Doing some inter-city driving over the past few days has reminded me of one rather annoying and disconcerting element of New Zealand’s road signage – and that is the good old temporary speed limit. This thing:
Now to NZTA’s credit, there aren’t many road works actually going on around the country during the holiday period – at least not on busy inter-city highways. But we still see quite a few of these signs out – either with a 30 kph limit, sometimes 50 kph and very occasionally 70 kph.
I understand the importance of lowering speed limits when road works are happening. There are lives at stake here in terms of our road workers, and quite frankly driving across freshly laid seal at a high speed can be a pretty uncomfortable experience. So temporary speed limits certainly have their place in the world – a very important place too!
However, an issue I have with them is that so often the signs are still up when there’s absolutely no need for them. Either no roadworks are actually happening, or the speed limitation is far far lower than what’s actually necessary. For example there’s a 30 kph limit on the Curran Street onramp at the moment – and I doubt I’ve ever seen anyone do less than double that during non-congested periods.
While there’s a certain ‘annoyance factor’ with these unnecessarily low limits, I have a greater worry – and that is based on that great old story “The boy who cried wolf“. Just as the boy who kept on falsely crying out “wolf” eventually led to villagers ignoring his cries when a wolf really did come along, I worry that imposing unnecessary temporary speed restrictions is starting to train drivers around NZ that these signs don’t need to be taken seriously. The problem is that occasionally there is a damn good reason to slow down to 30 kph for roadworks. That’s a recipe for disaster in my opinion.
So come on NZTA and your contractors, let’s ensure we use temporary speed limits appropriately so that we don’t play a game of ‘boy who cried wolf’ with the lives of the workers on our roads. Buy a few more temporary 70 kph signs if need be and ensure the signs are removed when no longer needed.
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Did you go through that mystery 50km/h speed limit through part of the northern half of Dome Valley? Couldn’t see any reason for it. Coming back south through there, I must admit I ended up speeding (70km/h) to avoid being tailgated by the driver behind me.
Ha, how did you guess Andrew! That temporary speed limit was particularly on my mind when writing this post.
Yeah I remember a time when they imposed a 30km/hr speed limit on Ian Mckinnon Drive. Not only would 50km/hr have done, the contractors put the signs up like 2 weeks before construction started. By that time everyone had learnt to ignore it.
The problem with temporary limits is that sometimes you can’t see the reason. It’s not just comfort of driving over fresh seal, it’s also letting the seal bed properly. If it doesn’t, it’s expensive repair works in the future. That’s not necessarily visible but it’s very important, and personally I think cops should be used to rigidly enforce temporary limits over freshly-laid seal because it’s my rates/taxes that gets wasted in fixing the damage. Depending on weather and traffic volumes it can be a week or more before the road can be used at its design speed.
On the flip side, councils and NZTA need to levy financial penalties on contractors that post temporary limits unnecessarily. I believe NZTA already has the option.
There’s a 50km/hr temporary limit on a bend between Waiwera and Hatfields Beach on SH17. The cops tell me it’s because the road surface is so bad on this bend that it’s dangerous, but there’s no money in the budget for repairs now. Can’t see a problem with this if the surface is that bad, but maybe a sign explaining this might help. Not so long ago this road had a 100 limit!
Situations such as the Pukekohe to Waiuku Road which had a 30 limit for four weeks whilst the contractor worked on the shoulder / berm lead to a lack of credibility. Fair enough, 70 or or even 50 whilst work takes place, 7.00 to 5.00, but not outside of working hours. CoPTTM needs a critical overhaul.
Yes, this kind of thing really annoys me too.
I slow down to the required 30, and then have some impatient roadworker wave me on to come faster. “If you want me to go faster, put a 40 sign, not a 30.”
Then, 30 when 50 or 70 would be quite safe is also so annoying. I like to obey the speed limits, (or at least stay within 10% ) but sometimes they are a joke and I end up with grumpy drivers tailed behind me. Although, I did save all those grompy drivers tickets once when there was a police officer monitoring our speeds just at the end of the roadworks!
I remember this was a very serious issue for Transit, and it would penalise contractors that used inappropriate signs because it caused harm when they WERE appropriate.
Good for you in highlighting this, it is a disgrace that this has been left to fester. Dare I suggest that the integration of Transit into NZTA will continue to result in slippage of standards because the capabilities needed to manage a highway network, and be a funding agency AND be a safety agency, are not complementary.
I would strongly advocate establishing a new SOE called Highways NZ, and let it bid for NZTA money as it once did. NZTA should be a purchaser of services on behalf of motorists, not a planner or politically driven bureaucracy.
This is a topic that is close to my heart. I’m an Engineer, I work on roads during road works and I really want people to slow down when I’m working on site. Not just for the speed of vehicles but when stone chips get flicked up it is not a lot of fun.
Of course most Contractors in rural areas seem to put out the speed restrictions over the whole work area when they’re only working in one small area. This comes down to the Contractor saving money by not having to change traffic management through their works. I would also note that on large projects in NZ if the public are not slowing down the police are contacted. The police then come out and set up one or more speed traps in the project.
I believe the things that should change are:
(1) Contractors should be required to provide their proposed traffic management as part of their bid, and the economic costs allowed for in assessing the bid (this does happen sometimes).
(2) They should be held to these proposed traffic management plans and have to pay penalties for excessive speed restrictions.
(3) Speed restrictions should be raised (eg from 30km/h to 70km/h) when suitable and workers are not on site.
(4) Fines and demerit points should be doubled when workers are on site (they do this in Alberta, Canada).
Another annoyance is when they put the 30km/h sign at the start of roadworks and a 50km/h sign at the end – when the actual speed limit of the road is different. I’ve seen this on Oteha Valley Rd earlier this year (60km/h limit) and on the open road near Mangawhai (100km/h limit). It’s laziness and like everyone’s saying, reduces the credibility of temporary speed limits.
Also some contractors place temporary speed limit signs at the beginning of roadworks, but no signs at all at the end. You have to guess where the temporary speed limit ends. Mangawhai again, as well as numerous times around the city (Who’s legally liable in this case?).
My understanding is that if there is no release then the speed limit is not changed back, eg if it is 30km/h temporary and no release then if you return to 100km/h even 10km past the roadworks you could still be ticketed for travelling at 70km/h over the limit.
This is the other thing about very long stretches of speed restriction when there are no workers present, I have travelled at night observing the ridiculous reduced speed limit (for work happening adjacent to a road where no workers were present) and almost been rear ended by people travelling at a speed close to the normal limit – quite literally I become a hazard to myself and cause others to make dangerous overtaking maneuvers (due to works adjacent to the road I could not safely pull over to let impatient people past). If I speed up then I am open to being issued a ticket, so as a result I am in a no win situation. I agree with Matt that sometimes speed restrictions are for reasons that the general public can’t see but often this is not the case (& with just on 10 years of experience in designing and observing construction of roads and drainage I believe I can generally pick the difference).
Oh, absolutely they’re often unnecessary. The work being done on SH2 through Hutt Valley is a perfect example where there’s a perpetual 70km/h “temporary” limit, even when there’s no work being done and there’s no immediate hazard to drivers.