CLICK HERE FOR DRIVERS REVENGE ARCHIVE
First off, if you’re a tyre-shredding, red-lining, antisocial mooron, then this site’s NOT for you … IF … on the other hand, you’re a responsible, careful, law abiding driver who feels aggrieved at having to hand over fat wads of hard earned cash for the most trivial of distractions, then here’s a big, warm welcome to Drivers Revenge.
Secondly, the incidents and officers featured on this site represent a small section of traffic enforcement staff. Most traffic officers work long hours motivated only by keeping you and other road users safe.
Road Safety or Revenue Gathering?
“Is that driver speeding … OR, have they inadvertently breached a limit in the natural course of everyday driving, resulting in a fine and often demerits?”
If you were to look at my driving history on New Zealand’s roads you’d be forgiven for thinking that I was a bit of an idiot. I’ve got a number of fines to my name and a small stack of demerits.
Now some will say that’s justified, tell me to “pull my neck in and stop whining!”
However, I would argue that I am not a bogan or even a bad driver for that matter. I’ve driven what I would like to think, sensibly and respectfully on roads all over the world and nowhere have I been stopped and fined more than right here in NZ.
ALL of those fines are for doing less than ten percent over the limit and I am now so paranoid that if I see a white car that even remotely resembles a patrol, my first instinct is to slam on the brakes … much to the annoyance of anyone travelling behind me!
I am fed up with being bullied and do feel persecuted for simply choosing to travel by car.
They say it’s not the fall that kills you but the hard stop at the bottom.
I believe that contrary to what the media and enforcement agencies preach, it’s not speed alone that kills.
Excessive speed for the conditions kills, FACT and the faster we go, the harder the stop when it goes wrong.
As long as humans choose to travel at speeds above walking pace then there will be accidents and the faster we go, the bigger the mess. But speed alone is only part of the equation.
Modern cars are highly capable of holding the road, cornering and stopping. Some are capable of 250kph and regularly do so on Germany’s Autobahns (where there’s no limit). The modern vehicle is more than comfortable and safe cruising down a UK motorway at 145kph.
Then are we to believe that there’s something about New Zealand’s high quality roads that render these intimately designed, highly engineered, relentlessly tested machines, utterly useless at anything above donky pace?
It’s failing to drive to the conditions and muttonheads that cause accidents.
My vehicle is perfectly engineered to cruise down a double lane highway at 100kph so long as I don’t do anything stupid. I’ll make adjustments garnered from years of driving should the conditions change. If it’s pouring with rain or icy I wouldn’t dream of cruising along the local country roads at 100kph even though the limit would say it’s ok to do so.
I need to reiterate, my arguments do not mean that I’m excusing or condoning speeding.
My issue, and it’s become a BIG issue, is the way ‘speed’ is monetised is enforced.
My experience and the available statistics appear to confirm that the exponential rise in revenue isn’t translating into safer roads and reduced deaths. But then the stats are confusing, manipulated at best and shrouded in smoke and deflected by mirrors at worst.
In this police issued document they state ‘EXCESSIVE SPEED’ is a key cause of road trauma.
They also assume that we ALL drive badly and that the big stick has to be wielded to keep us all in order.
I have asked for the statistics regarding speed enforcement fines and have yet to receive an answer. All of my fines have been for the type of speeds we hit when driving safely and concentrating on the hazards, a few miles over the limit. I would like to see the total number of fines and the percentage of those that are in the 0-5kph over range, the 5kph-10kph over range and tickets issued for ‘excessive speeding’.
Isn’t it time for clarity and openness?
Why should I need to request specific data via official information requests – let’s just have it!
In reality I’m sure it’s only a fraction of a percentage of people who wantonly and recklessly speed excessively. I can count on one hand, the amount of drivers I’ve seen acting like complete retards. I’ve had more terrifying experiences with log lorries and trucks, than redneck motorists.
YET the authorities continue to have us believe that fining motorists, any and all motorists for any minimal excess speed is ‘the only way to reduce the toll on our roads’
In Australia recently, not only was a zero tolerance policy (same as we get here) enforced during the holidays, but they saw fit to add double fines and demerits!
A single moment of distraction could see a driver lose their licence and all the collateral damage that goes with that.
Is that where we’re heading?
New Zealand is a relatively new player in this racket and authorities appear to be riding the wave and cashing in.
Eventually, however the tide of public opinion turns and the backlash from angry and disgruntled motorist becomes overwhelming .
