Lowering speed limit a no-brainer to save lives on our roads

Thursday, 18 July 2019

OPINION: There's nothing that seems to irk us more than being told how to drive. I've been ferrying my three girls around our region this school holidays. Since we moved to the Coromandel, we do a lot more driving than we used to.

We followed a logging truck towards Whitianga this week. The driver did around 60kmh most of the way. He was a safe driver and we seldom get over 80kmh on most of region's winding roads anyway.

It's the reality for a lot of rural roads in New Zealand. Their tortuous nature means if you're travelling any faster, you're taking your life into your own hands.

So, why are some of our district councils voting against a draft Regional Speed Management Plan, designed to create safe speed limits on our roads? If we're driving responsibly, most of us should probably be doing these speeds anyway.

**READ MORE:

* South Waikato opposes proposed regional speed reductions

* Transport Committee sends rural speed limit plan back to council for discussion

* Fixation on speed not the answer to curbing road toll, says safety advocate**

South Waikato District Mayor Jenny Shattock was quoted this week saying it would hit her district hard, reducing their forestry economy to one load of logs to port each day. An exaggeration perhaps, but illustrative of just how polarising speed management is.

The Thames Coromandel District Council has also voted not to support the plan which was expected to deliver new speed limits around the Waikato region within the next three years. There are others like Waipā District Council which support it and have already proposed 200 changes to speed limits in their district. But, instead of endorsing the regional plan this month however, the Regional Transport Committee voted to send it back to their individual councils for discussion. Why does everything in local government land have to take so long?

Alongside thinking about impacts for business and economy or the annoyance for impatient drivers, I'm sure Mayor Shattock also had in the back of her mind the horrendous fatality statistics on SH1 in and near her region and the need for safety improvements. Just as TCDC Mayor Sandra Goudie was likely thinking about the condition and resilience of the state highways in the Coromandel, when they both knocked the plan back.

Timely then the Government released its Road to Zero strategy this week, which aims to cut road deaths by 40 percent over the next decade. It includes plans to lower speed limits on some of our roads, improve existing infrastructure and make sure safe vehicles are entering our fleet. It also aims to improve 1500km of road at a cost of $1.4 billion.

Lowering the speed limit on our more dangerous roads is probably one of the fastest and easiest fixes of the lot.

The strategy states that about 87 per cent of current speed limits are unsuitable and reducing these was a priority. It also proposes rule changes to make it easier for councils to change speed limits on local roads.

The strategy is open for consultation on the Ministry of Transport website until August 14.

I've previously worked for NZTA and the impact of speed on our roads is horrific. It was a factor in 102 of the fatalities on New Zealand roads last year, it also contributed to 417 serious injury crashes. I have also read almost one story a week in our region over the last month about either a death or serious injury on one of our local roads or regional state highways.

So, while Mayor Shattock and others around the country will say the impact of speed reductions on some of our roads would be significant, the impact of doing nothing is just as significant. April was the highest national road toll for a decade as 45 people were killed on our roads. It included the horrific crash north of Taupō which killed seven members of one family and a driver in another car. Only a month earlier another five people were killed on nearby Tirohanga Rd, near Atiamuri. Earlier this month one person was killed, and one person was injured in a crash at Mangakino and last week one person was killed in a crash on SH5, near Tirau. This week a woman died in Waikato Hospital following a crash on Rotowaro Road, Huntly. So, while we continue to debate what to do, the carnage on our Waikato roads continues.

While we don't know the causes of these crashes, speed, or driving too fast for the conditions, accounts for 24 per cent of high severity crashes in our region. We're over-represented compared to the rest of the country and each year approximately 100 people are killed or seriously injured in speed-related crashes on our Waikato roads.

There are roads in our region that should have the speed limit reduced. While drivers will always make mistakes, suffer inattention or do stupid things, speed kills. It multiplies the impact of any crash and the severity of it.

What is being proposed by the Regional Speed Management Plan seems reasonable. Increasing the speed limits on some of our safer national routes, like the Cambridge section of the Waikato Expressway which is already set at 110km per hour, while other regional or arterial routes, with more curvy natures, would have limits of between 80km to 100 km per hour. Access roads or those winding and tortuous ones would rightly have limits of between 60km and 80km per hour. Urban areas would see speeds anywhere between 30 to 50km per hour and up to 80 km per hour, where safety allows.

And while of course drivers may not stick to the new limits, there are studies which show we generally keep within a 1 to 10km range of any posted speed limit. If it's 100km we do between 101km and 110km per hour anyway, so over time we would also see reductions in our speed.

Safe speed limits, that match the condition of our roads, will save lives.

* Nicola Martin is a columnist for the Waikato Times.