Road Safety

So, after 2 years or so I got myself a speeding ticket. It was Issued by officer ZQ18 at 1431 on 19/07/09. The alleged offence took place on State Highway 1, just north of Ashburton. I was clocked travelling at a speed of 121km/h. The limit is 100km/h.

I have collected possibly a dozen or so speed infringement notices / penalties since attaining my Drivers Licence 18 years ago or so. In that time I'm fortunate to have driven thousands of miles (or kilometres if you prefer) and yet never cause or be involved in any serious accident.

Since I can recall speed tickets have infuriated me because of reasoning and yet the seemingly ironic criteria by which they are issued.

So, the reasoning is road safety right? Nonsense I say and in my case I can justify writing so.

In New Zealand we have passing lanes of maybe 1.5 to 3km. That means that everyone 'queues up' behind a slow moving vehicle and then like a cork from a champagne bottle explode past the irritating pedestrian vehicle. Its the most ludicrous thing ever. Of course such roads as the result of little money to build dual lane roads and clot headed clowns running the nations infrastructure...I digress...

I didn't get clocked on a speeding lane. I was measured after overtaking a slower (than the speed limit) vehicle on a section of Highway where there are only 2 lanes of opposing traffic.

Now I'm not sure if it is 'standard' practise but I prefer to stay alive. As a result I don't really embrace the idea of loitering in the wrong lane of a 2 way highway to play chicken with any oncoming traffic.I favour depressing the accelerator pedal in order to gain speed and get past any obstacles as quickly and safely as possible before pulling in well ahead of any labouring traffic and steadying my speed.

So, I do exactly as I mention above and I receive a ticket. I explained why my vehicle was travelling at an elevated speed but this mattered not to the ticket issuing officer. He really couldn't care less. His job is to issue tickets to speeding drivers. End of story.

I was advised that I should stick the car on cruise control @ 100km/h and then all would be OK and also that I could pass in a passing lane a couple of kilometres further on. It's all absolute rubbish. And this is why:-

Lets say you wish to pass a vehicle - regardless of it being a dual or single carriageway road. You are travelling at the 'safe' speed limit of no more than 100km/h.

You will start from a safe position behind the vehicle you are passing (obviously) and end up in a position a safe distance ahead of the vehicle. In reality this means that whilst you have a distance to perform the manoeuvre, the car you are passing must travel a shorter distance to ensure safe distances.

Scenario A

Lets say the car in front is travelling at 95 km/h. If you are travelling at 100km/h It will take over a minute to pass (1 minute 12 seconds in fact). That means over a minute travelling the wrong way down a single carriageway highway or at best, over a minute in the passing lane. You will also have travelled TWO KILOMETRES from start to finish. Is that safe??? I don't think so. You must be kidding if you suggest it is. Try spending 1 minute 12 seconds driving the wrong way down a carriageway on State Highway 1.

I have admittedly been generous with my example. Passing a car travelling just 5km slower than yourself is virtually pointless. I have however also been equally generous with my distance and time suggestions and that's my point precisely - you just don't have 2km to pass a vehicle or for that matter a minute to perform a passing manoeuvre.

Scenario B

You are travelling at 100km/h and wish to pass a vehicle in front. You have 500m to perform the manoeuvre safely. To do so you must cover 500m in the same time as it takes the slower moving vehicle to cover approximately 400m. If your objective is to be achieved then the vehicle you are passing must not exceed a speed of 80km/h. This is a more realistic scenario and you will perform it in under 20 seconds. All things considered it is a far safer manoeuvre and all boxes can be ticked. Nobody exceeded the speed limit and the hazard to other road users is minimal.

Scenario C - my scenario.

The car in front is travelling at 95km/h. I needed to travel 500m in the same time it took for the vehicle in front to cover a distance of 400m. At 95km/h a vehicle will travel 400m in 15.2 seconds. At 121km/h I will travel 500m in 14.8 seconds. It was a safe manoeuvre and I completed it safely with half a second to spare - the car can reach some pretty high speeds in 14.8 seconds so to say I'd reached 121 km at the end of the manoeuvre is an indication that I was hardly attempting to achieve 'rocket ship' speeds.

