Why the hell has NZ taken so long to make using a mobile phone while driving illegal????
A Tauranga teenager who crashed his car into a tree while travelling at more than 100kph failed to notice a corner because he was texting, police say.
The 18 year-old was not injured the crash, which happened on Omanawa Road about 7am this morning when he was driving home from work.
But his car was a write off.
Police were astonished that despite the recent high profile over the dangers of driving and texting, people were still doing it, Inspector Karl Wright St Clair, of Tauranga, said.
It was likely the teenager would face charges, Mr Wright St Clair said.
From November it will be illegal for drivers to text or use hand held cell phones.
Although the legislation was not yet in place there were currently provisions for serious charges to be laid especially when an accident happened, Mr Wright St Clair said.
Are Teens thick these days??
Legislators = chicken shit self serving wankers who are too gutless to do their job and bring in laws to protect people for fear of loosing fiscal lubrication.
Just like here in AU and elsewhere in the world, it would appear that the Kiwi governments, both right and left have chosen the well worn path of legislating for the good of the corporate world rather than the population they were voted in to serve. Figures clearly show that even driving and talking on a 'hands free' impedes your ability to react in an emergency situation more so than driving .05. But you will never see legislation put in place to do anything about it, such as mandatory 'active engine signal block', because there's just too much money to be made in leaving the status-qua and accepting the spike in the road toll is collateral damage that's good for the bottom line.
The sad dirty truth
Cheers
Kim
Just like here in AU and elsewhere in the world, it would appear that the Kiwi governments, both right and left have chosen the well worn path of legislating for the good of the corporate world rather than the population they were voted in to serve. Figures clearly show that even driving and talking on a 'hands free' impedes your ability to react in an emergency situation more so than driving .05. But you will never see legislation put in place to do anything about it, such as mandatory 'active engine signal block', because there's just too much money to be made in leaving the status-qua and accepting the spike in the road toll is collateral damage that's good for the bottom line.
The sad dirty truth
Cheers
Kim
Last edited by Kim on Sun Sep 27, 2009 2:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
We have banned cell phone use while driving here, but its a secondary offense. You cannot be pulled over just for that. So, the law has had no real impact. Besides, you can't legislate intelligence. I worked for the state Department of Transportation for a while. We were doing work in Seattle, under the Convention Center. A couple of lanes were closed off, with barrels put out and an attenuator blocking the end of the lane where we were to drive into the construction area. Because of past problems, the state had put camera on the attenuators in case of an accident. There is footage of a guy running head on into the back of the attenuator. All that sand and water and his airbag kept him from getting killed. His laptop didn't survive though. The footage showed that he was turned in his seat with both hands on the keyboard looking at the screen. The driver was surprised he hit something. As he told the officer, he did it all the time and ever had a problem before.
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