Vision Zero: bring on the roundabouts please

Tuesday, 25 June 2019

Surely you don't have to indicate for those tiny painted circles. Or do you?

OPINION: New Zealand is a small country, so we often look to others for ideas on how to improve road safety.

The Government's desire to 'cherry pick' initiatives from other nations that have improved theirs often fills me with dread.

You might think massive speeding fines and/or more speed cameras would help because that's worked elsewhere, but maybe those other countries have thousands of kilometres of motorway that support higher speed limits and safe overtaking.

A roundabout in its pure state. Almost art.

You might think median barriers are a good idea; but again, they probably make more sense in places where the primary national highway isn't mostly a narrow one-lane track.

**READ MORE:

Kiwis are famously bad at using roundabouts. But let's work on that.

* Vision Zero provides best path to safety

* What you need to know about roundabouts

Roundabouts can sort out dangerous intersection chaos like this - as long as they are used correctly.

* Do you have to indicate at a mini-roundabout?

* City of Roundabouts a land of confusion**

Some people love roundabouts so much they make them into feature gardens for their cars. Fact.

That said, the potential for the Government's Vision Zero programme to introduce more roundabouts into NZ roading infrastructure will be a huge relief to anybody who cares about safe driving. And actually, just driving.

Vision Zero is the new (global) strategy that will pick up in NZ where Safer Roads leaves off in 2020. It's a more holistic and long-form approach that focuses as much on reducing injury as eliminating accidents.

Advisory groups are set to meet in July, but among the Vision Zero material made available already there's a clear obsession with Sweden - the first country to adopt the philosophy two decades ago and now a nation with one of the best road safety records in the world. Deaths per 1000 have reduced from 6.1 to 2.7 per 1000 in two decades.

Dread again, because Sweden's roading network is so very different to NZ. By which I mean it's good.

But a defining characteristic of Swedish roading infrastructure is the preference for roundabouts instead of traffic lights at urban intersections.

While there are more accidents at roundabouts, they are of the less severe variety; this is key to the Vision Zero ethos, which states that if drivers make mistakes (and they do), the roading network should look after them as much as possible.

Roundabouts are also better at keeping traffic flowing and reducing driver stress - as long as drivers know how to use them.

More roundabouts would be a huge step forward in terms of the sophistication of the NZ driving environment - with the caveat that Kiwis might have to brush up on their circular skills.

We are famously bad at using them, which is probably why there's been more focus on traffic light-controlled intersections than roundabouts in NZ - at least in urban areas.

In that sense we're more American than European: the US didn't get its first roundabout until 1990 and they are still a rarity; then again, many American cars don't have steering wheels (apologies to John Cleese).

Europe has been full of roundabouts for decades - both large and small. In fact, half of the world's roundabouts are in France; but they're also the norm in the UK.

Roundabouts are a thing of beauty when used correctly: that means judgement on the part of the driver as to when it's safe to enter, and scrupulous indication about where you're going and (once you're inside) when you want to exit. When it's done right, traffic circulates like an elegant Catherine wheel and drivers are more engaged.

A lot of Kiwis are hopeless at roundabouts, but education in this area is probably easier and more productive than dealing with the foot-flat-on-orange and red-light jumping approach that we see so often at traffic light-controlled intersections.