Campbells

Yeah,

So many Kiwis say that something needs to get done but that's where it seems to stop, the talk. I will no doubt get a load of quotes to this saying what am I doing about it

The other fact is that most of the roads here are just not designed for any kind of traffic moving at speed & volume. Would be termed in England as country lanes. In other countries - as donkey tracks.

Jokes aside. There are just so many deaths on the roads it is not funny and the recent case where the 15 y/o hoon took out a 3 y/o the nipper was a pedestrian so it is really crazy.

Every Friday & Sat night at around 9 you can hear the hoonies off to their parties, red lining through every gear. The police, well most of the police stations around here close at 4 o’clock, morning tea, afternoon tea, lunch. Of course there is the sirens that you hear too which I imagine is the ambulances to pick up the pieces.

I have had words with a couple of the hoonsters in our neighbourhood as they race around trying to be cool while there are toddlers all over the place. What I can’t understand is this whole fast image, because it is all image, trying to get most things done in NZ is certainly not fast. In the case of Porsche drivers they call it small penis syndrome.

They also need to get the noise pollution under control, not just from the phat exhausts the hoons have but the bass that comes from their sub-woofers. Of course they got to force feed you with their Boooooooomm ska Boooooooom ska or a little allegro Boom ska, Boom ska. I didn’t realise that there were so many wanna be Ali G’s in NZ - lol.

Then of course we have the thread on here that asks why there are not any negatives said about Oz. In my opinion is because idiots like the hoons we have here are not allowed to degrade the country, ultimately something is done about it.

Let me go and save the trees now ……………….

mickey_d

Some interesting stats. (hope i'm not being boring)

http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/research/toll.html#further


I make it to be about twice as bad as the UK.
NZ - 1 death/10000 people/year
UK - 1 death/18000 people/year

Thats pretty bad.

Maz

Not to mention - what the hell was her baby doing in the front seat?

OK... maybe I shouldn't have read this thread, but at least it has me more prepared. I've not driven on the left-hand side of the road since July 2003... oh fun. We were in England for 10 days and rented a car. After day 2, hubby point-blank refused to drive anymore, and handed the keys to me.

southerner

Would be interesting to see the stats per km travelled. I suspect (but don't know) that NZers drive more distance on average (higher car ownership and less public transport).

The stats you have quoted are not as bad as I feared, and could be mainly explained by lack of motorways (which dominate in the UK and on the whole are a very safe way of getting from a to b over long distances).

Don't get me wrong, there are definitely problems in NZ with driving standards, car safety and road quality, and every road casualty is ultimately tragic and avoidable.

Campbells

Interesting.

I would imagine higher volumes of traffic would be more of a risk of accidents.

Campbells

This was taken off the NZ Herald recently

ballsrburning

Well I have to say that it doesn't sound any worse than this country(uk ) I hvae had stuff fall off the back of lorries when I have been driving down the motorway and had to take avoiding action. Also, loads of crashes and deaths where I live and I mean pretty much every day (A14 cambridge).

As for stupid driving don't know if its becasue I have got a very fast modded jap car (and no I don't race kids in novas or fiestas) so every chav wants to race and do stupid things like over take on blind corners and generally try and ram people off the road. NZ honestly doesn't sound any worse to me. Mind you the A14 is a bit of a nightmare of a raod the amount of times I hvae nearly been rammed off the road by a lorry I couldn't tell you. :curse:

Campbells

Fair comment BUT…………..

60 million people in the UK versus 4 million in NZ (of which 1 million are in Auckland) means that just the population is one fifteenth of the UK.

I guess there must be a global attitude shift for the worse. I drove a bike for two years in the UK and only drove cars only when I had to and never had any problems.

The UK as far as I recall had a good standard of driving.

I drove on the autobahns in Germany quite a bit and found them really awesome and took no sh1t. Mind you at these speeds there is no room for plonkers in Scooby Doos.

It’s amazing I remember speeds then being 160 kmph in the fast lane and a car is coming up fast behind you and they were generally the European cars and they were not loud cars that was seen as a sign of good engineering. If you were not in the fast lane you would just hear a whoosh as a few went past.

