Easter 4km/h tolerance?

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#1278284 7-Apr-2015 12:53

Geektastic:
allan: Late afternoon/early evening I drove from Wellington to New Plymouth and saw a blatant police revenue gathering exercise.

On the northern side of Waikanae, there was a constant stream of traffic heading south back to Wellington following the Easter holiday weekend and on the other side of the road, approximately 150 metres before the 50km/h restriction ended, stood a police officer with a laser pointed south into the very light north bound traffic. This was not a one-off because between Otaki and Levin there was a marked police van with a camera also pointed south into the, once again. very light north-bound traffic.

I would have thought that their efforts would have been put to better use to ensure the continued smooth flowing of Wellington bound traffic. I guess I just don't understand traffic policing.

It's not revenue gathering. It's a tax on fools who break the rules.

Ha ha. Immediately imagined Mr T ...made my day!

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

blakamin

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#1278336 7-Apr-2015 14:04

joker97: in Australia, the right turners and go straighters share the same lane. which means if you want to go straight and were in the wrong lane you get stuck for an eternity. also means realistically only one lane is operational during peak hours, and 50% of the time outside peak hours

Where? Maybe places where the road isn't wide enough... same as NZ.

DravidDavid

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#1278425 7-Apr-2015 15:10

blakamin:
joker97: in Australia, the right turners and go straighters share the same lane. which means if you want to go straight and were in the wrong lane you get stuck for an eternity. also means realistically only one lane is operational during peak hours, and 50% of the time outside peak hours

Where? Maybe places where the road isn't wide enough... same as NZ.

Was about to say the same. There are plenty of places in NZ where right turning traffic annoyingly holds up traffic with the intention of going straight through. Even when there are two lanes, often one of the lanes shared with a turning lane on a separate light.

It just means you have to be in the far right (or left) hand lane if you don't want to risk being stuck behind that guy that is turning on the wrong light.

Kyanar

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#1278625 7-Apr-2015 19:36

blakamin:
joker97: in Australia, the right turners and go straighters share the same lane. which means if you want to go straight and were in the wrong lane you get stuck for an eternity. also means realistically only one lane is operational during peak hours, and 50% of the time outside peak hours

Where? Maybe places where the road isn't wide enough... same as NZ.

Brisbane Transport is notorious for it. Thankfully TMR aren't as idiotic and try to separate out the right turning traffic on arterial roads. Doesn't help that I avoid arterial roads like the plague because they're essentially giant 6 lane parking lots though.

MikeAqua

7785 posts

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#1278950 8-Apr-2015 12:17

If find the publicity on road safety odd. It's seems obvious to me that the bigger improvements have come from better cars and better roads. When the speed limit was 80km we had a smaller population, less traffic and a higher road toll. Now that the population, traffic and speed limit have increased the road toll is dramatically lower.

Since I started driving the following safety measures have gone from rare to commonplace: -

ABS.
Stability control.
Airbags.
Disc brakes (esp 4 wheel disc brakes).
Seatbelt pretensioners.
Three point seatbelts for all passengers.
Head rests (esp in rear seats).
Side impact beams.
Wide tyres.
Centre cat's eyes.
Roadside barriers.
Passing lanes.
Slow vehicle bays.
Corner speed advisory signs.

My first car (1984) was death trap compared to what I drive now (1997, 2004).

As Clive 'Dog and Lemon' observed: The police attribute low road toll holidays to their policing efforts, and high road toll weekends to the behaviour of drivers.

The behaviour of the police and the motoring public are probably constant, and the difference between holiday road tolls reflects other factors (e.g weather) and chance.

Human behaviour is very hard to change. I do wonder if anti-speeding advertising money would be better spent on enforcement and/or on improvements to roads?

Mike

nzkiwiman

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#1279005 8-Apr-2015 13:31

I find it easy to avoid any 4km/hr tolerance, by not going out on public holiday weekends.

DravidDavid

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#1279006 8-Apr-2015 13:32

We need to govern small hatchbacks to 80 kilometers per hour, so normal people can pass safely without the risk of them speeding up to 110 and dragging you to the merging point. That way, if they were ever to run themselves off the road, they would be well under the magical 100 kilometer per hour safety number and will most likely survive! Everyone wins!