Other factors you ought to be aware of:-

1. Officer ZQ18 agreed that the car I had passed was travelling at a speed under 100km/h as he had clocked it after measuring my speed. So its not as if i was already over the speed limit prior to overtaking.

2. It was a clear day, not a cloud in the sky. A dry road and a straight section of highway. The road to Ashburton has very few bends. Driving conditions were as good as you could possibly ever expect. Traffic was moderately busy which is precisely why I wasn't 'hanging around'.

3. The traffic Police vehicle performed a rather risky U-turn to 'chase' me. Ironically enough it's not the safest or smartest thing to do on State Highway 1 with moderately busy traffic but that's not my issue really.

4. The traffic Police vehicle was I think the same as the vehicle I was driving - a Toyota Aurion. The officer did say that they are 'easy to speed in'. He would know. After all he's just zipped past vehicles behind me to catch me. Again the actions of the Police officer are not my point - more that I'm driving a safe modern vehicle rather than some wreck of a machine that has barely passed its latest warrant of fitness.

5. 121km/h is not 228km/h (Toyota's claimed top speed for the vehicle I was driving), 200km/h or even 150km/h. I was not driving like a lunatic, wishing to endanger myself or anyone else. I just wanted to get past a slower moving vehicle safely.

Why do we have passing lanes?? If it is not acceptable to exceed the speed limit in order to pass a vehicle then why have them in the first instance? As my examples clearly show, if the law is to be adhered to strictly then drivers only have a use of the passing lanes if slower vehicles do not exceed a speed of approx 75km/h. In every other scenario we'd all have to queue up behind anything else on the road and become more and more frustrated.

Drivers in NZ have a habit of accelerating in a passing lane before returning to their previous precession speed. This only adds to my point.

$170 is a lot of money and 35 demerit points don't help me in my job which requires a reasonable amount of travelling.

All in all it leaves me feeling very frustrated and frankly a little bitter towards the Police services who only ever seem to cost me money. I feel I am the victim of a very simple and unintelligent quantitative assessment - the speed gun. Any qualitative mitigating factors have been blissfully ignored. I guarantee that tonight I will travel down Moorhouse Avenue, Christchurch @ approx 20% above the speed limit - along with hundreds other commuters so as to allow safe passage. I doubt I'll see a Police officer issuing speeding tickets.

And to think. Here was me thinking speeding tickets are issued for road safety reasons. I'd just like to have someone use 'reason' when penalising motorists.

It is Ironic that the ticket issuing officer concerned is originally from the UK - indeed originally from about 10 miles away from my home town. He like me, probably got sick and tired of the bureaucracy in the UK as much as anything and took off to place where common sense is supposed to be more prevalent. Here he is in NZ, issuing black and white penalties. The very thing that he possibly tried to escape. Irony of ironies.

I won't even start to comment on the thousands upon thousands of dollars in unpaid fines...Or the countless uninsured, unwarranted vehicles travelling our highways....Makes you wonder if you should try be a 'good guy' after all.

I really do hate being penalised on 'technicalities'.

When do you know?

For me, this is a very selfish place where thoughts crystallize. It's my equivalent of a cigarette - just a place i go and think for a few minutes every now and then. Sometimes its as If I need a lot of smokes and at other times I've virtually kicked the habit.
I've met a girl. She's lovely. The difficulty is that I habitually look for the bad in a person and then satisfy myself that they don't belong on my 'A' list. ridiculous but true. Clare hasn't pissed me off yet and that surprises me because i'm such a grumpy bastard.
I'm 35 and I have dreams and ideals for the remainder of my life. Surely that's normal (?). With relationships my worry has always been that you are in a relationship and then you meet else who you consider to be better, faster, stronger, fitter....OK I'll stop - you get the idea.
I'd like a little help here. When do you know that its time to park up?
She's beautiful isn't she?

