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dejadeadnz
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  #2152460 30-Dec-2018 23:19
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NZ is simply far too soft on people who drive dangerously and display a lack of duty of care whilst controlling what is essentially a deadly weapon in the wrong hands. As an ex-prosecutor, I can say that people who cause catastrophic incidents (aside from the outright anti-social/high risk types and fatigued drivers - more on those later) tend to fall into three categories: the first group is the young, inexperienced, and stupid whose brains basically aren't mature enough yet to do a lot of things but are allowed to drive a car; the second group is your typical middle-aged boomer "I am a hard working Kiwi" loser who thinks that saving 5 seconds is worth killing somebody (most of these people, like most violent criminals, are blokes); the last is the old, slow-reacting and/or medically unfit who shouldn't be on the road. To be fair, the final group almost never deliberately do anything dangerous -- they should just have been medically ruled unfit to drive or should have just stayed off the roads for the good of everyone. Amongst these three groups, the last are at least decent people at heart.

 

There is simply an underlying refusal to acknowledge some of the societal factors that drive much of the inhuman (note, I don't mean inhumane), unthinking, self-centred, and pointless risk-taking by the first two groups: the almost worshipping of the archetypal thrill-seeking male who does everything on instinct, as opposed to thinking and deliberating through the consequences of any proposed action. Add to that the value we place upon being "first" and the general societal tolerance toweards unhinged aggression. If you want to simplify it, just call it toxic masculinity. But pointing that out (even as a guy) is apparently just male bashing. These two groups are in their own way quite closely-related to the anti-social losers that the NZTA/Police describe as high risk drivers: the drugged, drunk, unlicensed, recidivist (overwhelmingly male) offenders who may or may not also be running away from the cops.

 

Many of the factors that afflict the high risk group also touch on the other two groups. Quite simply, can someone tell me why, for example, a supposedly decent kid from a decent family needs to be out with his mates at 4am? Unless you work shifts, provided you have a job, why wouldn't you be sleeping at home at that time, weeknight or weekend?

 

Every time the high risk group plus the other two groups get involved in an accident, I hear the same predictable responses. But no one seems to ask why females so overwhelmingly do not feature within such groups by comparison. No one seems to ask why we allow people to drive absolute crappers on the road that don't even have seatbelt sensors that will beep so much that it makes not wearing a seatbelt unbearable. In terms of the fatigued drivers, with the NZTA's lax regulation of the commercial driving industry, one can expect that logbook rigging is rife and your average Kiwi just has no sense of when they should take a break.

 

In short, fix up people's attitude towards others, life generally, and fix up the blokes first. Only then will we go a long way to solving the road safety issues. Add these things to getting old and crappy cars off the road (heavens forbid that people don't have the right to drive whatever they want and that they might need to save/pay a bit more for a car -- christ, what will people do without 3 cups of barista coffees a day or a road trip every long weekend?) and making people demonstrate their ability and fitness to be driving on the road regularly, if we are truly serious about not accepting road deaths.

 

Otherwise, most of the anguish and talk is no better than your average American's supposedly heartfelt words after every mass shooting.


 
 
 

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blakamin
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  #2152463 30-Dec-2018 23:40
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dejadeadnz:

 

 Quite simply, can someone tell me why, for example, a supposedly decent kid from a decent family needs to be out with his mates at 4am? 

 

 

Quite simply, "Because they want to" is a good enough reason. Because they're young and learning is another

 

What's a "decent family"? Are you another one of "those" people that thinks a "decent family" is two professional parents, money, status, etc???

 

Just because you never found a reason to be out all night doesn't mean squat.

 

 

 

 

 

dejadeadnz:

 

Add these things to getting old and crappy cars off the road (heavens forbid that people don't have the right to drive whatever they want and that they might need to save/pay a bit more for a car -- christ, what will people do without 3 cups of barista coffees a day or a road trip every long weekend?)

 

 

Some people enjoy cars as more than a mode of transport that gets them from A to B.

 

Others, they can't "do without 3 cups of barista coffees a day" to afford a new car, because they can't even afford the coffee... or food. 