Alternatively, do what they do for motorcyclists and restrict any driver with under x amount of years driving experience owing a car that exceeds 4 cylinders or anything that is over 1.3 liters.

Quic Broadband

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Geektastic

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#1281348 12-Apr-2015 10:14

DravidDavid: We need to govern small hatchbacks to 80 kilometers per hour, so normal people can pass safely without the risk of them speeding up to 110 and dragging you to the merging point. That way, if they were ever to run themselves off the road, they would be well under the magical 100 kilometer per hour safety number and will most likely survive! Everyone wins!

Alternatively, do what they do for motorcyclists and restrict any driver with under x amount of years driving experience owing a car that exceeds 4 cylinders or anything that is over 1.3 liters.

I think we need a system similar to the one featured in Demolition Man, where the entire interior of the vehicle fills instantly with foam to protect the occupants...!

Mark

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#1281505 12-Apr-2015 15:38

DravidDavid: We need to govern small hatchbacks to 80 kilometers per hour, so normal people can pass safely without the risk of them speeding up to 110 and dragging you to the merging point. That way, if they were ever to run themselves off the road, they would be well under the magical 100 kilometer per hour safety number and will most likely survive! Everyone wins!

Alternatively, do what they do for motorcyclists and restrict any driver with under x amount of years driving experience owing a car that exceeds 4 cylinders or anything that is over 1.3 liters.

Funny read! :-)

afe66

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#1281551 12-Apr-2015 17:38

I learnt to drive in a Suzuki Alto which only has 796cc engine, but didnt stop me going over 100k when I was young and silly.
Also managed one to get 10 friends into it.
Top speed I got to was 132k.

So, small engines dont always mean slow speeds.

How about electronically limiting all cars to 110 kph.
(ducks)

A.

Jase2985

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#1281554 12-Apr-2015 17:54

how about making them do the speed limit on the roads too, so instead of people doing 80-90 in a 100 zone they do 100, same in a 50 zone, that way everyone is driving the same speed

fantasy land thats what that is, same as limiting a cars top speed

DravidDavid

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#1281567 12-Apr-2015 18:44

Jase2985: how about making them do the speed limit on the roads too, so instead of people doing 80-90 in a 100 zone they do 100, same in a 50 zone, that way everyone is driving the same speed

fantasy land thats what that is, same as limiting a cars top speed

I'd like to see more police working their way up a 7+ car queue to force the obviously slow driver to pull over and let the traffic flow again. So many motorists, traveling up the northern part of SH1 between Auckland and Waipu are slower than trucks. Then the trucks take up ALL the passing lane to pass one car and deny all other motorists the opportunity. Then you have impatient drivers passing dangerously when there is no passing lane.

I'm patient in a queue, but it tears me to shreds knowing slow drivers are going slow, not because of the driving conditions, but because they have no idea how to drive properly. Or they get speed wobbles at 90 on the 40 dollar tyres their friend's mate got for them second hand. Or because of that that bearing issue that makes the clunk at high speed which their mechanic told them was a $1000 fix, so "It can wait".

AHHHHH!

Batman

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#1281578 12-Apr-2015 18:54

they try and ping everyone who does 4 above the limit, but those 24 under the limit holding up everyone, well, who cares about them eh

1eStar

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#1281591 12-Apr-2015 19:30

I've said it before and it looks like I'm going to say it again: If the NZ police are really interested in safety and reducing the road toll. Then they need to concentrate on driver behaviour. They need to drive unmarked patrol cars and pull over people doing stupid things, like:
Holding up traffic
Provoking by speeding up in passing opportunities
Tailgating
Talking on phone
Texting
Driving in wrong lane
Overloaded vehicles
Etc

Granted some of these actions are not illegal, but rather relating to courtesy, it calls for police to be proactive at improving driver behaviour rather than merely enforcing infringements. We shouldn't have to legislate against every stupidity, rather educate to courtesy.
It's a paradigm shift required, quite different to putting ones head in a bucket labelled speed.

Geektastic

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#1281711 13-Apr-2015 07:34

It would be interesting if they introduced vehicle Black Boxes here.

A number of UK insurers require them as a condition of insurance for people who are just starting out, and also offer premium discounts to other drivers who volunteer for them.

I believe they monitor speed, brake force and so on to provide further information for analysis in the event of an accident.

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