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'.