't. I don't speed.

I do, however, keep my doors locked when driving in Featherston!

Only time we stop in Featherston is to visit the specialty cheese shop.

Moi aussi. C'est Cheese is a good shop with a mildly amusing name.

Bung

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#1360028 6-Aug-2015 14:29

I see that the current Assistant Commissioner Road Policing has been seconded to CERA. Does that mean that they've realised recycling old policies that didn't work that well in the past isn't working?

andrew027

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#1360061 6-Aug-2015 15:23

I don't think we have an excess of road policing, I just think our policing is too focused on just two things: speed and drunk driving. Don't get me wrong - people should drive sober and within the limits but almost every day I see near misses, sometimes accidents, caused by people who don't seem to know basic road rules, or don't think they apply to them.

I'm talking about people who don't indicate, or indicate incorrectly at roundabouts, or don't give way, or drive at 85 in a 100 zone but speed up to 100 when they get to the overtaking lane, or dive at 70 in a 50 zone then stay at 70 when they get to a 80 or 100 zone, or drive well under the limit but don't pull over to let others pass, or any one of a dozen other things. I see people doing these things while police are around all the time but they never seem to get stopped for them. Do the police just not notice, do they not care, or are they told not to bother? My personal opinion (no science to back this up) is that if police focused more on some of these "minor" driver behaviours it would help improve the standard of driving overall, and have a roll-on effect to better habits with "big ticket" items, e.g. speeding, running red lights, etc. - a bit like the old saying: Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.

Many years ago while living in South Australia, the police there ran a campaign over several months that had a noticeable affect. Each week they chose one thing to focus on, and announced publicly (newspapers, radio stations) what that thing was, then they blitzed it for the week; Not wearing seat belts, driving too fast in a school zone (or through roadworks), not indicating, turning from the wrong lane at a roundabout, driving at night without lights on, whatever... Police paid extra attention to the "law of the week" and if you were caught, you were fined. No exceptions, no excuses. Over time it proved an effective way of having drivers learn (or re-learn) basic, important, road rules and results suggested people continued driving according to those rules long after the particular week was up.

RUKI

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#1378026 2-Sep-2015 08:20

Finally, the message came through. Police officer was standing at that hot spot as of this morning. Good job.

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