Critics have labelled a zero-speed-tolerance campaign a failure after 16 people died on the roads this holiday period – more than double last year’s holiday road toll.
The high fatalities have come despite a tough crackdown on speedsters and drink-drivers, and is the highest number of deaths in the holiday period in three years.
….NZ First police spokesman Ron Mark said the toll was evidence the zero-tolerance speed campaign was a “failed experiment” and accused the police and the Government of “stealth taxation” via speeding fines.
“It has precious police resources sucked up making good drivers feel like criminals instead of focusing on those driving too fast, too slowly or too badly,” he said…’
I doubt that this is, in fact, a “police failure”. It’s a political failure. The emphasis on speeding and drink-drivers ignores the prime cause of accidents, which is poorly trained drivers. But to address that will cost money and votes, and require some intelligent action on the part of politicians. Far easier to trumpet knee-jerk responses and blame the road users.
We have a situation in NZ now where most people travel at below the already absurdly low speed limits, terrified of getting a ticket. They won’t overtake unless there’s a clearly marked overtaking lane, and plenty of slow-coaches speed up when they reach those lanes anyway, presumably because they mistake them for a stretch of dual highway. Police never target these clowns. There’s no money in it.
What’s more, commonsense tells us that there must be an irreducible minimum number of accidents and blathering constantly about “accident free” holiday periods on the roads is irritating and insulting.
Australia, population roughly 24 million: 28 road deaths over the holiday period.
New Zealand: population roughly 4.5 million: 16 deaths.
NZ, up until 2012, had one of the worst records for reducing road deaths. It’s no better now. And poor roads are no excuse. (not that I’ve found them to be poor at all, but it’s an oft-touted reason). A well-trained driver adjusts his or her driving according to the conditions.
It could also be the law of diminishing returns,perhaps a lower number isn’t possible?The fact they dumped extra resources into the idea and came up with the results they did means it was a losing proposition.I wonder if someone looked at all the fines paid versus the man hours paid would the numbers even balance out?
Seems the money and time should have been spent developing a test to determine a potential driver’s level of common sense.If the test just excluded people with less common sense than a Chicken from driving I’m betting the number of deaths could easily be halved.
Yep.
Oh, just stop. You know as well as I do, individual responsibility is anathema to far too many kiwis. They need nanny-state police arseholes like the shiny-arse on the radio this morning to tell them what to do.
Story is the same the world over,the more they try to “fix” things the worse things become.Especially things that don’t need fixing in the first place.
I say, let’s abolish speed limits and let Darwin help the toll find it’s own level.
Michael Woodhouse.
Minister of Police.
Just another useless socialist same as his counterpart in the Labour party.
Just another useless prick who is happy to become part of, and fully and unquestioningly supportive of, the bureaucratic monstrosity that is strangling NZ to death.
Yep. And making a very nice living out of it in the process.
Fucking leeches.
I remember an advanced-driving instructor telling me that “genuine accidents are vanishingly rare, errors of judgement common”.
He was right.
The problem is that we aren’t taught to control a car . They teach us to steer the car and not to evade problems. I listened to a program on the radio a few years back where some academic was babbling on about how defensive driving programs were giving drivers too much confidence and that was the problem but unfortunately for the academic they had Mark Skaife on the same program and Skaife ripped the academic apart…now that was gold.
It’s way too easy to get a licence .
D.T.
I recall the NSW Transport Minister saying something similar about thirty years ago. No clue, but in charge.
Before I start let me state for the record I have over a decade of heavy haulage experience up to interstate triple road trains with no serious accidents
http://r1016132.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/thirsty-thursday-playlist-public-enemy-1/
I am also a bona fide lifesaver and heartbreaker
http://r1016132.wordpress.com/2014/12/06/baptism-of-fire-lifesavers-and-heartbreakers-pt1/
I have a plan that would actually save lives
It involves training the NZ Army to build state dual-lane highways, and a national cycle way to boost local and international tourism
http://r1016132.wordpress.com/2014/12/26/operation-westwin-pt1-gsmeacsf-warning-order/
It is a bit rough and ready and requires a little polish – just like me
Waiting for someone else to come up with something better
Not holding my breath
Jamie, improved roads would help but if you’re a truckie then you know as well as I do that there are always idiots who can kill themselves and others. They just do it at higher speeds on good roads.
