Poor driving habits getting worse amongst kiwi drivers

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#1923828 23-Dec-2017 04:59

MikeB4:

If folks don't like getting speeding tickets the answer is oh so simple. DON'T SPEED! Until the road safety cameras stop generating fines their need remains.

When I was a rep I used a highend radar detector this also helps.

kryptonjohn

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#1924126 23-Dec-2017 15:59

MikeB4:
If folks don't like getting speeding tickets the answer is oh so simple. DON'T SPEED! Until the road safety cameras stop generating fines their need remains.

That's not an argument if the law is an ass.

Geektastic

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#1925796 27-Dec-2017 17:26

No photos, but this morning I was turning right at one of the most dangerous junctions in the Wairarapa.

I waited patiently as there was a lot of traffic on SH 2 which we were joining.

Eventually a safe gap arrived and I pulled out and across.

Only to find the white Porsche Cayenne Turbo which was behind me screeching past on my right in a cloud of tyre smoke.

Insane. If I'd booted it to get out, I would have driven straight into him.

Aredwood

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#1925811 27-Dec-2017 18:10

Geektastic:
Absolutely 100% agree.

It is high time that a minimum professional training requirement was introduced. Compare us with somewhere like Germany - there, parents never teach children to drive, you MUST go to a driving school. You must also pass a First Aid qualification in addition to the usual eye tests and so forth. Just one example.

It just isn't taken seriously enough here.

Agree also on the need for better driving training. But it also needs to include compulsory practical testing of existing drivers. Otherwise any policies of tougher tests for only new drivers, will take approx 50-100 years to get the full benefit. As it would take that long for existing drivers to die due to old age. But the baby boomers would oppose it, so it won't happen. Look at the number of complaints from people who resented having to give up their so called lifetime paper licences, and then get a photo licence.

But various governments have made it harder to get your licence initially, without doing anything to retrain those drivers who got their license 50 years ago. When the test was driving round the block in a quiet country town. But making the min driving age 16. Has just increased youth unemployment without any benefit to road safety.

blakamin

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#1925812 27-Dec-2017 18:12

I was looking at the road toll of two comparably sized places where most of the population lives in a city over xmas:

Victoria, Australia, Pop 5.8million

and

NZ.

Both have hills, country roads, tourists, crappy roads, snow, sun, congestion, small, medium and large cities.

Victoria has current "Lives Lost" = 252 (they no longer call it a "toll" as a toll is the price you pay to drive on a road, and a life is not a price to pay).

NZ is on 368 as of December 22, and from what I can gather, 7 have died since then.

Makes you think about the level of driving skill....

Fred99

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#1925932 28-Dec-2017 09:06

blakamin:

I was looking at the road toll of two comparably sized places where most of the population lives in a city over xmas:

Victoria, Australia, Pop 5.8 million and NZ.

Both have hills, country roads, tourists, crappy roads, snow, sun, congestion, small, medium and large cities.

Victoria has current "Lives Lost" = 252 (they no longer call it a "toll" as a toll is the price you pay to drive on a road, and a life is not a price to pay).

NZ is on 368 as of December 22, and from what I can gather, 7 have died since then.

Makes you think about the level of driving skill....

...also makes you think about the effectiveness of penalties kept low to appease people accusing police of "revenue gathering".

Our fines and penalties are not even close to being high enough. That just encourages contempt for laws. Speed camera penalties need to include demerit points.

Technofreak

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#1926079 28-Dec-2017 12:28

Aredwood:
Geektastic:

Absolutely 100% agree.

It is high time that a minimum professional training requirement was introduced. Compare us with somewhere like Germany - there, parents never teach children to drive, you MUST go to a driving school. You must also pass a First Aid qualification in addition to the usual eye tests and so forth. Just one example.

It just isn't taken seriously enough here.

Agree also on the need for better driving training. But it also needs to include compulsory practical testing of existing drivers. Otherwise any policies of tougher tests for only new drivers, will take approx 50-100 years to get the full benefit. As it would take that long for existing drivers to die due to old age. But the baby boomers would oppose it, so it won't happen. Look at the number of complaints from people who resented having to give up their so called lifetime paper licences, and then get a photo licence.

But various governments have made it harder to get your licence initially, without doing anything to retrain those drivers who got their license 50 years ago. When the test was driving round the block in a quiet country town. But making the min driving age 16. Has just increased youth unemployment without any benefit to road safety.

I'm not sure I'd agree with your logic about newer drivers being better than older drivers because the current training and testing requirements are apparently "better". Some of the stories I've heard about what's taught by professional driving instructors and how some tests are conducted give me no confidence about the standard of newly minted drivers. They might know the rules and indicate at the correct times but that's about it.

As for compulsory testing of existing drivers or tougher driving tests, I cannot see many real benefits coming from that. Defensive driving courses would be of far better value.

I do agree with you re the minimum driving age.

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blakamin

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#1926157 28-Dec-2017 14:01

Fred99:

...also makes you think about the effectiveness of penalties kept low to appease people accusing police of "revenue gathering".

Our fines and penalties are not even close to being high enough. That just encourages contempt for laws. Speed camera penalties need to include demerit points.

Good point.. Victoria has massive fines, South Aussie even higher! SA road toll is about 100 (up 16 and 3 times more motorcyclists than last year tho), and if you're doing 5-10 over, they don't care, unless you're being stupid or in the hills (very narrow winding roads like NZ, but with huge gumtrees just off the edge).

Oh, most of our main suburban roads are 60k/ph, purely residential and some shopping districts are 50.... Maybe changing that would stop some speeding in NZ.

And here's an interesting table for those saying young drivers don't learn properly. From SAPOL

P-platers are like restricted drivers, and the 4 light columns are the last 4 years and the dark is the average.

