Feedback closes midnight Thursday 11 July, on the draft speed-setting rule. See our previous post on the subject for details, and guidance on having your say.
Among other things, it proposes to raise speeds in cities back up to a universal 50km/h (with no option of 30km/h), and will restrict safe speeds for children to a tiny, time-limited bubble at school gates.
Both moves remove choice from councils and communities, and will lead to more deaths and injuries.
In the last week of consultation, the Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, has been sending e-mails encouraging people to back his proposal. This is highly unusual. Is he worried about how his speeds policy is landing? He should be, for a whole lot of reasons.
Also, it should go without saying: setting safe speeds for our transport system should not be a political plaything.
1. The Minister has zero evidence
The Minister’s email, light on details and data, underscores the broader lack of evidence for his claims about the benefits of raising speeds. Likewise, a worrying disregard for the evidence in favour of existing safe speeds.
The same once-over-lightly approach can be seen in this “both sides” news story, where the Minister’s brisk replies (162 words total) are in stark contrast to the examples given by Caroline Perry of Brake, the road safety charity (682 words). [Text of the answers here for comparison purposes]
The evidence gap is clear in this 2022 economic assessment of options for speed management around Auckland schools. It gives the lie to the Minister’s claims of “productivity”, by showing:
- the best-performing option, with a benefit-cost ratio of 9.0, is closest to one of the current approaches: permanent 30km/h areas around schools. It would prevent 539 deaths and serious injuries over 10 years, and return $9 for every dollar invested.
- the costliest option, with a benefit-cost ratio of 0.2, is close to the Minister’s blanket proposition: short stretches of time-limited 30km/h at the school gate, in a sea of 50km/h traffic. This would only prevent 29 deaths and serious injuries over 10 years, and would return just 20c on each dollar invested, i.e. an 80% loss.
In other words, compared to Brown’s proposal, the current approach is up to 45x better for the economy, and would save an additional 510 people from serious injury or death.
The difference in driving travel times between these two options is a smidge over two seconds.
(Additionally: the existing rule (a) allows for variable time-limits if wanted, and (b) lets councils determine which streets around schools to include, making it the polar opposite of a blanket one-size-fits-all.)
So, which would you choose?
2. The experts are aghast
Why is the Minister steering us away from the evidence, and steering children head-on into harm? That’s the question raised in an open letter to the government, from two members of the Australasian College of Road Safety. One of the authors is Eric Howard, who reviewed Auckland Transport’s safety approach in the wake of a horrendous rise in deaths and serious injuries.
Entitled The Looming Crisis in Road Safety for New Zealanders, the whole letter is really worth reading. These parts stand out (emphasis added):
The push to reverse speed limit reductions is contrary to the available evidence. This backtracking action you have flagged will increase deaths and serious injuries, and deny New Zealanders increased safety on their roads, while delivering economic disbenefits. Speed limits which respond to the inherent safety of infrastructure in place on a road or street are an essential component of a ‘forgiving road system’.
New Zealand transport agencies have worked in close consultation with local communities over a long period of time to improve safety levels on their roads, including with lower speed limits. However, these communities now find they will have little say in a reversal of these changes which will adversely impact the wellbeing of their citizens and the amenity of their towns and suburbs. Lack of consultation with local communities shows not only a lack of respect for local voices, but has also proven very unpopular and unsuccessful internationally.
[…]
A tragedy is in prospect from the foreshadowed Government actions, with an abandonment of any strategy, no targets being proposed, staffing capability in government potentially being degraded, road safety coordination likely to being compromised, funding to be diverted away from efficient safety retrofitting of roads, and crucial successful lifesaving speed reforms to be reversed.A deterioration in NZ’s improving road safety performance is inevitable if these changes, now in prospect, are fully implemented. The changes are actually predicted to increase economic costs through higher trauma burden and other disbenefits. The burning question is WHY?
These are unnecessary actions you are looking to introduce, Minister. It is occasionally encountered in third world countries where Ministers may not be advised about the evidence, but it is rare in a first world country where an evidence-based commitment to identifying and implementing trauma reduction measures could usually be expected.
You have a heavy responsibility to reduce death and serious injury on New Zealand’s roads. The road safety world will be watching the impact of your time as Minister for Transport, and in the years beyond, on road safety outcomes.