There are a few of us.)
(I’m that Hilux driver who flashes before overtaking, warns on ch40 of cattle and blueies ahead and says “thank you” with a left/right indicator flash after passing.
I think dual-lane state highways would drastically reduce serious accidents and getting the army to do it is the way to go – it would…
-provides economic benefits
-tourist benefits
-soldiers would leave the army with a trade
-increased standard and speed of civilian road construction due to competition
When the Roman legionnaire’s weren’t fighting, drinking, or fornicating they built roads and aquaducts that still stand today
-instead of giving away $$$in foreign aid to a corrupt UN we could bring foreign contingents of soldiers to NZ and have them build our roads
-instead of always losing wars we could win them by being smarter
-would go a long way to solving the current refugee crises
I think my warning order is seriously under-rated
http://r1016132.wordpress.com/2014/12/26/operation-westwin-pt1-gsmeacsf-warning-order/
“You know as well as I do that there are always idiots who can kill themselves and others” KG
Yeah for sure – goes without saying
Hey here’s a random curve-ball question. How many fatal accidents involving high speed, high alcohol and lone male driver would be suicide???
“I’m that Hilux driver who flashes before overtaking, warns on ch40 of cattle and blueies ahead and says “thank you” with a left/right indicator flash after passing.
There are a few of us” KG
Good drills bloke.
That’s the standard right there people!!!
“Warns on ch40”
You must be over in Aussie land aye bro???
Channel 11 down here in NZ
I’ll be waiting for someone to come up with a better way to get them built
I’m not holding my breath
“You must be over in Aussie land aye bro???”
Was until recently, Jamie. (mostly far west Queensland and the N.T.) We just moved to NZ.
I like your ideas for fixing the roads, but I’d like to see a LOT of effort put into fixing the standard of driving, too.
Now I’m off to go look at your links. Thanks for those.
If you want roads and bridges built in an efficient manner it’s pretty simple.
First thing to be done is cut through all the red tape,second is hire a good construction firm with the right reputation.Here in the States we have two names C.C.Meyers and R.J.Massman.
C.C.Myers has the reputation of getting the work done right,under budget and ahead of time.His company was the one who put the freeway system back online in California in 69 days after the earthquake.
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/A-gutsy-guy-s-big-gamble-on-the-maze-2574444.php#photo-2703454
I guess it’s a question of scale, too, Darin. A little country like NZ is never going to be able to support an outfit big enough to give comparable performance.
Mind you, the allocation of roadworks priorities here looks very strange to me and perhaps the locals have a point when they claim the contracts are handed out on the basis of cronyism…..I’ve never seen simple repairs and improvements take so long and need so many people.
Mr Plod chooses not to understand the simple concept of synchronicity (chance/coincidence) when applied to two independent data sets thus:
V1. Mr Plod goes heavy and badass on “road policing” (aka revenue collection).
V2. The road death toll.
Mr Plod is then free to construct a witchdoctor theory made of toothpicks thus:
1. If the death toll falls, Mr Plod claims there is a causal link. Yay! Overzealous revenue collection causes a fall in the death toll. PR cheers all round, fives and bumps at Plod HQ. (Revenue collection is preserved.)
2. However, if the death toll remains the same or increases, then Mr Plod deliberately ignores his adored causal link (above) and chooses some other equally arbitrary variable by way of explanation. (Revenue collection is thus preserved.)
You could argue that NZ’s road death tolls are outcomes of the complex **multivariate** interactions: a proposition that includes the possibility that over-zealous roadside revenue collection is a *causal* factor in the death toll.
(Note that this ostensible causal link already exists…for enhanced plod revenue collection over the 2014 co-existed with a spike in road deaths; ergo, road policing is bad for motorists’ health.)
You got a rough and ready workforce getting paid to sit on the asses in the barracks right now!!!
Still waiting…
It’s been a success. You just need to understand that success in this case means revenue gathering.