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Get familiar with the law this summer

2 December, 2014

This summer, over the holiday season, there are two things Kiwi drivers should look out for on the road. The speed limit tolerance has changed and the drink-driving limit has also been lowered.

From now on drivers caught with between 251 and 400 micrograms per litre of breath alcohol will be hit with a $200 fine and 50 demerit points. Get caught a second time, and you risk losing your licence for three months. For drivers below the age of 20 the limit is still zero so if you’re the sober driver, you’ll need to be sober. Women are being urged to be particularly careful as they have less body water than men to absorb alcohol.

The lower speeding tolerance has also come into force and will be effective until the end of January with police warning everyone that they will be pulling over any driver caught exceeding the posted speed limit. After a controversial move to try and do away with any form of tolerance — a zero tolerance, effectively — the 4kph tolerance has been reinstated. That said, “Anything over the limit is speeding and anyone speeding can expect to be pulled over,” says Dave Cliff, police assistant commissioner of road policing.

We’re all keen on a few brews under the sun and to get out of the city quickly, but it’s worth bearing these changes in mind — avoiding unnecessary fines and demerits is always good, but it’s cool being able to reach the holiday destination unscathed too.

ROTARY CHIC

6 September, 2024

Kerry Bowman readily describes himself as a dyed-in-the-wool Citroën fan and a keen Citroën Car Club member. His Auckland home holds some of the chic French cars and many parts. He has also owned a number of examples of the marque as daily drivers, but he now drives a Birotor GS. They are rare, even in France, and this is a car which was not supposed to see the light of day outside France’s borders, yet somehow this one escaped the buyback to be one of the few survivors out in the world.
It’s a special car Kerry first saw while overseas in the ’70s, indulging an interest sparked early on by his father’s keenness for Citroëns back home in Tauranga. He was keen to see one ‘in the flesh’.
“I got interested in this Birotor when I bought a GS in Paris in 1972. I got in contact with Citroën Cars in Slough, and they got me an invitation to the Earls Court Motor Show where they had the first Birotor prototype on display. I said to a guy on the stand, ‘I’d like one of these,’ and he said I wouldn’t be allowed to get one. Citroën were building them for their own market to test them, and they were only left-hand drive.”

Tradie’s Choice

30 August, 2024

Clint Wheeler purchased this 1962 Holden FJ Panelvan as an unfinished project, or as he says “a complete basket case”. Collected as nothing more than a bare shell, the rotisserie-mounted and primed shell travelled the length of the country from the Rangiora garage where it had sat dormant for six years to Clint’s Ruakaka workshop. “Mike, the previous owner, was awesome. He stacked the van and parts nicely. I was pretty excited to get the van up north. We cut the locks and got her out to enjoy the northland sun,” says Clint. “The panelvan also came with boxes of assorted parts, some good, some not so good, but they all helped.”