24Mar2205

The report last week that police used a plane to spot dodgy driving on the road between Blenheim and Nelson brought a new facet to traffic control. Further enquiry by the “Dominion Post” revealed that not only planes were used but in other areas traffic patrollers are using trains. Police apparently had ridden ‘shotgun’ in train cabs to catch dodgy drivers said Highway Patrol team leader Neil Wyms.

The exercise on the road between Blenheim and Nelson was aimed at dodgy drivers travelling to a Super 12 game in Nelson. The hire of the plane for the one and a half hour exercise came to $330.00. Only two drivers were ticketed and produced fines of $300.00. Apart from the plane there were four patrol cars on the road. Even a student who had failed level 1 NCEA Elementary Maths would be able to calculate this exercise operated with a whopping great economic loss. What the police were looking for from their lofty viewpoint were not speedsters but the bane of us all, the slow motorist. They had to choose a plane that would best suit their needs. It was a de Havilland Tiger Moth. Its got a top air speed of 150kph and a stalling speed of around 40kph. To their delight they found such an aircraft out at Omaka aerodrome. When the day of the exercise arrived there was a strong northwesterly wind blowing. By the time the Tiger Moth took off and gained sufficient altitude to clear the hills around Havelock and the Rai Valley with a head wind its ground speed had dropped to 40kph. Even the slowest campervans were doing better than this. The Tiger Moth couldn’t keep up with them. Fortunately for the spotters there were two campervans on the Whangamoa Saddle that were actually travelling slower than the spotter plane.

Now you might well ask how does Constable Biggles in a Tiger Moth 500 metres above the Whangamoa Saddle road communicate to the waiting patrol car in the Lees Valley that he’s got a campervan in his sights. Bandits coming out of the sun at 11:00 o’clock. Travelling at 40kph. Easy. He gets out his notebook. Takes a note of the car’s make and registration plate. Wraps this note around a small sandbag. Secures it with a rubber band, adjusts his goggles and drops the bag out of the open cockpit. The general idea is for it land within a hundred metres of the patrol car. Novices might think this is not possible. But I’ve watched countless World War I movies and this was a ploy which was used very successfully by the Royal Flying Corps (the forerunner of the Royal Air Force) in delivering dispatches to the frontline in France. The beauty of this procedure over radio communication is that the sandbag messages are not easily intercepted nor are they affected by sunspots or static. Provided they land in the right spot. My enquiry under the Official Information Act revealed that up to a dozen sandbag messages were dropped. We know now that at a cost of $330.00 plus only two found their mark. The remaining messages are lying somewhere unopened in the Rai Forrest. With more practice the police are confident that they’ll get more dawdling campervans off the road. I’d say more strength to Constable Biggles arm.

The riding ‘shotgun’ on trains is an entirely different matter. There are only a few places in New Zealand where the rail track runs parallel to the roadway. Initial trials of this speed detecting procedure were carried out on the Rarimu Spiral and were a dismal failure. As was the trial run in the Tawa Tunnel. “But we not daunted” says team leader Neil Wyms. A spokesperson for the National Union of Railwaymen has welcomed the addition of a further person on the footplate. “We’ve been agitating for this since Tranz Rail reduced its train crews. Having another companion up front even though he might be a member of the Highway Patrol has bought back the companionship and camaraderie a locomotive driver enjoyed in the great days of New Zealand Railways. Those were the days when we employed up to 250,000 staff.” There’s even talk about putting guards vans on again so they can station a speed cop at the back of the train. ACT’s Rodney Hide has indicated that the guards vans would only come back over his body. Look out for a few derailments. And look out for a live display of the sandbag dropping procedure of the Traffic Patrol from a stalling Tiger Moth at Classic Fighters pageant this weekend at Omaka Aerodrome. See you there.

17Mar2005

You know how they talk about Wellington getting the “Big One”. I always thought they were referring to winning the Ranfurly Shield or Super 12. Apparently not. They’re referring to an earthquake. The experts tell us its only a matter of time. The “Big One” is not winning the Ranfurly Shield or Super 12. These are two events which will certainly never happen.

I was in Wellington last Monday when I was jolted awake by an earthquake. Normally I sleep through them. Supine as I was I had no chance of getting up to shelter in a doorway or under a table for that matter. Because Wellington has a propensity for earthquakes I have a host of friends there who every night roll their beds under doorways or tables just waiting. So as I lay there gently rocking, the doors slamming, windows rattling and the house creaking I began to wonder whether this was the “Big One”. I was in Khandallah and it’s right on the fault line. I had visions of gently sliding towards the Ngauranga Gorge. Perhaps I’d end up in L.V. Martin’s Home Appliance Showroom which is situated there. That would be fortuitous. I remembered that they were having a sale at the moment. I wondered where my credit cards were. I was obviously ill prepared. Within thirty seconds or so the whole lot of shaking that had been going on stopped. I flicked the bedside light. It came on. I looked out the window and high on Mt Kaukau on the television tower the little red lights were, as always endlessly chasing one another up and down. The power was obviously on all round. This was not the “Big One”. I could forget about slipping slowly down the hill to L.V. Martin & Son. It didn’t’ matter where my credit cards were. All around that leafy tui and kingfisher infested suburb which is Khandallah I could see the lights coming on as hundreds of relieved residents climbed out of their beds from under tables and doorways and with the bottled water that they always kept handy for such an emergency made themselves a nice cup of tea. I lay there and calculated that the shake would have been somewhere between 5.8 and 6.4 according to Dr Richter’s Scale. It was in fact 6.1. How did Charles Richter, whom I believe is no longer with us, calculate the strength of an earthquake. Some say he arrived at his scale of measurement from the logarithm of the amplitudes of the waves recorded by the seismograph (phew). Others say he arrived at his theory by counting the number of jars of preserves that fell off pantry shelves. Or how many bottles of wine were dislodged from wine racks. Or indeed chimneys cracked. I prefer the preserves and cracked chimney theory to the logarithm one. Its a lot easier to understand.

As I slipped back to sleep I began thinking about the tremendous force an earthquake generates. If you could harness this force then we would have had no need for the electricity reforms Max Bradford initiated a few years. Do you remember Max Bradford? Who could forget him. Urbane and handsome. Greying at the temples. Single handedly he generated a quake which registered about 9 on the Richter scale with his electricity reforms. We’re still feeling the after shocks. So the news this week that we were about to endure another ten percent power increase in power charges my mind turned to Max. These constant shocks of power price increases are very similar to earthquakes. To quote one resident who was in fact speaking of earthquakes “You don’t know what you’re going to get and you don’t know when they’re going to strike. And the only way to counter them is to have plenty of candles on hand and a serious supply of water”. When I come to think of it is not bad advice to counter the power price increases. Candles and water. I wonder where Max Bradford is now. The next power quake of his due in a month or so. I bet he is already sheltering under a table or a doorway somewhere in Mt Victoria or Oriental Bay.