Bike Rider Magazine Editor & Publisher, Paul Lance, reflects on the shocking standards of driving in New Zealand through the summer holidays and how it impacts motorcyclists
I imagine most of us are in the same boat after this holiday period and are just completely sick, tired, worried and astonished by the appalling level of driving standards on our roads. What can we do about it before many more of us become simply another ‘road toll’ statistic?
No doubt we’ve all seen the terrifying images on the news and social media of the aftermath when drivers screw up, and there’s been plenty of footage of foreign drivers on the wrong side of the road. But the politicians and the population need to look closer to home and the standard of our own drivers before there’s ever going to be a significant change in the situation. I’m sure you’ve all got your own stories to tell, but I’ll recount a couple of the worst examples I saw while riding over the Xmas period, with two separate incidents of drivers coming over the centerline towards me at 100km/h while clearly checking their Instagram/Facebook/Fuckwit status. Both times I picked up the unfolding incident by making sure I scan well ahead while riding, although the car in front of me obviously wasn’t paying as much attention in one instance and only swerved at the very last moment to avoid catastrophe. It’s really bloody scary, and I’m now spending much more of my attention scanning approaching traffic for dicks on their phones.
Another classic was coming over the Harbour Bridge heading to the motorcycling mecca of Barry’s Point Road. A police car was travelling in the traffic with us when he obviously received a call to attend something. A switch to the outside lane followed by the necessary blues and twos to clear traffic, resulted in the car he was trying to clear out of the way, stopping dead in front of him. Now think about that. This driver thought, that upon seeing a police car behind them with the lights on, the correct response was to stop in the outside lane of the motorway! It is beyond belief! Yet, I’m increasingly seeing completely irrational, aggressive or simply stupid behavior on our roads, which if it only affected the offending driver wouldn’t be too much of an issue. But the truth of the fact is that we’re among the most vulnerable to other people’s actions.
I had a rider write in over the holiday period who had come to NZ from the UK to sample our fantastic roads and picked up a copy of BRM while touring around. He felt compelled to write in to express his disbelief at the standard of driving practices in our country. “Surely, the most crazy, aggressive impatient drivers in the world!”, wrote Dennis, who has ridden through many countries throughout the globe. “If there was an event for “Best Tailgating” and “Idiotic Passing”, Kiwi drivers would take gold, silver and bronze, with no training or practice required!” He even states that Italy seems positively safe compared to New Zealand, and if you’ve ever driven or ridden there, you’ll know how crazy the Italians are on the road.
As usual, the police have done their usual revenue-driven exercise of pinging anyone who dares exceed the posted limit by a fraction, without any thought given to the mindless idiots who travel within the required speeds, but do it within inches of the vehicles in front while checking their selfies and tweeting to their followers. Why, oh why, do so many drivers seem to revel in driving in a multiple chain of cars, all within touching distance of one another when there’s no opportunity to pass? What does it achieve other than ramping up the chances of a nose-to-tail accident? I just don’t get it.
Yep, the general NZ public is all too eager to jump onto the ‘grab the keys off a tourist’ bandwagon, but until there’s a concerted effort to improve the standards of our drivers, not just sting our wallets for doing four kilometres an hour over the limit, the toll is only going to get higher, which in turn will lead to increased policing for, you guessed it, lower speed limits and higher fines. Surely, the best practice would be to get traffic cops out on bikes where they can see drivers on phones, stop people for tailgating and actually do something to change the habits of a majority of the population. I’m a firm believer that an experienced rider/driver who is travelling at the limit or slightly above while fully focused on what they are doing, is far safer than an idiot who thinks that as long as he sits 5km/h below the limit he doesn’t actually need to think about anything other than following the voice of the GPS that’s plumbed into his phone along with Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat. And don’t get me started about the cars with twenty mountain bikes on the back covering the lights, indicators and number plate… Seriously!
This article was originally published as the Editorial of Bike Rider Magazine Issue 165.