If it’s numbers and references you’re after, try this summary by Professor Simon Kingham (most recently the chief science advisor at the Ministry of Transport) and Dr Angela Curl. For example:
In 2023, 341 people died in road crashes in NZ. In around a third of these, speed was a contributing factor, and this proportion rises to over half for people aged 15-29 years.
Deaths and serious injuries (DSIs) are much higher at increased speeds, primarily as a result of increased stopping distances. Broadly speaking, the chances of a pedestrian surviving a crash are around 90% at 30km/h, compared to around 10% at 50km/h.1
Analysis of changes in crash rates in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ) following reductions in speed limits, found notable decreases in deaths and injuries.2 Similar results have been found in the UK.3
In a related op-ed, Prof Kingham notes the proposed changes defy the science, and will be bad for climate as well as safety.
3. The public is appalled – and highly activated
The public response has been massive. For starters, we are hearing that thousands, maybe tens of thousands of submissions have flooded in over the fast-track four-week consultation period.
This compares with 325 submissions (over 9 weeks) for the uncontroversial 2022 speed-setting rule the Minister is seeking to overturn. (The summary of feedback on the 2022 rule is well worth reading – it was largely supportive, and the main objection was that it didn’t move fast enough to deliver safe speeds around schools).
Some of the public responses on our radar:
Christina Robertson for Newsroom points out that Safety doesn’t end at the car door:
The evidence for safe speeds in our towns and cities is just as compelling. The physics of tons of metal impacting flesh and bone are unforgiving; our reaction times developed over the millennia when no human being could travel faster than a sprint. At 50km/hr, a crash is both more likely and more devastating: a pedestrian hit at 50km/hr has a 90 percent chance of dying. At 30km/hr, we’re more likely to be able to react in time to turn a crash into a near miss, and if a crash does happen, we have a 90 percent chance of survival.
School principals like Stephen Lethbridge are beside themselves:
“It concerns me as a principal, it concerns me as a member of the public, and it concerns me as a father as well,” said principal Stephen Lethbridge.
“For the sake of a minute of driving, we could stop injuries – we could stop death.”
Bike Auckland and Cycling Action Network held a memorial for those Future Fallen who would be injured or die due to increased speeds, with Bike Auckland’s Chair Karen Hormann saying:
“We’re here today for tragedies we know are going to happen – and we’re gutted that it’s in the power of our Government to stop them. Half of the casualties will be among those not in cars. Speed will determine how tragic those crashes are. There is no getting around the facts – speed kills. We’re here in solidarity with the families and communities which will pay a dear cost for the Government increasing speed limits.”
Many posts and threads on Twitter and other social channels decry the proposed rules. Among them, some people have been moved to share their personal experiences. One user, icebirdmail, created some very clear images on what these changes would lead to:
In our city and region, since late 2019 Auckland Transport has adjusted speeds to a safe and appropriate level across quite a few parts of the network – starting with the highest risk roads, then schools, town centres and communities. An enormous amount of consultation has been carried out – surveys, workshops, and ongoing engagement.
And each time AT has consulted, the public has requested more locations. Turns out people like liveable streets and survivable journeys, who knew?
4. Councils aren’t having it, either
Auckland Council voted almost unanimously to oppose the proposals, as outlined by Bike Auckland here. Shane Henderson’s speech in particular was fantastic (here’s an excerpt of the opening, but do listen to the entire thing) on why Proposal 3 for variable speed limits around schools was a terrible idea:
The government’s proposal seeks, for reasons that seem to be unrelated to any kind of solid evidence, to make a change that will, by definition, make our school areas less safe. I don’t really know why we would do that when Auckland has the 4th worse safety record in the Western world, and why we would do that in areas where lots of vulnerable Aucklanders use all the time.
Other councils in Marlborough and Tauranga (along with Stratford, Tīmaru, Selwyn, Whanganui, Hamilton, Christchurch and others) are pushing ahead with their speed limit reductions. Likewise in the Far North, with Mayor Moko Tepania saying:
We voted in favour of continuing with it because regardless the legislation still requires us to review speeds as the road control authority … and there was huge community support
5. We can all see through the blah blah blah of “blanket” vs “balance”
The Minister has consistently claimed throughout this process that previous speed reductions were a “blanket” approach initiated by Labour, and what he’s proposing is “balanced.”
