It will be 'decades' before New Zealand's road toll drops substantially

Thursday, 3 January 2019

Associate Transport Miniter Julie Anne Genter says it will take time for New Zealand's road toll to substantially reduce. (File photo)

It will be several decades before New Zealand's road toll sees a substantial drop, Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter says.

The Government announced last month it would invest $1.4 billion in road safety upgrades over the next three years in an effort to reduce the road toll, which ended at 382 for last year.

New Zealand's road toll is continuing to climb, with 2018 already the second deadliest year since 2010.

But Genter says while she expects the number of deaths to come down over the next few years, it will be decades before the number drops significantly.

She pointed to the example set by Sweden, which took about 20 years to significantly reduce road deaths after it overhauled its road safety policy in 1997.

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The country's per capita road toll had been comparable to New Zealand's at the time, but was now just a third of this country's, she said.

'It's going to take time to implement the changes to the roading network that we need to in order for road deaths to come down substantially.'

The $1.4b investment, known as the Safe Network Programme, will deliver engineering improvements such as side and median barriers, rumble strips, and widening of road shoulders on 870 kilometres of high-volume, high-risk state highways.

Genter hoped to see the road toll - which last year was the highest since 2009 - move in the right direction over the next few years.

'I would like to see it go down as quickly as possible.'

The government also planned to reduce speeds on the country's top 10 per cent of dangerous state highways within three years, whereas the previous government had planned to achieve that in 10 years, she said.

'I'm expecting to see the results of that over the next three years.'

But National's associate transport spokesperson, Brett Hudson, said the public should get more for the amount invested.

'The immediate question is: What do we get for that $1.4b?

'Is the associate minister saying these things won't save lives? Are they [the Coalition Government] prioritising that money in the right place, or do they not have confidence in what they can achieve?

'If we're spending $1.4 billion but it's going to take decades [to substantially reduce the road toll], the associate minister seems to be saying that $1.4b isn't actually effective.

'Then shouldn't she actually be doing something that is?'

While the safety improvements were a good start, they could be taken further, Hudson said.

Other improvements could include wider roads, and using better seal to make roads safer and more efficient, he said.

In April, Genter said the Government would look at introducing a zero road death policy by 2020 as it attempted to curb the country's 'unacceptable' road toll.