Technofreak

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#1926200 28-Dec-2017 15:41

blakamin:

And here's an interesting table for those saying young drivers don't learn properly. From SAPOL

P-platers are like restricted drivers, and the 4 light columns are the last 4 years and the dark is the average.

So far as the training and testing argument goes that doesn't prove anything with respect to New Zealand unless the the training and testing processes are compared between the two places.

Secondly fatalities especially in the over 70's will be impacted by health issues either by causing the accident and or by causing complications after the accident resulting in a death precipitated by an accident.

I'd like to see the figures for the drivers in the lines above the 60-69 line. Why did you cut that off?

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blakamin

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#1926201 28-Dec-2017 15:50

Technofreak:

blakamin:

And here's an interesting table for those saying young drivers don't learn properly. From SAPOL

P-platers are like restricted drivers, and the 4 light columns are the last 4 years and the dark is the average.

So far as the training and testing argument goes that doesn't prove anything with respect to New Zealand unless the the training and testing processes are compared between the two places.

Secondly fatalities especially in the over 70's will be impacted by health issues either by causing the accident and or by causing complications after the accident resulting in a death precipitated by an accident.

I'd like to see the figures for the drivers in the lines above the 60-69 line. Why did you cut that off?

The SAPOL link has all of them...

I cut it off because I was comparing old drivers to new, not-fully-licenced drivers.

Here ya go... Now look at the 4 year average and see who's the bad drivers... One's that think they know it all... I'm in one of those groups.

Technofreak

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#1926215 28-Dec-2017 17:01

Thanks for the rest of the info. The 40 to 49 figure is a little surprising

I note that the younger age groups are not in 10 year groupings which I think skews the average in that table somewhat. If you look at the 10 year age group 4 year averages

20 to 29 - 19
30 to 39 - 11
40 to 49 - 15
50 to 59 - 8
60 to 69 - 11

If you do a 9 year group based on 16 to 24 the average is 16, factored to a 10 year age bracket the figure is 17.78 (round figures 18).

I'm not sure those figures do actually prove younger drivers are any better than other age groups. In fact from those figures alone you could argue the younger drivers are worse.

To get a truly accurate picture you need to also know the number of drivers in each age group and the amount and type of driving (city/open road/dual carriage ways with barriers etc) each group of drivers does before you can really come up with definitive figures.

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blakamin

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#1926247 28-Dec-2017 17:43

Technofreak:

Thanks for the rest of the info. The 40 to 49 figure is a little surprising

I note that the younger age groups are not in 10 year groupings which I think skews the average in that table somewhat. If you look at the 10 year age group 4 year averages

20 to 29 - 19
30 to 39 - 11
40 to 49 - 15
50 to 59 - 8
60 to 69 - 11
If you do a 9 year group based on 16 to 24 the average is 16, factored to a 10 year age bracket the figure is 17.78 (round figures 18).

I'm not sure those figures do actually prove younger drivers are any better than other age groups. In fact from those figures alone you could argue the younger drivers are worse.

To get a truly accurate picture you need to also know the number of each drivers in each age group and the amount and type of driving (city/open road/dual carriage ways with barriers etc) each group of drivers does before you can really come up with definitive figures.

In SA "medical episode" isn't part of the road toll.

If you look at the link, and google the regions, it might help some more... Victoria stats are more comprehensive but I just put these here as they're local to me, and I found them interesting. The reason young drivers aren't in 10y groups is the p-plate thing, I'd say, just from the reports on TV.

Here's another thing... In Oz, we still have "accidents". NZ has a habit of assigning blame to a driver and charging them with "careless driving" even if it was unavoidable. Here, a blown tyre is an accident....

Or someone (restricted with 4 passengers) driving up to the rear of a reversing truck, stopping behind it, and not getting out of the way, while the truck had flashing orange lights, hazards on, and a reverse beeper, and got run into at 5k/ph, gets away with it, and the truck driver gets charged with "careless driving". (yes, I'm still bitter about that, and the fact the cop had no idea about commercial vehicles)

Fred99

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#1926258 28-Dec-2017 19:19

blakamin:

Good point.. Victoria has massive fines, South Aussie even higher! SA road toll is about 100 (up 16 and 3 times more motorcyclists than last year tho), and if you're doing 5-10 over, they don't care, unless you're being stupid or in the hills (very narrow winding roads like NZ, but with huge gumtrees just off the edge).

Oh, most of our main suburban roads are 60k/ph, purely residential and some shopping districts are 50.... Maybe changing that would stop some speeding in NZ.

I drove around Melbourne last year. Notable trip on the M1 to Geelong, in a rental with cruise control set at GPS "real" 100km/h, nobody passed us. Traffic was at two speeds - those with GPS at 100km/h, those using car speedos reading 100, sitting in the slow lanes at about 95.

I just drove about 4,000km on a trip in NSW. Similar story there. I'm absolutely sure that a side-effect of some pretty crappy clogged up roads used to be intense aggro - now everybody is resigned to the fact that you'll get caught, everybody seems to have calmed down. I was amazed by how courteous Sydney drivers have become over the past couple of decades.

Good thing - we need to do this here. I'm sick of aggressive morons on the road.

Revenue gathering from law-breakers who endanger the lives of others???? It's a GREAT thing. Better than tax - which penalises good folks too.

Geektastic

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#1926377 28-Dec-2017 22:39

Part of the cause in NZ is the lack of compulsory insurance.

If your insurance is say $1000 a year, then you get a speeding ticket at renewal makes it $1500 it'll hurt. If the next ticket makes it $3000 it'll hurt more.

Jase2985

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#1926380 28-Dec-2017 22:42

and then how is that going to impact those already struggling?

im not saying that shouldn't have insurance but it already happens

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