Dangerous driving tag needs re-think

Press, 23 September 1988, Page 38

Dangerous driving tag needs re-think

ALMOST inevitably, what I’m about to write will stir emotions in Ministry of Transport offices and among road safety campaigners. Unlike the aforementioned, I feel sorry for the North Island businessman who, as “The Press” reported recently, was pinched three times and incurred 105 roadbanning points within 70 minutes when apprehended by Hawk radar-toting traffic officers on what was probably a well-nigh deserted State highway 1 as he travelled south.

Compared with the North Island’s Route 1, the southern continuation, with its long, straight and boring speedways to anyone with other than distilled water in the veins, is a compelling invitation to sin, in the eyes of the law.

It is not allowed to be traversed at speeds greater than 100 km/h, if one is not to be branded as a dangerous driver by politicians, the M.O.T. bureaucrats and other dogooders who are prone to piously claim that they have nothing but the general welfare of all at heart.

All the same, I firmly believe that in this context the charge “dangeroils driving” is a highly emotive description. Why, for example, is failure to wear an approved safety, helmet when riding a motor-cycle not included among the litany of routine traffic regulation infringement fees? After all, motorcycle gang members, in the main, have other means of identification to set themselves apart from the rest of the road-going community.

By the same token, is it reasonable to ask why a pedestrian who offends against regulations 51 to 56, inclusive, should be liable to an instant fine of $lO when, in fact, pedestrians who most certainly must be the most consistent traffic offenders, at least in South Island cities, are seldom, if ever, arraigned in the courts? After all, any motorist apprehended and charged with exceeding the speed limit by not more than 15km/h — a measly 10 mph — is fined $3O.

ALSO reported about the same time was the case of a Ministry of Transport sergeant who, in the region of the Canterbury rural settlement of Oxford, failed to stop and, presumably, issue a speeding ticket to a BMW driver.

The sergeant, explaining why he had abandoned the chase, was reported as saying, “I felt if I dropped back it would stop the driver from con-

tinuing at the same speed into Oxford.”

Frankly, I find it hard to believe that any BMW owner would be stupid enough to race through a village at lOOkm/h which, let’s face it, is the equivalent of more than a mile a minute. But that is probably the way in which some M.O.T. officers have been taught by their superiors to think.

The sergeant did have the good grace to offer his opinion that the speeds reached during his pursuit of the BMW were not dangerous, although lOOkm/h was exceeded. That, of coure, was a personal opinion. The official opinion was not reported. Maybe the sergent was not among the Hawk radar-toting officers who apprehended the North Island businessman! Certainly, if both the reported incidents had occurred when youngsters might have been using the road on their way to or from school, the offenders might have been driving potentially dangerously, but these incidents happened during school holidays, it seems. They also might have been potentially dangerous if, as so often happens, there was wandering stock about, or being driven on the roads in question. But surely in the case of wandering stock, the owner should be the guilty party. I refer to this matter because, recently, I was held up approaching Melbourne on the old Hume Highway by a Victorian State Police roadblock. I pulled up behind a queue of cars held up by a yellow traffic patrol car parked across the road with two policemen. Although my heart quickened in anticipation of witnessing the apprehension of some escaping bank robbers, I was disappointed to find that the reason for the roadblock was that a farmer happened to be moving sheep from one paddock to another. It was an operation that the police saw fit to send two cars with four patrolmen to supervise in

the interests of road users, a farmer and his sheep. Surely that was an example of actively averting what could have been a potentially dangerous sitution.

COINCIDENTALLY, I have just received from a Blenheim reader a photocopy of George Young’s “Weekending” column published in an April issue of a British motoring weekly, “Motor.” Young’s topic was the British Department of Transport/Home Office review of road traffic law. The committee reporting was chaired by Dr Peter North, who seems to have directed the committee along common sense lines, some of which may have eluded our lawmakers and administering bureaucracy.

Dr North and his committee spent three years examining what the report calls the quality of driving. That makes a lot of sense, because most accidents result from inferior driving, whether the individual behind the wheel be drunk or sober. Courts, the report suggests, should consider how competently and carefully a driver should have behaved. The committee makes the point that bad driving doesn’t attract appropriate severity, for at present many British drivers are only charged with lacking due care and attention. Further, the committee recommends that the term “reckless driving” should be abandoned in favour of “bad” or “very bad” driving. Bad driving should include speed excessive in the prevailing conditions, aggressive or intimidatory driving, sudden lane changing and following too closely. Obviously, the North Report contains a wealth of suggestions and recommendations that could be worthy of consideration by the Minister of Transport and his department, once the blinkers have been shed. In fact, judging from George Young’s “Weekending” column I’m inclined to think that the highly emotive and muchabused term, “dangerous driving,” did not figure largely in the considerations of Dr North and his committee.

BEFORE anyone who has followed the business career of the retiring chairman of the Moller Corporation, Norton Moller, writes to tell me that I was wrong in ascribing his period of chairmanship as being about 40 years: I unreservedly must admit that he guided the

reins of the corporation for about half that time. The error in last week’s “Behind the Wheel” column might not have been deemed important, but I feel certain that he, his brother Russell, executives of the corporation and close friends of the Moller brothers would not want it generally thought that the corporation had been led by a chairman who might have been considered well beyond the accepted retirement age for chairmen of directors in this country. Nothing could be further from the truth.

DRAWING upon the experience of Mazda and Ford in recent times, Michael Fay, who mounted the San Diego America’s Cup challenge, could take solace in the fact that it can be embarrassing to be the leader, at least in some cases.

Mazda New Zealand, Ltd, firmly directed New Zealand eyes on the station waggon market segment when it revealed its 626 GLX manual and automatic at prices of $30,790 and $31,990 a month or two ago, beating Ford to the draw with its Telstar clone.

When Ford came on the scene with its Sierra replacement quite recently, its prices were $27,995 and $29,245, compared with the Mazda equivalents.

It has not taken long for Mazda to readjust its thinking on prices now that the late-coming Telstar is markedly cheaper. Last week, marketing manager Don Barry announced the revised Mazda waggon would carry tags of $29,990 and $31,190 in future — prices that are, at least, more compatible with those of the Telstar clone. “It would appear that our launching into the medium < waggon has created quite an impact. Without being specific, two of the players we used as a benchmark for pricing our 626 GLX range have moved prices down,” he says. The other waggon is, of course, the Mitsubishi Magna, of 2.8 rather than 2 litres and Australian assembled. Its price is $27,500 for the GLX manual and $29,100 for the GLX automatic, while the SE sells for $34,000. However, as. far as Mazda at least is concerned, the future might not be all sweet-smelling flowers. Don Barry forecasts that, with the outlook of weakening currency putting cost pressure on the whole automotive market, there’s a distinct possibility that prices will rise across the board within two or three months.