Backlash against plan to lower speed limits across New Zealand highways

Thursday, 7 November 2019

Plans to lower speed limits on roads across the country have been met with fierce opposition from communities and industry, who claim it is a cheap fix for poorly maintained roads.

But the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) says reducing speed limits is just one step in addressing our high rates of road trauma.

There are currently 22 speed reviews under way across the country as part of the Government's road safety strategy, which aims to reduce deaths and serious injuries on New Zealand roads.

Road Transport Forum chief executive Nick Leggett said the reviews were 'death by a thousand cuts'. 

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* NZTA to consult on lower speed limits on sections of Canterbury highway 

* Bump in the road over idea cutting speed limits will save lives 

* Enough's enough: Small-town NZ demands lower highway speed limits to save lives**

'It is the cheap and nasty way of trying to address the problem but it is not going to address the problem. It is going to lead to a whole lot of other problems.

He had concerns ideology, not safety was the primary driver behind the speed reductions.

'What we believe we will see is that there will be blanket speed reductions and we will not see the corresponding wins in terms of lives saved and fewer injuries.'

'Clearly New Zealand roads have been run down and are not in a quality that maintains safety, you need to be investing more in them, especially when you have a massive surplus.'

He said New Zealand's economy relied on road freight transport and the industry relied on timeliness to move goods as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Reducing speed limits was not only a 'handbrake on productivity', but would make for frustrated drivers who were more likely to take risks.

Leggett said driver behaviour was a big cause of accidents, whether they were distracted, frustrated, wilfully disobeying the law or under the influence of alcohol or drugs. 

'We know that people who die in accidents as a result of speed in most cases have been breaking the law. Is reducing it to 80kmh going to stop them from doing that, particularly if the road speed environment isn't altered?'

Australasian College of Road Safety president Martin Small said if lowering speed limits was considered to be a cheap fix, the alternative was building motorway standard roads across the state highway network which is what was required to maintain extremely high speed limits and would come at an 'extraordinary' cost.

Road accidents were a burden on the New Zealand economy, a leading cause of death for children and young adults who were the most vulnerable and the most productive parts of the population.

Small hadn't seen evidence in other countries that lowering speed limits caused 'economic ruin' as had been suggested.

'There is plenty of evidence to suggest lowering speed limits dramatically reduces fatalities and serious injuries on any particular stretch of road and where there are increases in limits, the opposite occurs.'

One of the proposed changes, a reduction from 100 kmh to 80kmh along 110km of State Highway 6 between Nelson and Blenheim had been met with strong public backlash, including a 11,500-strong petition protesting the change. 

In the last 10 years, 20 people had died on that stretch of SH6 and another 92 had been seriously injured. 

NZTA manager Lisa Rossiter said New Zealand was one of the worst performing countries in the OECD when it came to road safety. 

In June, NZTA released information that estimated 87 per cent of the country's roads had speed limits that were too high for the conditions.

Its Mega Maps online risk assessment tool suggested only 5 per cent of the open road should have the current 100kmh posted speed limit.

While speed treatments were relatively low cost, Rossiter said they were only one way of addressing risk and not the only action NZTA were taking. The Government had invested $1.4 billion to make tangible infrastructure improvements on state highways and local roads.

She said it was a common criticism was that drivers needed to be better trained.

'If everyone drove perfectly, we wouldn't have a road trauma problem and that's correct, except humans are human and they are not perfect and they make mistakes.

'People do drive when they have had too much to drink, when they are distracted or tired and all of these things cause crashes.'

Rossiter said the difference between dying in a road accident and walking away from it came down to the speed at the time of the crash and the vehicle they were travelling in.

It was about reducing harm and making crashes more survivable. 

Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter​ has previously said reducing speed limits was one way the Government would address the road toll and that it would that it would  'make sense' to reduce limits on some roads with lower volumes of traffic.  

National Party transport spokesman Chris Bishop said while some of the proposed speed reductions made sense, it was important to investigate the evidence base and make sure there was public support for the proposals. 

'If you lower speed when you don't have the public support for it, it's counter-productive because speed limits rely on people respecting the speed.'

Bishop said the public reaction in the top of the south to the proposed speed reduction between Nelson and Blenheim had been 'vociferous' in opposition.

'When you are talking about wholesale speed reductions along a massive stretch, a main chunk of highway say from Blenheim to Nelson, I think that's a lot more questionable.

'The Government has cut $5 billion from the state highway budget and instead of getting on and building new roads which we need, they are just focusing on safety improvements.'