But that’s anything but true. Not only is it false that the proposed changes will be better for productivity and have more value for money (see point 1), but what Simeon Brown and his associate minister David Seymour are proposing are indeed blanket increases.
They want to remove flexibility for local road authorities on many different classes of road, forcing 50km/h and 100km/h limits instead of allowing a range of options. Forcing cities to undo all speed changes since 1 January 2020, and forcing all schools to adopt variable speed limits is a blanket approach – as opposed to the current speeds that have been locally tailored with significant consultation and immense community support.
These statements are doublespeak, designed to set a political narrative counter to what has actually occurred. Local communities and councils have been implementing evidence-based speed reductions in order to provide safe streets for children and other people using the road.
There is no truth to this constant flinging about of the word “blanket” – and nothing backing the proposal but a seemingly single-minded ideological drive to raise speed limits against all available evidence.
If this government is seeking “balance”, then why is it seeking to impose street-by-street cost-benefit analyses for future speed changes – but not for forced reversions to higher speeds? If it’s seeking local control of local issues, why is it steamrollering over local decisions about local streets?
Lastly, the dictate that we must now “balance” things like the delivery of freight with the safety of human beings just out there getting around is a pretty chilling redrafting of the social contract. A question: is it also in contravention of the Land Transport Management Act, the purpose of which is “to contribute to an effective, efficient, and safe land transport system in the public interest”?
The minister claims he has a mandate. Does he? It’s vital to have your say on these changes. Our previous post here offers some guidance on giving feedback . Submissions close July 11th.
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What if council just ignores the order, assuming it comes into force? Council owns and operates local roads, so just don’t change the existing signs.
There are two possible paths that I can see.
If there is a widespread revolute by councils then it would be a legislative response, changing the law so the Minister can give the direction (we have already seen with the fast track bill that this government is happy with giving Ministers control over details).
If it is a singular council that is causing problems, well the question comes to is the government will be burn political capital to put in place commissioners. This probably wouldn’t be used if Auckland was the hold out because do you really want to annoy 1/3rd of the voters for a policy that is ideological and appears not to have broad support.
They can’t. Parliament is sovereign in this country and Local government only exists through a statute of the Parliament. The Government has a majority in Parliament so if a Council ignored the law the Government could enforce their will either through the Courts or through blocking funding or sack the Council and put in a commissioner or even amalgamate that Council out of existence.
Very big expense of political capital by the minister for what? To make sure he has a reputation as a heartless killer and a liar (there is no economic benefit, in fact the reverse)?
Seems super weird. Who is he serving? Which donors, which god?
Politics is a popularity contest. It costs the Minister nothing if people want what he is doing. The last crowd forgot that and tried to force water reform onto the unwilling.
“if people want what he is doing.”
Well, good thing then that what he is doing will be massively controversial and disliked by many. Doesn’t need to be disliked by everyone to cost him hugely politically.
But think of how stupid the average person is and then remember half are even more stupid than that.
No need for any of that. Ever since they first devolved the power to set limits from LTSA to local councils in 2003 the rule has always had provisions for the director of land transport to intervene when the rule is not being followed. (They are still included in section 9 of the draft rule).
Initially its just sending instructions to the council to do things but escalates to effectively stepping in to set the limits on behalf of the council if they wont do it.
If anyone wants to fight this thing badly enough to throw money at it, the opportunity may well be a judicial review of the minister’s decision once the rule is finalised.
The analysis of the factors the minister must take into account as set out in the consultation document is very weak, because they are trying to side step any real analysis of the safety consequences.
The minister has also been somewhat over-enthusiastic in running around making statements that imply the outcome of the consultation is predetermined which wont help his credibility in trying to claim that he gave due consideration to any feedback that helps fill in the blanks in that analysis before making his decision.
There has been a huge push for localism and decentralisation in the UK over the last decade or so, so it’s interesting to see this current government go the complete opposite way and tell councils what the speed limit on a local road must be. I wonder if people will push back on this one size fits all policy, or if ‘small’ central government will still be able to have a very big influence on very local issues.
