Auckland's rampant road toll out of sync with the rest of New Zealand

Sunday, 20 May 2018

Deaths on Auckland roads are far too frequent, say international road safety experts. Auckland Transport agrees, and will put $700 million towards lowering the city's road toll.

Deaths on Auckland roads have increased at more than triple the rate of the rest of the country, a damning review of the city's roads and transport policy has revealed.

In response to the report, Auckland Transport (AT) has announced a $700 million investment into reducing death and serious injury on the city's roads.

A 78 per cent increase in Auckland road fatalities between 2014 and 2017 dwarfed the 23 per cent increase seen across the rest of New Zealand, international road safety consultancy Whiting Moyne found during its investigation.

The review, commissioned by AT in 2017 and released on Wednesday last week, noted road safety in Auckland 'could legitimately be described as a crisis'.

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Just two days later a teen cyclist died after a hit-and-run on north Auckland's Oteha Valley Rd – near the same notorious blind-spot that a 56-year-old pedestrian was killed by a car last month.

The report found Auckland road-related incidents took 64 people's lives during 2017, compared with 36 in 2014. There were 771 serious injuries reported on Auckland's roads in 2017, and 447 in 2014; that 72 per cent increase was far higher than the rest of the country's 28 per cent increase over the same period.

Principal of Whiting Moyne Eric Howard blamed transport authorities' 'absence of commitment to improving safety' for much of the problem.

'The crisis in road safety performance reflects a number of deficiencies of public policy at central government and local level,' he said.

'Auckland has had no new road safety strategy approved since AT was formed [in 2010]. Safety on the road network has not been a priority at AT in that time.'

Auckland Transport chair Lester Levy said the organisation would adopt a 'Vision Zero' approach, which originated in Sweden and functioned on the premise that no loss of life due to traffic incidents was acceptable.

Lowered speed limits, more safety cameras and high friction road surfacing, better pedestrian infrastructure, and strengthened partnerships between local and government agencies would help lower the road toll by up to 20 per cent over the next three years, he said.

Mayor Phil Goff called Auckland's road toll 'appalling and unacceptable'.

'That demands action and we will be investing heavily in road safety measures with the regional fuel tax over the next 10 years, directly and indirectly contributing over half a billion dollars more into road safety.'

Whiting Moyne reported that the number of deaths and serious injuries related to alcohol on Auckland roads went from from 89 in 2012 to 125 in 2017 – a 40 per cent increase.

The report recommended Auckland police's capacity to deliver random breath tests be significantly boosted to combat drink-driving.

Lowering speed limits, significantly increasing speeding fines, and installing more cameras to catch the city's brazen red light-runners were also recommended.