Not content with merely misleading the public, NZ Police are now resorting to outright lies.

Before the 3-day Queen’s Birthday weekend kicked off, the Police widely publicised the fact that they would be targeting speeders by reducing the tolerance from 10km/h to 5km/h.

Speeding motorists used to driving 10kmh over the maximum speed limit will not get away with it this weekend, as police trial a zero tolerance policy to cut road deaths.

Note those words: “zero tolerance”.

Now consider the following words

Not all drivers who exceeded the tolerance were being hit with tickets, and a promise to “take action” included formal warnings, as a matter of police discretion.

What? Doesn’t sound like “zero tolerance” to me. But worse than this attempt to mislead is the title and intent of the article in which it appears.

Speeding blitz cuts road toll by 20pc

Bollocks!

Making that claim on Monday morning (with still a day to go of the three day weekend) is misleading again, but how on earth can they claim that the “speeding blitz” alone has caused this apparent reduction? No statistician or analyst would live down their colleagues if they tried to make such claims from almost no evidence. At this point, it is a lie. In fact, no-one can ever gather any evidence to prove this statement because no-one is in the business of investigating why people are not crashing.

Aside from the large number of other possible factors, how about the weather? This year, most of the country is being swept with really, really shitty weather for two out of the three days. It’s causing flooding in many places and is generally very inhospitable. So perhaps, just perhaps, there are a lot less people on the roads this year? Perhaps, just perhaps, driving in torrential rain makes you slow down well below the speed limit and puts everyone on their guard?

Last year, one of the worst years in recent times apparently, the weather was decidedly more palatable for holidaymakers.

And then there is this.

Counter-claims about safe overtaking and speedometer under-reading were just “distraction arguments”, she said.

Well, I’m sorry, but if the Police think speeding drivers are one-eyed monsters then our National Traffic Manager has just confirmed herself of the same stock. You don’t win respect for authority by dismissing anyone who disagrees with you – that way fascism lies.

Rather than implementing a temporary, ‘discretionary-zero-tolerance’ minor speed limit reduction, how about they tackle the real problem by getting people who cannot drive safely to save themselves (literally) off our roads or train them properly. THAT is the problem.

A stupid manoeuvre at 104km/h is still dangerous!