 

As an ex-prosecutor, I'd have thought you'd have seen how some people live and realise what it's like... Obviously you didn't really open your eyes.


dejadeadnz
2394 posts

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  #2152469 31-Dec-2018 00:00
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blakamin:

 

Quite simply, "Because they want to" is a good enough reason. Because they're young and learning is another

 

What's a "decent family"? Are you another one of "those" people that thinks a "decent family" is two professional parents, money, status, etc???

 

Just because you never found a reason to be out all night doesn't mean squat.

 

I consider anyone who is law abiding, have a job when they have the capacity to have one, and who don't engage in anti-social behaviour to be decent. And, just for fun, most people do exactly what I just described at 4am. Sleeping. Because most normal people realise there are basically few interesting or worthwhile things to do at 4am. Maybe you consider driving at 4am at night with a bunch of blokes in various states of intoxication, in a car that typically wouldn't be considered road-worthy in most other first world countries, and generally doing nothing other than (at best) spewing a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to be normal behaviour. I don't and most people clearly don't.

 

You can debate this all you like but young people doing exactly this kind of thing are getting themselves and others killed at alarmingly high rates.

 

 

Some people enjoy cars as more than a mode of transport that gets them from A to B.

 

Others, they can't "do without 3 cups of barista coffees a day" to afford a new car, because they can't even afford the coffee... or food. 

 

As an ex-prosecutor, I'd have thought you'd have seen how some people live and realise what it's like... Obviously you didn't really open your eyes.

 

 

Applying the Millian harm principle (look it up if you can't follow), why should I care about what these people enjoy? The brutal reality is that old clangers make someone fall more likely to be seriously injured or die in an accident and also makes them more likely to make irrecoverable mistakes that impact upon others? Yes, some people are too poor to afford decent cars and as someone who is socially liberal, I feel for them. It doesn't follow that these people's horrendous cars should be unleashed on the road at everyone else's expense.

 

 

 

 




Lastman
306 posts

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  #2152489 31-Dec-2018 07:53
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The older driver problem is quite tricky. They are the safest drivers on the road (65-70 age group) and then gradually they become less safe drivers. But not all do as mental decline varies greatly between individuals.

Anyone with older family members driving may appreciate it is quite hard to try to discourage them from driving when you feel that time has come and often losing the right to drive has big implications for how they live the rest of their lives.

Currently, I believe GPs effectively do most of the arbitration as older people need to maintain a medical certificate, periodically, to drive.


Geektastic

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  #2153087 1-Jan-2019 23:14
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MadEngineer:

The UK.



Not really. Insurance has been mandatory there since 1930....





Geektastic

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  #2153096 1-Jan-2019 23:48
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dejadeadnz:

 

NZ is simply far too soft on people who drive dangerously and display a lack of duty of care whilst controlling what is essentially a deadly weapon in the wrong hands. As an ex-prosecutor, I can say that people who cause catastrophic incidents (aside from the outright anti-social/high risk types and fatigued drivers - more on those later) tend to fall into three categories: the first group is the young, inexperienced, and stupid whose brains basically aren't mature enough yet to do a lot of things but are allowed to drive a car; the second group is your typical middle-aged boomer "I am a hard working Kiwi" loser who thinks that saving 5 seconds is worth killing somebody (most of these people, like most violent criminals, are blokes); the last is the old, slow-reacting and/or medically unfit who shouldn't be on the road. To be fair, the final group almost never deliberately do anything dangerous -- they should just have been medically ruled unfit to drive or should have just stayed off the roads for the good of everyone. Amongst these three groups, the last are at least decent people at heart.

 

There is simply an underlying refusal to acknowledge some of the societal factors that drive much of the inhuman (note, I don't mean inhumane), unthinking, self-centred, and pointless risk-taking by the first two groups: the almost worshipping of the archetypal thrill-seeking male who does everything on instinct, as opposed to thinking and deliberating through the consequences of any proposed action. Add to that the value we place upon being "first" and the general societal tolerance toweards unhinged aggression. If you want to simplify it, just call it toxic masculinity. But pointing that out (even as a guy) is apparently just male bashing. These two groups are in their own way quite closely-related to the anti-social losers that the NZTA/Police describe as high risk drivers: the drugged, drunk, unlicensed, recidivist (overwhelmingly male) offenders who may or may not also be running away from the cops.