Here in NZ you can hear the bling-bling mobiles ten km away. Wrooooooooooom and that’s in a 50 kmph zone.

I guess it is a different kind of vibe, like you say little baby cars with all the bling-bling kit to make them look fast meanwhile the real fast cars are off the assembly line – fast without the bling!

Ali G makes me laugh as I think he understands the whole deal and makes light of it.

Wicked……. Aye

karonious

One of my least favorite things about living in this suburb of Hamilton:
I can hear the boy racers/hoons in the next suburb (which has major problems with gangs/drugs/hoons/lowdecile rating) now and again at the weekends.
The first weekend we moved here, about 3am, 2 cars came down our very quiet cul-de-sac and did hand-brake turns. It woke me and scared me rigid as our next door neighbours at the time had commented to Steve to NEVER leave his (BIG, FLASH) motorbike at the front of the house. I honestly thought that some gang had come to pinch it, even though it was safely locked in the garage by then. Most weekends I can hear them screeching about in the distance, this weekend until 5am (I am a very light sleeper)! Not on our street but in the next suburb.
But on the whole, life is great here: if that is the worst I have to moan about: life is OK

Campbells

I'm old school. A good hiding is what most of them hoons need – they got zero respect.

We have a 4 year old and we have these maniacs racing up the street. Apart from these little brats in their bling cars our neighbourhood is great.

NZ needs a law for noise pollution & hoon control ! It’s interesting that you say there is gang problems in the next suburb and you can hear all this noise. It is not difficult to catch these hoonsters I reckon the cops here go to sleep at 4 o’clock. I know most of the police stations close here on the north shore at 4 pm.

Sure NZ is a great place but we are worried that if they don’t do something about these problems it is going to get a whole lot worse. I agree, NZ is` great but so was the UK 20 years ago if you know what I mean ?

Cheers .............

lardyl

now I seriously doubt that because there would be none of the real idiots that I see here left on the roads...they'd all be a part of the northern motorway bridge like the poor sod that cheezed their car up here this morning, RIP.
I used to drive on average 15000 miles to 18000 miles p.a. all around UK and I NEVER EVER saw as many accidents, near misses and reckless (and I mean reckless) driving there in 10 years as I have seen here in 2 months.
You could quote statistics all you like but for me that is pretty damning.....
As others have said - if the Kiwis are worried about this (just look at the press to see that many are) - then given their heightened sensitivity about anything that even hints at a problem here - this must be a real problem, perhaps only in the population centres but from what others have told me it certainly is an issue in the cities.....:curse:

karonious

Complete tangent Lardyl: did you actually get your avatar numberplate yet?

lardyl

nah - just ditched the cheezy plate surround from the car dealer (as it was loose) and wondering what to do - have a better NZ-like set of letters but I'd have to shoot you if I were to tell (yes they are available)......
anyone else got the plates as discussed???

Campbells

I was in meetings most of the day today and heard that the highway was closed for a couple of hours. I have not seen any detailed news yet but someone did say that there were just body parts and car parts spread out over a wide area as a result of the crash.

I spent a few hours behind the wheel today and it is really madness. The standard of driving is shocking. Driving out from the city heading south this morning every lane was taken up with big trucks and they will just not move over. If I remember correctly this is a driving offence in the UK.

My experience with statistics is that they are mainly used by politicians trying to convince people that based on stats blah blah blah. I heard the argument over & over in South Africa that murder was statistically on the decrease but yet most people we spoke to had a near death experience. But statistically speaking ….. blah blah blah

I believe that statistics here are also shaped as in the domestic violence area. We heard from a pretty reliable source that there is close to 40 000 cases of baby abuse here in NZ per annum but that is not a stat that keeps with the clean-green image.

Besides, who can argue with statistics

So the deal is just accept the stats, sorry I don’t buy that easy. I judge by results not hear-say. In our neighbourhood and most other people we speak to from other areas say – New Zealand has a serious problem with hoons, boy racers, gangs in fast cars, call them what you want, there is a problem and it is a big one.

What did it cost the economy to close a major highway for two hours in the commercial capital of New Zealand today ?

karonious

After Steve bought himself a large expensive motorbike without mentioning it to me first, I very nearly got SELF1SH for him!