The UK were forced to examine their policies and chose to abolish ‘stealth cameras’. They eventually bowed to public sentiment and lobby groups and were forced to only target GENUINE accident blackspots, put up speed camera warning signs, re-paint cameras and vans from battleship grey to dayglo yellow.
Canada ripped up their cameras altogether in early 2000 and speed traps are announced, even on the radio in some states.
If the goal really is to reduce accidents and make blackspots less black, then surely we need to target them, highlight them with a sign HIGH CRASH RATE SLOW DOWN OR DIE BIRDBRAIN. Put a high vis camera there because if a jackass does put their life and others at risk they deserve to be fined.
I’m confident that the kind of driver we welcome at Drivers Revenge would wholeheartedly agree that any accident or death on our roads is one too many and anything we can do to make them safer is fully supported …
Let’s open the debate
- Is fining the answer?
- Is this about road safety?
- Or, despite all the rhetoric and claims, is the current agenda more about money?
Why would this stealth speed camera van set up on a long, straight section of road where there’s not been a speed specific crash … ever?
Why is it not sat outside the local school every day instead of at the bottom of the hill where you actually have to brake to stay under the limit … or at the top just where the limit drops as you round the bend?
Why would the officer featured in DR hide under a bridge, behind bushes and claim to be ‘out to catch speeders of over 200kph’ (a wholly laudable action), then contradict this by issuing a dubious ticket to a family traveling home from the cinema. THEN, commit perjury to enforce that fine (allegedly).
Of course it’s the right thing to do to hang a bonehead from the rafters for burning rubber past a school, but a big fat fine and demerits for 63kph in a 60kph zone … really?
‘Minimal’ Excess Speed is Unavoidable!
We spend many hours of our life behind the wheel and it’s a naturally human trait that we can only concentrate on one thing at a time (they believe that it harks back to the days when we were chasing down the woollly mammoth, various beasts, and banging women over the head. We had to focus fully on the hunt).
Whilst driving I concentrate on the road ahead, yet there are any number of things vying for my attention.
I switch focus multiple times a second to assess various potential hazards. I anticipate and make preparations for the occasional tourist heading towards me on my side of the road, I keep one eye open for small children and the elderly suffering from alzheimer’s who may jump into my path at any moment, I even monitor my peripheral vision for angry Pukeko and those daft wood pigeons, which seem to fly out of nowhere … and occasionally, just occasionally I drift over the speed limit and into the ‘Gotcha Zone!’
It’s impossible to drive any distance and not drift over the limit – we drive, process a thousand data points every second and responsibly glance at our speedo to adjust our speed.
I’ve followed any number of patrol cars doing precisely this, yet they’ll stop, question, patronise, embarrass and fine any motorist they can, whenever they can.
In our area they change the road speeds on a regular basis. A local road was originally part of the main highway but a bypass was built so the speed limit was dropped from 100kph, to 80kph. More recently it has been dropped again to 60kph and over the last months there have been varying combinations of those limits. It’s all a little confusing and I’ve been fined a couple of times here along with many, many other locals.
Changing this limit has resulted in a zero reduction in the zero incidents that were happening prior but I would bet a dollar that a fat wedge of wonga has been gathered by the stealth camera van deployed there regularly now.
My question is: “If it’s safe to do 100kph on that road one week, then how come it suddenly becomes unsafe to drive at 60kph the next and why am I fined for doing 64?”
There are hundreds of stories like this and we’d love to hear yours.
Drivers Revenge gives you the opportunity to have your say and to let us know your experiences.
Are The Vast Majority of Fines Issued Spuriously?
At the top I penned a bold headline claiming that ‘most fines should not have been issued’. This is entirely true (I believe) and not only are they issued wrongly, they are enforced and extorted by thugs (my opinion) who are empowered to raid wages, restrict personal freedom, jump fences, enter homes and take personal property which is then sold it off to the highest bidder at auction (whatever that bid is) and even, in extreme cases, bang you in prison.
So let me clarify!
This site was inspired by the tickets I received for what I consider to be very minor indiscretions captured by both mobile and static readings rendered by patrol officers using radar. Apart from a few traffic speed cameras and stealth vans, radar is the key tool used by cops for REVENUE GATHERING. There, I said it, that dirty little phrase!
Yes! Revenue gathering because let’s face it, despite all the denials, deflections, falsehoods and downright lies, this is exactly what it appears to be.
Hundreds of thousands of fines are handed out each year based solely on a reading obtained by an instrument. The assumption is that the reading is unquestionable and entirely accurate.
This is far from the case!
Radar is DUMB!
Stalker radar used by New Zealand police, although quite sophisticated, can only register ‘the fastest’ OR ‘the biggest’ target in it’s field of operation.
