Is NZ too liberal? Are parents too lax in teaching kids responsibility? Do the laws protect young people too much? Should there be restrictions in licencing associated with engine size/type? Do we need to introduce mandatory mnimum 3rd party insurance? Are lending institutions not being responsible and taking on too many bad loans? Do we enforce the law enough? Shuold public monies be used to provide resources or outlets for these people to use? Police taking easy targets instead of fighting real crime? 3 strike laws and car crushing? Just a few make it worse for many? etc etc etc
Personally I agree with most of the above lol..
what are your thoughts?
Don't forget we recently had they dude from chch advocating some sort of representation of "car enthusiasts" here.. then again, he didn't exactly seem like the brightest chap in the world..
I thought some discussion would be nice as the week draws to a close
Dave
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/sto ... d=10501768
Herald wrote:'Blowing off steam,' says teen clocked at 178km/h
5:00AM Thursday April 03, 2008
By Elizabeth Binning
The number on the right of the panel is the speed at which the police car was travelling.
A teenager clocked doing 178km/h through a notoriously dangerous intersection told police he was simply "blowing off steam".
Stunned officers say there is no excuse for the 19-year-old's irresponsible driving, especially as he had two passengers.
"It was absolutely mad to drive like that," said Senior Sergeant Andrew Berry, tactical co-ordinator for Counties Manukau East police.
Mr Berry said a constable in a patrol car was driving north along Te Irirangi Drive on Sunday night when his radar picked up the teenager's Japanese import coming through the Ormiston Rd intersection.
"He initially thought the radar gave him a mistaken reading because he couldn't see the car. Then he saw it coming, locked it at 178 and it came through the intersection so quick that he couldn't even get a registration."
The officer found the car stopped at the next traffic lights, where the driver explained travelling at more than twice the 80km/h limit by saying he was blowing off steam.
Mr Berry said: "There are some of our most dangerous intersections along Te Irirangi Drive, Ormiston being one of them, and he blows through that intersection so fast that the first thing the officer knew that the car was coming was when the radar picked him up at that speed."
If the car had collided with another vehicle, the combined impact speed would have been about 250km/h, which would have been "certainly fatal to the three occupants of the offending vehicle plus anybody they collided with".
The teenager was charged with driving at a dangerous speed and operating a vehicle recklessly, and his car was confiscated.