Play the ball

Dating sites. Aren't they queer places? So, I'm on two sites and my profiles are loosely similar. You'll have to look to tell me what you think of course. the odd thing about dating sites is that despite the anonymity its generally guys that fire the 1st emails and generally girls that ignore them - just like 'real' life at the bars...Am I wrong?

I am looking for bites here but I do believe that more guys buy drinks for females than females buy for guys. Is that sexist and if so, which sex is being sexist?
So anyway, the dating profiles. I'm a good guy (no really - I am) but the most sexually suggestive and yet most hidden of my profiles gets the attention. The more 'genuine' one gets very little. What to feel about that I don't know. What I do know however is that a lot of guys are slime balls, send lurid pictures of their genitalia at the first chance, post pictures that do not resemble themselves in the slightest and try to hit on women at the first meeting like its the way to behave. They make my life hard on the dating circuit. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Angel but if I'm not wanted I'll leave the girl alone and deal with the 'rejection' (if it is rejection) like an adult rather than a bruised ego'd brat.
I'm wondering what the story is. The 'nice guy' profile gets nothing. The darker one gets some...They're both very very honest but the darker one is a profile your Mother would suggest you avoid.

A prominent NZ Sports Radio presenter called Brendan Telfer took ill the other day. He's a guy that says some stupid things during talk back radio (in my opinion) but a discussion about him (on air)was worth listening to. It was agreed in a very polite way that Brendan does have some unique views and his method of disagreeing with callers has many wondering if he is alright in the head. However he does have an ability to argue a point but that he always 'plays the ball - not the man'. A sporting analogy but the point made was that he can argue & disagree to the nth degree and then after the discussion go and have a beer with the very same person he has argued vociferously with. I wish I could do that...Sometimes the argument taints the person for me and I wish it didn't. Hmm mm. Thanks for reading.

The DIY Mechanic

Far too many people take themselves seriously I reckon. I do too but do my very best to limit it.

So, 'idiot' here decided to change his brake pads on his truck today and made a right balls up of it. For some unknown damn reason I released the bleed valve and now the frikkin truck won't stop. What a moron. WHAT A MORON!

If you ever feel the need to so the same..

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/how_to/4213448.html

Oh and its not a one man job if you stuff it up like I did, which is why I'll be asking a friend for their help tomorrow. Duh. I'm smiling! (Bloody idiot).

Gym Etiquette

Nothing is so interesting for me as people. Still images where faces and expressions are unknowingly captured in times of thought are just fantastic. You can tell so much from a face.
Equally as interesting are the faces of people in public; at the airport, walking through the mall, sitting at a cafe or working out at a gym. All are fascinating places to see expressions and imagery and utter nonsense as folk 'reinvent' themselves in real time. I'm smiling by the way.
So, the gym - a place that saves my bacon maybe 4 or 5 days a week. Its the place where I can rid myself of anything that is winding me up..almost.
It's generally guys that suffer dramatic physiological issues at the gym - created by massive mental panics about image. Girls suffer too but their ego's seem to to deal with it better. I'm not sure what happens as a male walks through the gym door but they seem to have difficulty walking properly and in fact need to slow down as if walking on the moon, carrying eggs under their armpits and at all times wear a scowl that would befit a WWE smackdown star. That's even before they grab the dumbbell that is far too heavy and begin wrecking themselves.
Ugh. I smile because I know you understand exactly what I mean. Guys in gyms - what are they like?

Niche Market

I mentioned a couple of posts back that I believe EVERYBODY has insecurities. Nobody is normal and yet some things fall within normality and some things seem to land in the 'queer', 'weirdo' or 'perverted' boxes.

The Internet allows people access to all sorts of stuff. If you have a product that doesn't need to be manufactured or shipped then you can sell it on the internet and your work load is minimal. Sell an image, a story, a video clip. It's a numbers game and I hate it that I'm a sucker for it. Hate it because its such a simple idea, such a flawed business plan and yet in the case of the internet which requires so little work to establish the shop window it can make the site owner thousands...My biggest frustration is that I fall for it and fritter away money to people who don't care about me or anyone else but their bank accounts. Porn is the most obvious culprit. It's so obvious that its hardly even niche - but there is no doubt sex sells (Dammit!). Drugs sell too - whether they be recreational or for performance . They're expensive.