Current government?
The previous government did a lot of centralisation as well. It was essentially unremarked upon. ALR is probably the most notorious failure whereas who laments the demise of the DHBs?
I’d honestly actually fit Three Waters in with the centralising tendencies of the previous government. Obviously there was no central authority plan there but (a) the whole idea was a top down demand from Wellington and (b) if it had gone through as intended local control would’ve been done away with. The reasons to abstract Labour’s original Three Waters plan away from the “Wellington good, locals bad” attitude are (i) they tried to implement it through the councils… a moronic decision… (ii) rather than central control, it would’ve established regional control and (iii) the debt effects would’ve allowed for more local borrowing/investment. Obviously once the councils revolted, Labour just tried to ride roughshod over them so I wouldn’t fixate on any of these three reasons. But that’s me.
If we go back to the previous National government, I think we can probably find centralising tendencies there too. There’s the original RoNS, for example, and I’d also put the Super City itself in this situation insofar as amalgamation was (a) imposed over local council revolts and (b) the resulting Super City had and still has responsibility far greater than its actual powers.
The political context of the UK might well be localisation but here it’s centralisation. We might well wonder if this is partly why Three Waters succeeded in its country of origin (Scotland) and failed here.
What would be the legality be of a local council just ignoring the Govt’s instructions?
Why not? After all, Simeon Brown’s pointless culture war revenge politics perfectly compliments Luxon’s pointless fiscal sadism. Just as the UK finally rids itself of 14 years of venal neoliberal corruption and incompetence here in the colonies we’ve elected a settler government dtermined to ape the morther countries dedication to corrupt cronyism married to neoliberal cruelty.
It appears all key stakeholders, barring the current govt, agree this is a terrible idea.
What I don’t understand, is *why* Brown is pushing it. He has stated “reasons” but what is informing those? Who is lobbying him to introduce such unpopular and dangerous legislation?
Road lobby?
We were just discussing that at work – it is such a strange hill for him to die on. Are NZers really that worked up about reduced speed limits, or is it just Simeon Brown?
It is straight culture war stuff. Brown is a deeply unserious public official. A happy clappy true believer. Evangelical rejection of the enlightenment means no more requirement to listen to scientific methodology – owning the libs to feel better is preferable to following the advice of technocrats and “experts”.
That is true. Someone who doesn’t believe in dinosaurs and can’t ride a bike is unlikely to make the most enlightened politician.
Like Brown says, National campaigned to do this, and with their pals won the election. However he doesn’t seem to get that a lot of people voted for National / ACT / NZ First to get rid of Labour, not because they liked all of National’s policies.
This is highly popular legislation. Populist even.
Bingo. SAR is correct. Why are they flooring it on unsafe speeds? Because it wins lots and lots of votes. This is an extremely popular policy just because a small vocal minority is against it doesn’t mean is isn’t one of the most popular pieces of legislation in this decade.
Huh? You agree it’s unsafe but should continue based on a popularity contest? I’d call that negligence.
Politicians should lead, not be led. That leads to disastrous outcomes.
Populism grave Britain Brexit, and America Trump but failed to give both adequate government.
No politicians are for the people by the people. Of course higher speeds is less safe but a vast majority is willing to accept the risk. Like many on here advocate for cyclists not to have to wear helmets despite the evidence being clear they prevent injuries. Evidence is ignored when a majority want something that tends to be how decisions are made unfortunately.
Current speed limits are not monitored now.
10kph in Federal st what a joke.
It would make far more sense to just close the street to all traffic, with special exemptions for service vehicles.
Federal would make a great pedestrian mall/green link. High foot traffic tourist area, right next to a train station entrance, links to busses on Wellesley and another greenway on Victoria. No-brainer?
Just put some retractable bollards in like Te Komitanga Square (outside Britomart)
You would think the freight industry would have a strong interest in safer roads and fewer crashes, with lots of data to shine a light on this angle. Besides crashes impacting the movement of freight, this is a health and safety issue for their members – streets and roads are their workplace.