Furthermore, it can only register an ACCURATE reading under very specific conditions.
These conditions are outlined in the new Zealand Police Operations Manual
The KEY point is that ‘if the radar is not operated in accordance with the operations manual then the reading cannot be considered accurate and MOST IMPORTANTLY … NO ACTION SHOULD BE TAKEN:
Yet fines and demerits in their thousands are issued every week in direct breach of the Code of Operations … and those tickets are enforced, ramped up, leveraged and collected every, single day.
Essentially, the manufacturers of Stalker and New Zealand Police recognise the limitation of this tool and therefore it is only to be used to CONFIRM the officer’s assessment of an incident.
An officer is trained to assess traffic, he is supposed to be able to spot a speeding vehicle and manually assess the speed.
Having said that, humans are notoriously bad at accurately assessing speeds and if that object is travelling towards you (as in most speed traps) they fail dismally.
So a cop is supposed to best-guess that a particular car is speeding excessively, clearly identify the car by make and colour etc. AND ESTABLISH A TRACKING HISTORY.
RADAR IS ONLY SUPPOSED TO BE USED ONLY TO CONFIRM THE OFFICER’S ESTIMATE.
THEN … according to the Operations Manual, the officer is at liberty to issue a fine with the tracking history clearly RECORDED:
This is far from the experiences (detailed in this site) I have had whereby the officer’s appear to be deploying a scattergun policy pinging just about anyone and anything that happens to cross their field of view.
Stealth Fines
If this wasn’t controversial enough there’s an even more deplorable and worrying tactic being used by some police, the practice of hiding with the intention of taking readings by stealth. This practice is claimed to be ‘unacceptable’ in police memo obtained by Drivers Revenge but my experience shows it is often used.
Not only is radar dumb but it works in a very specific way.
It emits a beam, a fraction of that beam will hit an object and rebound. The instrument will then register a reading.
The key point is that it’s the FIRST solid object encountered the beam is reflected off, so if an officer chooses to hide behind bushes, signs, gates, fence posts and all manner of erroneous objects the reading will NOT be accurate.
And on top of this and despite the claims of the police, Stalker Radar is not infallible or immune to outside influence. As a publisher of auto related information on the Internet for many years we’ve investigated Stalker radar and as the videos on the site show, they can be affected by all manner of things from rain, to sounds and even by the electricity pulsing through the stock fencing that borders many of our roads.
The police often defend their actions by claiming ‘they don’t receive the fines as they go to the Government Fund‘; they claim they do not have targets. Police are funded by the Government.
I’m told that there are quotas. It makes sense, after all, if a cop isn’t enforcing policy and changing driver behavior by fining (as the memo at the top states) they become redundant.
In my opinion, to justify fines extorted from, conscientious, law-abiding motorists in the name of ‘road safety’ is a con, it’s downright immoral and even unlawful when those fines are issued wrongly.
Extortion! Don’t even get me started on Wellington enforcement department!
If they send you a notice it’s automatically considered ‘delivered’ regardless of whether it’s actually delivered or not.
Conversely, I’ve sent numerous letters to Wellington including extremely important ones asking for court hearings and they all mysteriously are lost in the post … and guess what?
When enforcing a fine, as Wellington allegedly didn’t receive the correspondence it’s passed straight onto the Ministry of Justice for collection, circumventing statutory rights to a fair hearing entirely.
Throughout my social circle there is a genuine and pervasive feeling that current traffic policing does nothing to make roads safer.
The AA have a grading system for New Zealand roads.
A spokesman recently claimed on national news that ‘if by simply upgrading a two star road to a three star road, it would HALF the number of deaths’.
People I speak to all agree that genuine and dangerous speeding is unacceptable. However, the AA spokesman did not cite speeding as the main issue. He went on to say:
We all make mistakes however, it’s the state of the road that determines how severe are the consequences
All those I speak with object to what can only be described as a regime of unfairly targeting motorists for revenue with proceeds going to the general purse.
I believe we all support fines that are genuinely and honestly given. I also believe that there would be further support for a common sense policy that put that revenue directly into road upgrades.
Drivers Revenge details all of our findings, it is also a conduit for your personal experiences and it is our intention to use this site as leverage in the battle for fairness and safer roads.
We are a young nation and one that is proud of our many and varied achievements, one that leads the world in so many areas. We are innovative and original thinkers.
So enjoy this site, let us have your thoughts and stories and together we’ll work out a better way to make driving safer, an alternative to an outdated regime that appears to get more draconian as time passes.