It's niche market stuff. It's fantasy and people pay for it. Damn you people for praying on MY fantasy, leading me on that you have something I can have forever.... It ONLY costs maybe $10 a pop, maybe $100, maybe more - it depends on the market and the buyer. Of course nobody is twisting arms after all. Criminals target niche markets. I hope that makes you feel better Mr or Mrs Seller. Actually I wish I was you..or had what you have to sell.

Join the deep sea underwater Ironing club today!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niche_marketing

In sickness and in health?

Driving down Durham Street on Saturday I saw on my left a lovely looking young bride accompanied by what looked to me like three equally good looking young bridesmaids. "Another silly fucker" I uttered to myself as I drove past. It was like a reflex reaction to what I saw, an automatic 'without thought' response and it shocked me to the point of justification. Why did I say that!? Come ON James, be fair?

With my opinions I generally question myself as if somebody else was challenging any view I have, try to look at things from another angle...I do it to affirm my view or in rare cases, modify it.

Marriage. It doesn't make any sense to me at all. It's a bookies dream because there are so many variables and so much you cannot know and yet it is the single most important commitment people make to each other. So, I'd be happy to take bets on most marriages. They may last but isn't that possibly due to a fear? Codependency maybe? I mean people locked into relationships can't bare to be alone right? How many marriages are happy ones? In New Zealand last year about 20,000 people got married. About 10,000 divorced. Doesn't seem like people are too committed to marriage at all to me.

'Where there is no trust there is no love' must be one of the truest statements. If you trust somebody, why do you have to sign a damn register to prove it? How many people do you know that stuffed a relationship because one party was 'hiding' something from the other - be it an affair, alcoholism, S&M fetish or something else? Well...It's not uncommon - just ask Hugh Grant. So, that means that in relationships people aren't (always) honest. I'd go further. People aren't reliable. Then again if you are happy with the one you are with, aren't checked by paranoia because of what may or may not be then 'great!', no no i mean 'You lucky lucky bastard'...But you don't need to risk making a dick of yourself in front of 100 people do you? No. You've got the one, the boy or girl that does it for you so go and enjoy yourselves and best of luck to you..

If you meet the one and you truly know it's forever, I'm happy for you. Who are you proving it to if you get married you idiot?

If you want to play the slot machines then that's your choice. People change, people get old and people aren't always honest. That's just 3 variables. Put your coin in the marriage machine and your chances of the jackpot are worse than your chance of winning the lottery. There are so many variables you will need a computer to know how many. It's people you see?: They're ridiculously complex things. I used to play the chance game as a school teacher. A $20 note was up for grabs and the all the kids had to do was pick 4 numbers 0-9 in the same order as me. I never lost.

How many of you would put $1000 bet on a coin toss? See - you're not so silly after all. OK, now talk me through the logic of marriage? Er...

Here's another slant to it: Cage a wild animal and it will try to get out right?.... I've said enough. Love her / him but don't be a fool. If you are to be a fool, I truly hope you do hit the Jackpot (really). I don't rate your chances* but I hope those dice keep rolling a six for you.

*I believe in probability. It's smart to work out your chance of success before you stake your future on it.

Who's normal anyway?

I'm getting addicted to this place. Its brilliant. I guess it allows people to jot down their wacky thoughts, well that's what it is for me just now anyway. Everyone has insecurities - even the most rock solid individual has their little issues and truly? I refuse to believe otherwise.

I'm single and I'm also admittedly a dreamer. At 34 I'm worried that a little cynicism is clouding my sunshine and the clowning kid that was is not seen so often any more. Maybe the clown was a cover anyway....Probably.

I'd like to fix things a little. The ironic thing is that I'm not unhappy. I have cash in my pocket, a place of my own, allegedly a brain in my head and I have possibly too much time to myself.

