Road Toll Not working

[richard 384]

having spent the morning at my local shopping centre i'm surprised the road toll is as low as it is. The simply art of parking a car was painful to watch.

[E30 325i Rag-Top 2958]

@Allan, yes good point, how you react at the initial point of loss of control (which I think is what 3Pedals was on about car control) can have a great effect on the outcome of the situation. The only way to train this is on something like a skid pan, or closed track, etc. Even simple things like being able to steer whilst heavy braking through the use of ABS is alien to very many people - ever noticed how many trees or power poles manage to hit smack in the middle of a bonnet?
Continuted driver education is a huge plus, as are things like "Defensive driving" or "advanced driver training" courses, perhaps these could be either subsidised by the government or even made compulsory though insurance companies?

[Jacko 2157]

Much of my daily journey is through north Waikato, and I agree, Friday evenings are bad. Drunk/Stoned drivers all over the place. Ive *555'd and followed three of them, who were really bad (public road pinball..) for a few km while giving details to the cops, cops never catch them (and if they turn up the next day at the persons house, have no proof they were driving while shitfaced) 

 

[kwhelan 241]

look how many are driving on a restricted having never bothered to actually pay to do the final or don't even have a license, laws needs some teeth or cops are losing before they start

Aus is way tougher

Edited April 22, 2018 by kwhelan

[Eagle 1662]

Having a full license doesn't prove much. I was on my restricted for awhile because i had no use for a full license.  

[gjm 3258]

1 hour ago, 3pedals said:

... if you are not prepared to put in the effort take public transport and get off the roads.  

That's another part of the problem.
There is no public transport outside Hamilton.

[Eagle 1662]

1 hour ago, 3pedals said:

The restricted licenece is not intended to be a "valid licence" it is only a transitional licence to enable you to develop your skill set and obtain a full licence. 

 Your attitude is part of the problem and one that appears to be commonplace in the Waikato andother areas  - thats why they put a time limit on learners and restricted lcenecs but it should be a LOT tougher - if you are not prepared to put in the effort take public transport and get off the roads.  

Waikato and other areas... right, and most of South Auckland are driving around on learners eh. People who drive around with no learners and no license don't care about it or the penalties (harsh or not), same with having wof\reg etc etc. I think i know what your solution would be. 

How's me being on a restricted for a little longer affecting road safety as opposed to having a full? Being old you know most of your generations full license consisted of doing jack sh*t compared to what it takes today. The test between restricted has hardly any practical benefit to being a better driver, time in the seat is what's suppose to do that .The main reason i see the restricted license existing is to discourage teenagers driving around with mates at nights etc upon first getting their own car. Restricted be automatically upgraded on a full after a certain period like i think it is in Aus?

[kwhelan 241]

It probably doesn't affect road safety in your case and yes the last test only really picks up a few learned bad habits but the attitude does, Ron is bang on with that.play the game or get off the road, hold insurance or get off the road,Its like holding a loaded gun and you either take it seriously or don't drive.Those people who you rightly say drive around with no license and don't care about it or the penalties would get a much ruder awakening in Aus when they get caught. here you can run up thousands in fines and its just a joke to a 20 yr old. Crusher Collins needs to take charge, get un worthy vehicles off the road, really penalise people and the others out there will gradually take the whole thing more seriously 

Like in Aus get caught for DIC on a friday and get thrown in the cells till mon where your delivered straight to court, here your taxi'd home to be back out behind the wheel within hours

point is people here are casual because they can get away with it,

[Eagle 1662]

All well having a wish list in all but its a fact is being obsessed with punishment has been done over and over and has failed every time. Of course there's always going to be some people who don't learn but it's still far better have to support programs,policies etc that help people so they are less likely to offend in the first place. Not to mention the cost benefits down the line.

Your right NZ'ers are casual as with most things but i don't see that changing in a hurry.  

[kwhelan 241]

21 minutes ago, Eagle said:

All well having a wish list in all but its a fact is being obsessed with punishment has been done over and over and has failed every time. Of course there's always going to be some people who don't learn but it's still far better have to support programs,policies etc that help people so they are less likely to offend in the first place. Not to mention the cost benefits down the line.