 

Many of the factors that afflict the high risk group also touch on the other two groups. Quite simply, can someone tell me why, for example, a supposedly decent kid from a decent family needs to be out with his mates at 4am? Unless you work shifts, provided you have a job, why wouldn't you be sleeping at home at that time, weeknight or weekend?

 

Every time the high risk group plus the other two groups get involved in an accident, I hear the same predictable responses. But no one seems to ask why females so overwhelmingly do not feature within such groups by comparison. No one seems to ask why we allow people to drive absolute crappers on the road that don't even have seatbelt sensors that will beep so much that it makes not wearing a seatbelt unbearable. In terms of the fatigued drivers, with the NZTA's lax regulation of the commercial driving industry, one can expect that logbook rigging is rife and your average Kiwi just has no sense of when they should take a break.

 

In short, fix up people's attitude towards others, life generally, and fix up the blokes first. Only then will we go a long way to solving the road safety issues. Add these things to getting old and crappy cars off the road (heavens forbid that people don't have the right to drive whatever they want and that they might need to save/pay a bit more for a car -- christ, what will people do without 3 cups of barista coffees a day or a road trip every long weekend?) and making people demonstrate their ability and fitness to be driving on the road regularly, if we are truly serious about not accepting road deaths.

 

Otherwise, most of the anguish and talk is no better than your average American's supposedly heartfelt words after every mass shooting.

 

 

 

 

Your first group is why I suggest mandatory insurance, properly enforced using NPR cameras. Aged 17 having passed your test yesterday, 99.9999% of drivers have inadequate experience to be safe begind the wheel of a car such as - for example - a Subaru Impreza WRX STi. In a mandatory insurance sceanrio, they would almost certainly not get insurance - and in the unlikely event that they did, certainly using the UK as a comparison, it would be Third Party FIre and Theft only and would cost them about $15,000 a year.

 

They should have no ACC cover for any accident in which they are the driver until they have held a clean, full licence for 5 years. Why should the rest of the population carry their significant increase in risk?

 

I also think it really is time to call time on parents teaching children to drive. At least there should be a requirement for 10 hours of professional instruction before you can take a test. Lifting the driving age by a couple of years probably would help as well.






afe66
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  #2153112 2-Jan-2019 08:09
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Denying ACC is not an option. Unless you expect the ambulance service you refuse to collect you at the road side.

Who do you think pays the hospital for your medical treatment when you have an accident.

The hospital will save your life and worry about the cost later and then when you cant pay will stop doing elective surgery.

ACC is a major source of funding to hospitals.

A much simpler option would be to punish the driver for their poor driving.

Compulsory insurance just adds another level if bureaucracy.

Break the insurance company rules and the police arrest you or seize your car.

How about just arresting people and seeing cars first.



mudguard
2092 posts

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  #2153115 2-Jan-2019 08:41
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Geektastic:

 

Aged 17 having passed your test yesterday, 99.9999% of drivers have inadequate experience to be safe begind the wheel of a car such as - for example - a Subaru Impreza WRX STi.

 

 

 

 

I'm fairly certain no insurance company will touch a driver under 25 years of age in a turbo vehicle. I bought a Subaru Legacy three weeks before my 25th birthday and had to take out a third party only policy with NAC. This was despite calling AMI and asking prior to buying the car if they would insure me, they said yes initially, and then no after I bought it!


Dingbatt
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  #2153125 2-Jan-2019 09:24
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Geektastic:

They should have no ACC cover for any accident in which they are the driver until they have held a clean, full licence for 5 years. Why should the rest of the population carry their significant increase in risk?




ACC is a No Fault compensation scheme. To exclude a group due to risk is a very dangerous precedent to set. Who next? Skiers? Skydivers? Mountain-bikers? Why should the rest of the population carry the risk for them either? Because this is NZ, and ACC for all its shortcomings, is a great thing. Unless you are an ambulance chasing lawyer. Your suggestion is ridiculous.