It’s been quite troubling to instead hear them advancing the idea that higher speeds are more “efficient” and “productive”, and that this can be balanced with the known collateral damage. (See the Breakfast TV clip on this page, for example: https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/07/09/the-case-for-and-against-reversing-blanket-speed-limit-reductions/ )
Those comments from Simeon Brown show he is far too immature to be a minister of such an important portfolio. He’s also shown the same level of immaturity with the Local Government role. He continually throws around disingenuous soundbites, in attempt to maintain support, but he’s largely unwilling to rebut any of the evidence provided by road safety campaigners.
The National and ACT party, whose members are also behind this silly legislative change, are just as bad.
Plus the speed limit for Heavy Vehicles is 90km/h anyway.
“You would think the freight industry would have a strong interest in safer roads and fewer crashes, ”
Maybe the road / freight lobby wasn’t calling for this – but he’s also so favourable on so many policies / funding decisions they DO want that they are unlikely to go against him on this one.
It’s all about ideology. Personally I do think AC did go a bit too far in some areas with speed restrictions. Unfortunately not getting the balance quite right and this has made the changes unpopular and so now we’re in danger of losing all the gains.
The thing is that “Rare Misstep” Brown obviously *thinks* there is broad support for his approach. Which suggests he’s living in a Right-wing cognitive bubble.
aka Howick 🙂
Howick, especially.Three councillors (out of 21) who did not vote against the government’s draft proposal were both Howick councillors: Sharon Stewart and Maurice Williamson, the MP for Pakuranga directly preceding Simeon Brown. That part of Auckland appears to be completely on another page to the rest of the city as they keep voting in the same like-minded candidates.
The third was Waitakere ward councillor Ken Turner.
What was Cr Turner’s rationale for opposing?
Sacha. Not sure of the exact reason. He’s definitely on the RW side of council though
Ken Turner owns a garage, maybe higher speeds more crashes is good for business?
Sacha – re Cr Turner
Cr Turner didnt oppose it saying local councils should be able to set their speed limits.
Yes – he appeared confused. And ignored.
That’s a bit sad.
Also, both the coalition agreement and the Draft GPS said that speed limit reductions would only be reversed “where it was safe to do so”. This phrase was removed in the final GPS and in the new draft speed limit rule.
That is damning right there, clearly an intent to remove speed limits regardless of safety implications
dont waste your time calling out hypocracy, that ship sailed a long time ago.
I specifically wrote in the draft GPS feedback that there is too much objective evidence showing faster speeds are less safe therefore there is no situation “Where it is safe to do so”
It demonstrates malicious intent that rather than accepting they can’t raise speeds safely, they have removed that clause.
It is still useful to point out the hypocrisy as when eventual court cases are filed It can elp researchers demonstrate a body of evidence of misconduct.
Of course the minister has a mandate. Just not from the public of NZ. The mandate comes from whomever provided the funding support to get this government into power. Who pays the piper calls the tune, and it seems across a broad swath of our society we are bearing the brunt of this reality.
Well the “blanket” part is a bald faced lie, two of them actually, (1) the lowering of the speed limits wasn’t a blanket measure, and (2) they are actually introducing a blanket measure.
So right of the bat, point 1 seems like a very charitable interpretation. It is a lie and they know it, and you don’t need evidence to tell lies. Same with point 2. So what.
3 and 4 will be interesting. Maybe it is that old negotiation tactic where you start with something really unreasonable, and then you can water it down to what you actually want.
If trucks can only legally drive at up to 90 km/h, where is the road freight advantage coming from? All loss through being unable to pass slow vehicles or crash sites.
When did you last see a truck driving at 90Km!
The freight industry lobbyists are all very clear that, as responsible employers, they monitor their vehicles to ensure their drivers comply with Rules. I wonder who these other truck drivers are?
Most trucks in NZ – even those with the livery of big companies – are small operators owning one, or at most two trucks. The trucking industry is like Uber that way, and has been for a long while. Uber also talks a good game about making sure their drivers follow the road rules etc, but really? When push comes to shove, they point at the “independen contractor”.
They can then go on to lobby that the heavy vehicle speed limit to be increased once all the 4 lane mega project highways are built.
Couple of reasons they would want this…yes they use more fuel at faster speeds but they now have fuel surcharges which they bill customers, so using more not necessarily all bad for the books. Also driver hour limits. Current limits often necessitate having extra drivers flown around the country so they can take over when the previous driver runs out of hours (or delay the deliveries). If they can shave an hour or two off the journeys it might be enough so they can let those staff go.