Your right NZ'ers are casual as with most things but i don't see that changing in a hurry.  

what would you do then out of curiosity, what policies are going to help say 20 yr old boy racers not offend in the first place,or people who don't bother with licenses or drive deathtraps with their kids unbelted in

society has to have laws and laws only work if there are consequences

[Eagle 1662]

16 minutes ago, 3pedals said:

It's a safety driven thing not a punitive  measure. 

I agree i thought my comment basically implied that twas the case.   

Agreed about standards, some are areas seemly nonchalant whilst other departments like OSH have overboard ones. Sure we can all agree the death toll is caused by many contributing factors.

I can fit 4 different 10 year old Chinese tyres to my 1990 Hiace, install a set of worn shocks (no leaks) with under min thickness rotors and cheapest brake pads around, get a WOF and drive 110kph on the express way and its legal so its ok.

 

 

 

[Kepes 231]

18 minutes ago, 3pedals said:

restricted drivers have an horrendous accident - rate like 1in 4 will have a serious crash in the first 12 months. 

You're not wrong but I think 1 in 4 is a bit extreme. In terms of having passengers while on your restricted, I think we should adopt some of the conditions which apply to Australian Provisional 'P' licenses, particularly being able to drive with one passenger, regardless of what license the passenger is on. When I did my defensive driving course, I remember the tutor telling us that studies found having a passenger was actually safer than driving solo, if they're aware of whats going on around them. Mobile phones definitely don't help.

As for actually passing your restricted test, I think it's a pretty thorough test which is good, however it involves no open road driving. The full license test is a bit of a joke. Took me around 15min, a third of it was spent sitting at traffic lights as I did it just before a long weekend.

[Eagle 1662]

1 minute ago, kwhelan said:

what would you do then out of curiosity, what policies are going to help say 20 yr old boy racers not offend in the first place,or people who don't bother with licenses or drive deathtraps with their kids unbelted in

society has to have laws and laws only work if there are consequences

Comment was aimed at punishing people over and over again and expecting a different result.. Im not against zero punishment and some people can't be helped, finding a balance isn't easy and really comes down to the particulars of the situation. Law is sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't (2008 financial crisis)

Maybe starting a free legal place to drag race for the boy racers instead of the streets. The others are typically are lower class which all you can do really do educate and incentivize and hope they do better or at least their kids improve of their situation 

[Young Thrash Driver 1020]

Replace everyone's drivers airbag with a spike and let Mr Darwin do his thing. Seriously tho, you can't legislate against retardedness (I'd class most bureaucrats and politicians as retards) but you can attempt to educate. Refer to my comments re: bureaucrats however when you think on the fact that skills based training was rejected on the grounds that if people have better skills, they will just go faster and have worse crashes. Add to this most people in transport planning national/regional level jobs are greenie types who are only interested in getting us to take a bus or bike- cars are old hat, embrace the glorious transport revolution, comrades!

Yes we have a problem with drivers- but we also have a very real, very dangerous bureaucrat problem.

[Jacko 2157]

Im all for letting Darwin get back to his regular job. We shouldnt have to have campaigns to tell people to wear their seatbelts....

Also agreed on the transport planning situation, what we have now is very scary (wife is a roading engineer) and will likely see a whole bunch of CE companies go bust and/or the skilled people leave the industry/country while plans for our nationwide gluten free monorail are drawn up.

[richard 384]

7 hours ago, Eagle said:

 

Maybe starting a free legal place to drag race for the boy racers instead of the streets.  

It's been tried before. The whole idea of illegal street racing is just that , Its illegal.

I remember driving on the Auckland motorways with only a white line between me and the oncoming traffic . It was only after some serious crashes that a median barrier was put in place to prevent traffic crossing over. hasn't stop accident's but sure has brought the death toll down.

All the driver training in the world wont stop traffic crossing over median line , I think its time for two lanes on all major roads and a median barrier down the middle.

If you use work safe practice to isolate ,minimise or eliminate , then to minimise would be your best practise.

 

[kwhelan 241]

2 hours ago, richard said:

All the driver training in the world wont stop traffic crossing over median line , I think its time for two lanes on all major roads and a median barrier down the middle.

If you use work safe practice to isolate ,minimise or eliminate , then to minimise would be your best practise.

