Tom H

Police getting tougher on speed tolerance | Stuff.co.nz

I'm almost certain when doing their research on this, they are 100% confident that all speedometers are 100% accurate

Therefore when St Motorist is doing 100kmh, they are doing that and not 102kmh

I've seen some stupid decisions in my lifetime but this takes the gold medal. It's not surprising since we constantly get speed this speed that rammed down our throats by the retarded authorities. One day we may see a few adverts about the dangers of tailgating, failing to indicate, using a mobile

Even with the crashes, its all what speed were they doing. Forget that they were distracted or they were busy talking to their friend on their mobile, nah driver who did nothing wrong was 3kmh over the speed limit - his/her fault

No wonder the driving standards here are so shocking when the spasticated authorities just concentrate on speed. They may was well ban cars or make the speed limit every where 20kmh. Least the chances of death will decrease

Laughing stock

Stormer999

I can only quote in northern hamisphere terms :- The UK law is based on the EU standard, with some minor changes. A speedo must never show less than the actual speed, and must never show more than 110% of actual speed + 6.25mph. So if your true speed is 40mph, your speedo could legally be reading up to 50.25mph but never less than 40mph. Or to put it another way, if your speedo is reading 50mph, you won’t be doing more than 50mph but it’s possible you might actually only be travelling at 40mph.
To ensure that they comply with the law and make sure that their speedometers are never showing less than true speed under any foreseeable circumstances, car manufacturers will normally deliberately calibrate their speedos to read ‘high’ by a certain amount.

A lot of cars use speedometers that pick up on engine revolutions to give a reading hence when tyres are new, bigger diameter, the car will be travelling faster than when tyres are worn at the same engine revs.
Hence anyone being picked up on a police speed measuring device will be travelling a lot faster than a couple of k's on their dash board speedo and will certainly be well aware of the fact.
The whole point of the article is to draw attention to 'mindset' and the type of motorist that deliberately breaks the law by speeding is more likely to break the law in other driving ways, tailgating, mobile use etc.
It is certainly noticeable that during the holiday period when the tolerance is reduced fro 10 kph down to a lesser amount the standard of driving here is a lot more controlled and safer.

SSky

Just revenue gathering, if someone is going to dangerously speed they won't just be speeding 4k over the limit. Maybe they're catching less motorists speeding so need to become stricter to keep the money flowing in.

Stormer999

If drivers simply matched their speedo needles with the big road side speed limit sign as they are supposed to do then what is the problem?
To be speed checked at 54 in a 50 the car speedo needle will probably be somewhere around the 60 so their own fault or maybe a trip to Specsavers!

Hazelnut

The speed limit is the maximum speed, you don't have to drive at it. Where I live it's a single car, width road with many blind turns in a rural area round which you may meet articulated 40ton lorries, horses (driven as well as ridden), sheep, sometimes a Highland bull and small kids on bikes. The speed limit is 60mph. Anyone driving at that is an idiot with psychopathic tendencies in my opinion as they obviously don't care about killing themselves or other people.
If you know the law states you can't drive over the speed limit surely you'll moderate your driving so your speedo says 1-5km/hr below the speed limit? Perhaps focusing more on their speed means drivers will focus less on their mobile phone conversations.
I'm also sorry to hear that your whole council suffer from such a painful and severe neuromuscular condition TomH. Many people whose lives are blighted by cerebral palsy are highly intelligent so it's good to know that your council, although physically challenged, are making decisions based on a wide range of intelligence within their population.

BEVS

Yup Ssky. Revenue gathering is well know isn't it.

For those that have not picked up on this , TomH has a good reason and more to feel hacked off with the bad driving here.

No need to pick up needlessly on the odd adjective word people. I understood his feelings completely without needing to make his post into something it is not.

Don't go there.

Thanks.

Charismatic

If the police have run out of real crime perhaps it's time to start trimming budgets.

Anyway I think the focus on speed is fantastic. I've not used the indicators in my car in months because I've been busy facebooking on my phone, drinking Red Bulls, eating pies and driving with my knees but I've done this at slightly under the speed limit. As far as the police are concerned I'm a great driver.

Can't wait for a google self drive so I can watch TV in the back seat while driving to work.

Pulaski

I am considering nominating this as the funniest post of the year in The Lounge polls this year.

I can only assume that you don't drive. I was in the UK a few months ago, and found that most motorway traffic was doing around 85-90mph.

In the US where I live most traffic, including many HGVs, does around 10-15mph over the posted speed limits on Interstates and major highways.

scrubbedexpat094

I'm with you Tom H. It's ludicrous. The guy who tried to kill us earlier this year wasn't speeding. No, he was just playing around with his radio and was on our side of the road. He only realised this when he hit us. His fine wasn't that great probably because he wasn't speeding.

Bo-Jangles

Oh dear! I can't quite figure out if you're taking the piss or not, if you are fair play but I fear the latter. This is New Zealand we're talking about, not an episode of Doc Martin.

You can forget the genteel country lanes of the UK where the 'R word' is un-PC and everyone is relatively sensible and courteous to one another on the road.

I don't condone speeding per se but am quite happy to stick with the flow of traffic and push to the upper limit of 10% over, as that's what 's considered acceptable and everyone else does it, so why not eh?

It's pretty bloody hard not to bow to the pressure to go faster, when you see the whites of someone's eyes peering in your rear-view mirror from the car behind and even more so when that person is driving like Charismatic there, in a souped up Scooby with no hands, having a shave, applying mascara, whilst drinking a can of Bourbon, eating an apple and texting.

Besides which my speedo only shows increments of 20 kph - so trying to stick right on 50 for most of the time isn't exactly easy.

SSky

LOL ... that made me literally lol!

SSky

I drive to the airport every day and there's a speed checker just before the staff car park.

In my 20 yr old car it is spot on accurate with my speedo so I don't know about this myth of car speedos being set lower than the actual speed?

Pulaski

The police left a speed checker on the road near where I live (USA), and I drove past it several times in my Ford before they moved it. To get to the indicated speed of 35mph (the speed limit on that road), I had to get the speedo to show around 38-39 mph. In other words the speedo shows a faster speed than I am actually doing, by about 10%. If I did 35mph per the speedo I'd only be actually doing about 32mph.

Stormer999

It is set the same as your speedo...high. If it wasn't all the motorists would simply use the checkers as a calibration and end up going faster than the needle indication!

Stormer999

Exactly what I am trying to say So to register say + on a calibrated radar gun you would to be driving quite a bit over the posted speed limit i.e the 10% + what the police are allowing.