Being a fussy bugger is a good thing but for me its a real pain in the arse. Normal guys like normal girls. I don't. That means I'm either a bloody peculiar guy or I like unusual girls... Which I guess either way you look at it means I'm peculiar. The other slant of course is that it could mean I'm honest or that every other man on the planet is scared about their true 'desires'. My desires I guess are not that 'weird' - thank goodness.

For some unknown reason I think muscular girls are incredibly appealing. No idea why. I just realised as a kid that your normal 'super model' didn't do it for me. I look after myself OK but not to extremes. I don't take drugs but am guilty of the occasional binge drinking session. I don't eat too much rubbish but can inhale a block of chocolate or wolf down fish n chips from time to time. Being in shape is important to me and it is what I look for in any potential partner. Why the hell I find female body builders so appealing is a loss to me but its the way it is. Needle in haystack? Er...Yes. Not sure how I'm wired exactly. My ego is in check. The idea of a female partner who can bench press more than I can doesn't worry me at all. Actually I think its great. Before you finalise your judgements though..I'm not a 100% submissive guy, I'm not a skinny 'was beaten up by girls at school' guy and I'm not gay. I just like pumped up girls. The girl in the picture? Yep, that works. Yeah I know!!! 0800 Braindoctor? Ha..It's just the way it is...

Margin

So, the credit crunch. The collapse of the western economy. The failure to lever money out of the average tax payers pocket. What a stuff up. Best bit of all is that we now have governments using tax payers money to bail out banks! Sorry!? I beg your pardon but are banks not establishments that have been 'printing' money since their inception at the expense of the common man? What a load of bullshit. Next time I get into financial strife I'll just ask the government to bail me out - because I've been stupid. Oh hang on - that already happens in western society. Bum. I'm no economist but if a business goes bust isn't it just tough shit?

I don't understand the idea of 'twin' towns, especially when a town has more than one twin. That's just stupid. Why not call it 'sibling' town? That makes sense. Sometimes things in the world just don't make sense. People eh?

People can change your mood so quickly. Being the savage flirt that I am a telephone call from a woman is always going to get more attention than one from a mumbling bloke. Simple as that. I 20 minute call today really made me smile. It should have lasted about 20 seconds. Communication is the key to everything hey?

An email had the very same effect this morning. From a relative stranger it was so well worded that I can tell you that I know already that I like the author. That she's an absolute stunner just makes it easier.

You all look after yourselves.

What's going on anyway?

So yesterday I took a day off. It's sleep related. That is i haven't been sleeping too great since i got back from the UK and the wedding last weekend...well lets just say the getting home at 8am and not feeling too sharp sort of put me back in UK time. So, being 12 hours out of sync I didn't sleep Monday night at all. Nice that I'm employed and don't work for myself I guess.
Part of the whole nonsense is due to lack of motivation though. I'm getting a bit tired of being that cog in the machine, the machine that seems to line my bosses pockets with cash and allows his family to wander around every day with no need for a 'job' and yet spend like royalty. That sort of pisses me off. They're nice people but I am a bit of a closet commie...Why is one persons time worth so much less or more than anybody else's? That guy cleaning the municipal toilets? He works damn hard, has a fucking horrible job and gets paid fuck all for the privilege. Nice. I sit on my arse either in a car or at a desk, and solve / sell technical solutions to engineers who facilitate huge process plants which in turn make kzillions. It's all fucked up. I get paid far more than the guy that cleans the toilets but i'm sure he works harder.
Also I'm feeling a little trapped - and here is the flip side. All I really want to do is travel and meet people i want to meet, have more than 20 days 'holiday' to do so and at the same time help people. Easy right? Well...No...Because the real twist is that I want to be able to give everyone i choose just a little hand up the hillside, a few dollars to get them going. To do that, I have to have far too much money and so the wheel of misfortune begins again. Truth is..If i get to that position of wealth will I think like this or will I employ somebody with a few cells that work to make more money for me? OOOPS! That's the wheel of misfortune again! Damn it. The self perpetuating bullshit..I'm going to have a cup of tea and think about what I'm going to do at the gym later...