 

totally agree I would guess not many deaths involve a badly handled skid for example so you can't expect advanced skid training to save many lives, defensive training which is more spotting the dangers would though. I'm all for actually putting the road taxes back into roads so they can actually improve them. 35 deaths on that Tauranga article seems like a good start, hit the worst ones first then the annoyances. Why the hell is Huntly still on SH1,

Some of the roading engineers need some better training too. The one dual carriageway, we call it a motorway here in HB had a ridiculous major T intersection added at day 1 then changed to lights and now they are putting in a roundabout 10 years later which any idiot could see needed to be there since day 1. It already has 3-4 other roundabouts on same stretch of road put in at day 1. made zero sense to anyone.

just as a note , our small village Havelock North, basically a retirement home now has had 3-4 cars driven through front windows by mistake by elderly who hit the wrong pedal in last 18 months or so. My 95 father in law lives and drives there in a manual 71 mini. No way I'd ever get in car with him, only drives in daylight hours but basically half blind and deaf. I'm not going to take his keys off him, it would kill him but his bloody doctor is doing him no favours continually passing him fit to drive.

[kwhelan 241]

2 hours ago, Jacko said:

Im all for letting Darwin get back to his regular job. We shouldnt have to have campaigns to tell people to wear their seatbelts....

 

or helmets on pushbikes

Edited April 22, 2018 by kwhelan

[E30 325i Rag-Top 2958]

7 hours ago, richard said:

I remember driving on the Auckland motorways with only a white line between me and the oncoming traffic . It was only after some serious crashes that a median barrier was put in place to prevent traffic crossing over. hasn't stop accident's but sure has brought the death toll down.

All the driver training in the world wont stop traffic crossing over median line , I think its time for two lanes on all major roads and a median barrier down the middle.

If you use work safe practice to isolate ,minimise or eliminate , then to minimise would be your best practise.

Another 3 deaths, in the Waikato, over the week-end. Ute crossed the centre line on a "State Highway" I  believe it was. Median barrier, or even a central reservation, stops the small error becoming a big accident which increases the road toll.

And again, as 3Pedals says, the Darwin effect is negative as the one bad gene has taken out two innocent genes.

[Buklemaschu 32]

My Son has recently obtained his restricted license. The whole process sparked several discussions, comparisons to what i had to go through, what my parents did etc. It should be clear to anyone that getting a drivers licence today is harder and more convoluted than it has ever been.

That being said, once you have a license its pretty difficult to get rid of it, and there is almost no 'control' over your standard of driving. I know that i would be hard pressed to pass the theory section of the tests if i sat one tomorrow, and I'm not arrogant enough to assume that i would simply fly through the practical tests either.

I think it would be good if every licensed driver had to take both a theoretical and a practical driving test every five years. I would have it more frequent for under 25's and over 60's. A failure should require completion of some additional driver training. I also think that drivers on a foreign license applying for a NZ license should have to go through the same process.

Not a lot we can do about tourists, but allowing them into a "truck' sized camper on a car license does seem a recipe for disaster.

 

 

[Young Thrash Driver 1020]

What are the accident stats for tourists driving camper vans?

[richard 384]

7 hours ago, kwhelan said:

totally agree I would guess not many deaths involve a badly handled skid for example so you can't expect advanced skid training to save many lives, defensive training which is more spotting the dangers would though.

fully agree, a bit like telling young ones not to put their fingers in a skill saw, until they try it they don't under stand.

[Jacko 2157]

In regards to civil engineers and bad road planning/execution. Its 90% about the budget the project has, doing it halfassed is cheaper... Unfortunately its often a very false economy.

[richard 384]

under the new rules of construction, a PCUB is responsible for the construction of a building , roads or anything else,  price doesn't come into it now.  So when roads (in this case) are being designed, all safety has to be taken into account .... That's  ...oncoming traffic....pedestrians,....overtaking,... etc etc...

What is a PCBU?

The HSW Act defines ‘PCBU’. It is essentially a person conducting a business or undertaking, whether alone or with others and whether for profit or gain or not. The PCBU is in the best position to control risks to work health and safety. This is why the PCBU will have the primary duty to ensure health and safety as of 4 April 2016.

Despite its name, a PCBU can be a business entity, such as a company, as well as an individual person. An individual person will generally be a PCBU if they are a sole trader or a self-employed person.

 

The government can no longer hide behide SOE's, they have to be upfront and walk the talk ....so to speak.

[Jacko 2157]

A shitty piece of road design can still meet the standards though, and if its initially cheaper, that's what the client wants most of the time. Auckland is littered with examples of it, along with the stories from the engineers about how what they wanted to do, and what the budget let them do, was very different.