“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996


Bung
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  #2153130 2-Jan-2019 10:00
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mudguard:

Geektastic:


Aged 17 having passed your test yesterday, 99.9999% of drivers have inadequate experience to be safe begind the wheel of a car such as - for example - a Subaru Impreza WRX STi.



 


I'm fairly certain no insurance company will touch a driver under 25 years of age in a turbo vehicle. I bought a Subaru Legacy three weeks before my 25th birthday and had to take out a third party only policy with NAC. This was despite calling AMI and asking prior to buying the car if they would insure me, they said yes initially, and then no after I bought it!

,


The WRX STi probablý would be out of reach unless financed so that would rule out 3rd party. Going on the experience of my neighbouring teen idiot, the danger are the end of life Legacies and Legnums. Old performance cars that have been scrapped once but get revived until they are caught and green stickered. The Police seem powerless to do anything until they catch the car on the road.

There are a new generation of turbo cars now that are basically 1.2 - 1.5l replacements for current 2l vehicles. The turbos are small and aimed at torque rather than outright power. Maybe insurance attitudes will change.

From my last SH1 trip the thing that stood out were the vehicles that briefly swerved over the fog line or towards the centre line. Probably the driver started to nod off. It doesn't matter how well you drive if you fall asleep.

dejadeadnz
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  #2153174 2-Jan-2019 12:32
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Geektastic:

 

I also think it really is time to call time on parents teaching children to drive. At least there should be a requirement for 10 hours of professional instruction before you can take a test. Lifting the driving age by a couple of years probably would help as well.

 

 

Good suggestion but won't happen. Because your average Kiwi (male) idiot will be very affronted by the implicit notion that he's not a perfect driver and is somehow seen as not good enough to teach his kids how to drive. Driving in NZ is bizarrely just seen as some kind of sacrosanct right.

 

 

 

 


  #2153180 2-Jan-2019 13:39
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Dingbatt:
Geektastic:

They should have no ACC cover for any accident in which they are the driver until they have held a clean, full licence for 5 years. Why should the rest of the population carry their significant increase in risk?




ACC is a No Fault compensation scheme. To exclude a group due to risk is a very dangerous precedent to set. Who next? Skiers? Skydivers? Mountain-bikers? Why should the rest of the population carry the risk for them either? Because this is NZ, and ACC for all its shortcomings, is a great thing. Unless you are an ambulance chasing lawyer. Your suggestion is ridiculous.


Who next? All those pesky motorcyclists - registration fees for their vehicles are already artificially low / subsidised by cars and trucks. And cyclists are even worse, always throwing themselves underneath or in front of innocent motorists whilst wearing their cyclist's "cloak of invisibility"

The greatest benefit from ACC is its universal and no-fault coverage, which keeps lawyers out of the personal injury business in NZ.
If in doubt, research the proportion of personal injury compensation that goes to lawyers in Australia, plus the median time between injury occurring and compensation being paid

gzt

gzt
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  #2153224 2-Jan-2019 15:06
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Gory crash rescue videos shown by surviving relatives would put some of them off the worst behavior.

scuwp
3879 posts

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  #2153264 2-Jan-2019 15:38
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gzt: Gory crash rescue videos shown by surviving relatives would put some of them off the worst behavior.

 

Yep, picked up more than my share of deceased bodies and body parts, more than I care to remember.   Would love to be able to show *some* drivers the real result of these crashes first hand.  It isn't like TV.  Not sure it would make a difference in the long term though.  

 

 





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



Geektastic

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  #2153371 2-Jan-2019 17:06
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afe66: Denying ACC is not an option. Unless you expect the ambulance service you refuse to collect you at the road side.

Who do you think pays the hospital for your medical treatment when you have an accident.

The hospital will save your life and worry about the cost later and then when you cant pay will stop doing elective surgery.

ACC is a major source of funding to hospitals.

A much simpler option would be to punish the driver for their poor driving.

Compulsory insurance just adds another level if bureaucracy.

Break the insurance company rules and the police arrest you or seize your car.

How about just arresting people and seeing cars first.


You do realise that everywhere else, the insurance pays the medical costs?





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