The BIG slowdown
‘‘Yobbos who cause most accidents ignore speed signs, speed cameras and road safety messages.’’
Clive Matthew-Wilson
Prepare for the big slowdown.
Time has run out for motorists to have their say on a raft of speed reduction proposals across the Waikato region, including busy summer highways such as State Highway 23 between Hamilton and Raglan.
But the AA says it’s just the beginning, as the Government accelerates towards its big goal of zero deaths on New Zealand roads.
A new land transport rule came into effect in May, requiring road controlling authorities to develop speed management plans every three years, aligning with the National Land Transport Programme cycle.
Public submissions closed this week, with Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency receiving 1260 submissions on the Interim State Highway Speed Management Review, including 180 from Waikato.
Editor of car review website Dog and Lemon.com and road safety campaigner Clive Matthew-Wilson said there were limits to what could be achieved by lowering and heavily enforcing speed limits.
‘‘The yobbos who cause most accidents ignore speed signs, speed cameras and road safety messages. Think of the kids ram-raiding at present – you could change every speed limit in Aotearoa to 10kph, and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to the way these idiots behave.’’
Waka Kotahi says more than 20% of New Zealand’s annual deaths and serious injuries occur in the Waikato.
Matthew-Wilson said the reason so many people were dying on roads in places like the Waikato wasn’t speed. ‘‘It’s really bad roads. Drivers have head-on collisions or simply fall off the side of the road.’’
A study by Monash University of the effectiveness of roadside fencing and median barriers concluded that ‘‘reductions of up to 90% in death and serious injury can be achieved, with no evidence of increased road trauma for motorcyclists’’.
‘‘The proof that bad roads, rather than speed, are the problem, is the Waikato Expressway,’’ he said. ‘‘It has one of the highest speed limits in the country, yet it’s also one of the safest roads in the country.’’
Matthew-Wilson is also highly critical of the way that the police heavily enforce speed limits, but ‘‘barely enforce other laws’’ such as seatbelt wearing and cellphone use.
He rejects the idea that educating drivers makes any difference. ‘‘The science is quite clear: asking people to drive safely is an expensive waste of time. It’s time to refocus on what works.’’
A Waka Kotahi spokesperson said it was making significant safety improvements to Waikato’s state highways in several key locations, and changing speed limits to make trips safer for everyone.
‘‘Most of our speed limits were first set before we knew what was safe and appropriate for our roads. Safe and appropriate speeds will make Waikato a better place to live by making it safer to drive in the region, as well as making it easier and more comfortable for people to walk, ride bikes and use scooters, wheelchairs and other mobility aids to get around.’’
Most of the proposed interim speed limit drops are around schools and marae on state highways.
‘‘It gives our tamariki the opportunity for safe, active travel to school on their own, with friends or their caregivers,’’ the spokesperson said.
AA road safety speed policy manager Dylan Thomsen said the interim plan was only the start of planned speed reductions, as next year there would be even more roads under consideration, and councils would also be asked to consider speed limit reductions.
‘‘This is part of a bigger-picture move towards slower speeds New Zealanders have been used to.’’
Thomsen said that from an AA perspective, there were some highways and roads where lower speed limits were needed and would make sense.
‘‘But we also don’t think an approach of just blanket reduction on all roads is going to be the best approach to take. We are in favour of quite a targeted approach, looking at the different highways and what their crash history and risk levels are, and what the road environment is like.’’
The AA did not want speed reductions to be the only tool being looked at to improve road safety, Thomsen said. It saw a need to upgrade the poor surfaces of the country’s state highways.
He admitted that changing drivers’ habits would be a challenge, especially when they had driven a road at a certain speed for a long time.
But what would help was a buy-in from the public to make sure the speed limit changes made sense.
‘‘If you are putting in limits that don’t make sense to people, and feel too slow to people in locations, and don’t have the majority of the public agreeing with the move, then it’s going to be really hard to get good compliance with those limits without the need to go to heavy enforcement, and we don’t think that would go down very well with the public either.’’
He would also like to see the authorities getting a bit creative and innovative in terms of road markings or other road features beyond signs to alert drivers to the speed limit change.
Thomsen acknowledged that there could not be police enforcement everywhere all the time.
‘‘Ideally, it would be great to issue very few speeding tickets, because most people would be travelling at the speed limit, and that was going to feel right and comfortable and natural to them.’’