Cops using a Cessna?

[ardypilot]

Word on the street is the police have rented a little Cessna type aircraft to patrol the road between Auckland and the Mount around the New Years period?

Apparently a few of my mates have seen this on the news, but a quick search of Stuff.co.nz and the Herald haven't revealed anything- anyone got a link?

[AlisterC]

I'm pretty sure there was a video on 3news to go with this, but can't find it at present. But, the 'rumour' you mention is indeed true!
http://www.3news.co.nz/Traffic-police-take...40/Default.aspx

Here we go: http://www.3news.co.nz/Video/Police-to-kee...efault.aspx#top

[Ian Warren]

Eyes of a hawk , i can tell you any plane type .. spot the rego ... Ears that pic a plane type above the noise of a factory .. maybe a job for me

[FlyingKiwi]

They had a story on TV1 news a little while ago about this - the registration was blurred out in their coverage but I'm sure it wouldn't be very hard to find.

[pilotgallagher01]

Called scanner and searching for them lol

[towerguy]

a damned good idea too!

if you are a safe and legal driver then you have nothing to worry about.

if you are the driver that has to worry about this then I don't want you on the same roads that myself and other members of my family are on anyway.

good luck to them - I just hope the PC doo gooders don't get all up in arms and shoot down another good initiative.

merry xmas all and have a SAFE time over the holidays.

TG

[CDTDAN]

I think we should have a repaint competition and see who can do the best 'police' repaint of any plane you find suitable

Just a thought

[AlisterC]

Amen to that Towerguy! Especially now I have a baby in the back seat, I want the speeding drivers as far away from me as possible.
Drive safe everyone, and hope to see you back here in the new year, not in an accident on the news tonight

[Timmo]

QUOTE (Albatross @ Dec 26 2008, 02:58 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Amen to that Towerguy! Especially now I have a baby in the back seat, I want the speeding unsafe drivers as far away from me as possible.
Drive safe everyone, and hope to see you back here in the new year, not in an accident on the news tonight

a driver, hungover, talking on a cell phone in a unwarrantable car driving at 95km/h while not concentrating on the road.
a driver, awake, alert, concentrating on driving at 115km/h

One is much safer than the other in my opinion

[deeknow]

Have you guys actually listened to the video? The officer they interview points out that speeding is not what they are monitoring, in fact it seems they aren't currently able to do that from the air, what they are looking for ironically is SLOWER drivers that are holding up traffic and forcing the other less patient folks to make dangerous moves to get past.

I'm not saying speeding is ok, and dangerous overtaking is just plain dodgy, but Amen to targetting slow drivers on busy roads if you ask me !!!

[AlisterC]

After the stupid dangerous driving done by some of the Wairarapa's finest today maybe they should be watching the police themselves

I think it's good that they are targeting slow drivers. There's nothing worse than being stuck behind a dickhead in a barely-legal old Toyota Dyna going down the Rimutakas at 30-40km/h when he doesn't pull over. Is it unreasonable to think that he might pull over when the car behind him is a late model sporty European car that clearly wants to go much faster tham him?

I think it's a good idea that they're targeting actual problems on the road than people going 111km/h.

QUOTE

I'm not saying speeding is ok, and dangerous overtaking is just plain dodgy, but Amen to targetting slow drivers on busy roads if you ask me !!![/quote]

Well I'm saying speeding IS ok, so long as it's safe. I'd much rather be in the second car that Timmo mentioned

Last edited by victor_alpha_charlie on Fri Dec 26, 2008 7:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[AlisterC]

I agree that under the right circumstances, many sections of NZ road could have the speed limits relaxed a little. My "speeding" comment certainly didn't imply the driver doing 115 km on a straight stretch of road with little traffic in a good car in good weather and lighting. However the guys who do that 115km/hr down my small residental 50km/hr street (50 is almost too much!) make me very worried. Not just for my cats crossing what should be a safe street, but it even has a school 50 metres down the road.. and families with kids living here.. Those are the 'speeders' I was refering to, that I should have just labelled plain old dangerous and stupid..
My wife was pulled for speeding in the Nevada desert, miles from ANYTHING, and they have a 75mph limit there. An aircraft got her speeding, and the cop on the ground pulled her over. So it can be done, and only a matter of time probably.. (you see signs like this on lots of US freeways)

[Alex]

I think speed and accidents can be synonymous, that's not to say that one automatically causes (or is caused) by the other, but rather that the former contributes largely to the latter. I'm also a tad wary of people who brand themselves as 'good drivers'. By whose criteria? I wouldn't call myself a good driver, I'm sure there are plenty of ways I could improve.

Alex

[ardypilot]

Sorry if the simple message which I posted to start this thread provoked this speeding debate- it wasn't my intention, I was just looking for some clarification.