The fuel surcharges are indexed from the price of fuel. If the amount of fuel used changes the existing mechanisms don’t take this into account (automatically).
Can’t wait for our country to get back on track with 50kmh limits everywhere! Nothing to hold us back anymore. Zoooooooom
I’m in favour of almost all limits going back to what they were… except school zones. I think it’s nuts to change these – kids are totally unpredictable especially in groups. Kids are present not just during school hours too.
I also don’t mind limited localised 30km/h areas but AC went overboard with it putting it in many places where it wasn’t needed.
“Wasn’t needed” by who?
60% reduction in Deaths in Franklin. Im good with the 80kph. I may have been one of those saved, or my family.
Raising speed limits is in line with all the other things National is doing to cut the population – smoking, vaping, cutting suicide prevention, keeping alcohol cheaper, reducing safety for road workers, continuing with unseaworthy ferries, air pollution from vehicles, etc.
A massive articulated opposition will be needed if this lethal bill must be stopped.
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It does appear that the current politicians controlling our country do not know much about anything. Cars are the worst invention of all time, even the creator of Ford was destroying forests for rubber plantations. I live in a fantasy world where cars do not exist, and my kids know their dad is a public transport weirdo. Car rides are boring, and I personally feel quite claustrophobic within one. Ignore science for a few more years to make it more difficult for all of us.
Sad, blind and very neoliberal. Humans are worth nothing when you can stand on them to make a profit.
bah humbug
The ‘little extras’ section at the end of the consultation was also interesting.
They are testing the water for a 120kph limit where the road supports it.
Haulage gets no benefit without other law changes and it was rather unambitious.
Why not spend up and derestrict significant stretches of that expensive, limited access state highway?
200kph is well within the capabilities of any car you are likely to see a Coalition MP driving, and it could happen tomorrow, which is about 200 years before you could ever expect to see a train do the same thing in NZ.
I’m sure our exemplary training requirements, motoring culture, road design, enforcement and emergency response capacity are up to the job.
Interesting idea. Unfortunately, loss of a few 2 Fast 2 Furious Ministers would come at the price of a lot of innocent victims. Random testing for whatever they have been using (going by the proposed Rule change) may help.
Just done feedback. Despite warnings was surprised how “agressive” the policy was. Also noted they are using AI. How many opinions which subtle analyse different components, will be summed as 789 against raising speed.
Hey Waiukian – Is Glenbrook going to go back to 100 ?
Im guessing not. Its still killing your people at 80kph, with huge traffic volumes.
I asked AT about the impact of speeds where i live – they we’rent able to get back in time, i asked early last week. Important as we working with the local school to get kids on bikes. Im pulling the plug if speeds are raised.
Short consultation and no cost benefit analysis of these speed limit raises… Someone voted for this.
Question: Are there any regions (urban or rural) that had/have a majority opposition to reduced speed limits in any surveys?
I live/commute in Franklin and have been opposed to the reduced speed limits in many cases – not so much the 80 kmh but particularly the 60 kmh ones. I assumed most of the rest of the district was too – but then I looked up some surveys and nope – theres a clear majority in support of the lower limits.
Even I wouldnt be arrogant enough to suggest my opinion is more important than the majority of other residents in my area – so why does the government suddenly think they need to come to our rescue? Not a productive use of time or energy at all!
Um yes there was huge opposition to reducing the east Auckland arterials down from 80-60 and 60-50. Pakuranga road and Te Irirangi drive had massive opposition to lowering the limits but AT arrogantly went ahead and lowered them anyway. Pakuranga road was such an embarrassment as safety wasn’t the reason they literally just did it because they could.
They did because the evidence powerfully supports them doing so. However this area does seem to be a particular hotbed of people with a death wish, so…
Um yes, Howick wasn’t the only place they lowered the speed limit on arterials. There was a legacy of 60k speed limits right across the former Manukau City area and even a few that got changed in other urban parts of the region. But the only area where it caused a fuss was Howick, which probably explains the voting split at the Council table. But the ministers draft rule arrogantly reverses all of them, with no consideration of local views, not just the ones in Howick.