In fact, I won't even driving when me and my mates head down to the Mount- I'll just be a passenger in a slow ole' van, so no one needs to worry about careless driving from us!

QUOTE

My wife was pulled for speeding in the Nevada desert, miles from ANYTHING, and they have a 75mph limit there.[/quote]
Not sure why I thought this, but I was sure Nevada didn't have a speed limit? Or is that another state I'm thinking of?

[victor_alpha_charlie]

QUOTE (Trolly @ Dec 27 2008, 01:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not sure why I thought this, but I was sure Nevada didn't have a speed limit? Or is that another state I'm thinking of?

I'm guessing you were watching the World's Fastest Indian then? Burt Munro mentions Nevada doesn't have a limit, although that was in the early '60s.

[Gavin Conroy]

QUOTE (Alex @ Dec 31 2008, 09:43 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think speed and accidents can be synonymous, that's not to say that one automatically causes (or is caused) by the other, but rather that the former contributes largely to the latter. I'm also a tad wary of people who brand themselves as 'good drivers'. By whose criteria? I wouldn't call myself a good driver, I'm sure there are plenty of ways I could improve.

Alex

I agree with you.
Not sure how you determine weather you are a good driver.
I have been driving for 20 years, never had an accident, or an arrest for traffic violations but not sure that means I am good driver.

Two years ago I went for a few laps in an NZ V8 touring car and was blown away by the skill of the driver.
I got out of the car thinking that I knew very little about being able to really drive even though I went though a couple of advanced driving courses for fun.

As for the Cessna, they did that in Blenheim a few years back but I am sure they are also targeting bad passing moves and yellow line crossers as that what they did here.
Its about time they nail a few of those guys who seem to need to drive on the other side of the road just to go around a corner and I bet the guys that do that consider themselves good drivers.

[ardypilot]

QUOTE

In fact, I won't even driving when me and my mates head down to the Mount- I'll just be a passenger in a slow ole' van, so no one needs to worry about careless driving from us![/quote]
Just got back to Auckland and didn't see any light aircraft overhead on the way down (unless the police decided to use the Classic Flyers Stearman)- however, my eyes were mostly stuck on the road after our van blew a head gasket just south of the Bombays, and we had to get towed home so I could drive five of us there in my bluebird

Traffic was pretty slow on the way down- it started pouring with rain on Monday arvo so everyone had to reduce their speed anyways. Didn't have anyone passing us illegally either, apart from a red R35 skyline on the way back up in the dark.

One thing I thought that was quite ingenious on SH2 was an electronic screen placed next to a speed limit sign that somehow displays your cars speed as you pass it and make you aware how far over or under you are- not sure how bad the road toll was this year but I haven't seen any accidents at all in the last 500k's we traveled.

QUOTE

I'm guessing you were watching the World's Fastest Indian then? Burt Munro mentions Nevada doesn't have a limit, although that was in the early '60s.[/quote]
Nah, haven't seen that yet. I just noticed from watching 'Reno911!' that Nevada has quite tolerant laws on the many usually frowned upon vices (gambling, prostitution, cannabis possession etc) so I thought they may have extended that to their desert roads.

Last edited by ardypilot on Fri Jan 02, 2009 8:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ardypilot

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[pois0n]

They used a C172 JGP

[cowpatz]

Back in the early 80's I used to fly with a popular "celebrity" for a local radio station in Auckland. We used to fly for an hour and a half in the morning and again in the afternoon checking on Aucklands traffic and passing it on to the listeners. We used to carry an Auckland city traffic cop in the early days and he could communicate with the central traffic comms unit. Eventually the Auckland city cops merged with traffic and then the police. The carriage of a police officer was dropped but the announcer was in radio contact with the central police comms unit and we could be called upon to investigate hot spots (or get involved in chases) and be the "eyes in the sky"for the police. Eventually the police realised how useful this was and the Eagle heli unit came about.
At one point our aviation company was approached to do traffic enforcement from the air. This involved the painting of lines across the road at a predefined distance and cars would be timed as they passed them (you may remember seeing these). It sounded fine in theory but the pilots were against it. Our aircraft were not hangared during the evenings and were therefore not secure and would have become prime targets for sabotage. The plan was abandoned due to other technical issues involved in timing accuracy etc.

I am not in favour of airborne enforcement of speeding but it would be very useful for spotting inconsiderate and dangerous driving. A slow and inconsiderate driver (not keeping left or hogging the passing lane) can actually be the most dangerous driver yet generally is the least penalised. They create frustration and eventually some idiot will have a go from 5 cars back, misjudge it at high speed and create that dreaded head on. Of the course the reason would be attributed to speed but was it really the prime factor? As long as the police work on speeding quotas and not infringements in general then the carnage will continue.