No there was literally no evidence with Pakuranga road they did it because they could. If you even look at the phase 3 reasoning for reducing Pakuranga road it’s the only one where they can’t even use safety as an excuse. It’s labeled as “to make the limits more consistent” which would be true if they weren’t changing the speeds of a bunch of surrounding streets to 30 and 40. There will be a chance for the council to look at them again only once they have to take views of the public into account it’ll never pass most of the EART roads were majority against chapel road being another one.
Evidence and what people actually want rarely align.
Evidence says that alcohol related illness kills more than 2 people in NZ every day – but think about how unpopular a prohibition policy would be!
Sometimes people dont want to be saved from themselves – being made to drive slower (which reduces driver enjoyment even though the evidence says it improves safety) will always meet opposition from a wide part of society.
Te Irirangi Drive going down to 60km/h from 80km/h was a complete joke. The road has no driveways along the whole length between the Rongotai footbridge and Botany Town centre. All properties are either accessed by a service lane or a signalised intersection.
Couldn’t agree more S L. The east Auckland speed reductions in general were a joke as safety wasn’t even the reason. Chapel road has a similar design and was perfectly fine at 60k. If you look at the reason it’s once again “to make the speed consistent” not actually about safety. Once again AT lowered it just because they could not because it actually would improve safety. In fact the full list of roads that were so safe AT couldn’t justify safety as an excuse were Botany Rd, Pakuranga Rd, Cascades rd, Harris rd, Smales rd, East Tamaki rd, Accent Dr, Ormiston rd, Stancombe rd, Cavendish Dr, Roscommon rd. There’s actually a few more but willing to leave those out as even though safety had nothing to do with it at least not many people seemed to travel at the old speed. Source for this if you check the Phase 3 speeds map and click on the roads it shows a “Reason” and it doesn’t mention safety as the reason it’s some lie about making it consistent or drivers already drive slower.
So you admit that there is wide opposition but asked is there any region that had majority opposition to reduced speed. For most people it’s not about enjoyment they just have places to go quickly and don’t want to be slowed down even though it is obviously less safe. I’m not going to argue with the majority of the public on this one they are correct and we are in the minority.
Im literally agreeing with you. I’ve just seen stats which seem to say that most people surveyed support the lower limits – which surprises me cos I have heard a lot of people complain about it.
I think the basic explanation is two things:
On local streets it is just not necessary to drive 50 km/h, the negative effect on people living there (or going to school there) far outweighs the few seconds saved on those few 100s of metres you drive on those streets.
On rural streets, many speed limits were obviously too high, it is really dangerous to drive 80 or 100 if you have a lot of curves and hidden driveways.
Yes sorry M_C_. The stats have to be doctored or they made sure they knew who they were asking to get a result. I suppose it could be the only people who respond to surveys are the ones who are wanting lower speeds? Any stat that claims most people want a blanket 30k on most streets is just a blatant lie. Compliance in temporary 30 areas doesn’t even get to 50% for many worksites. You can guarantee that if 40% of motorists are speeding in the new 80 zone up north with a camera that 80-90% will be exceeding the 30 zones.
should stick to the international Vision Zero speed limit recommendations. 10kph for shared spaces; 30 for any city/town centre, residential cul-de-sacs and local streets; no more than 50 for any urban roads, 70-80 for non-grade-separate highways and no more than 100 for motorways & expressways. Keep it consistent, keep it simple.
If you actually want a realistic speed system that the public is not going to mass revolt against. 20 for shared zones. I agree 10 is safer but most car speedometers aren’t even accurate enough to have that as an official legal limit. 40 for minor urban roads and is a more realistic speed for compliance almost no one slows down for 30. The stalker radar also has a minimum “moving mode” operation speed which is part of the reason why it’s rare to see someone stopped for speeding through roadworks as the speed limit is too slow for the police radar to work they would have to speed to issue speeding tickets not ideal. 50 for main roads not suitable for higher speeds. And then 60-80 depending on urban arterial condition e.g 60 for Pakuranga road and 80 for Te Irirangi drive. Rural & motorways 80-100 depending on road type and then 120 for expressways that allow it. 110,10,30,90 zones should probably go.
100% agree with this Auckland Trains.