Two old sayings have been on my mind lately. The first is: “The pen is mightier than the sword”, describing the power of language and communication to help or to harm.

The other, which captures the speed with which falsehoods can become ingrained and hard to undo, is: “A lie can run halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”

In the modern era, subject to a daily deluge of information, we need to pay attention to how problems and issues are framed – the way stories are told and indeed “sold” to us. That affects how we decide to solve these issues, and even whether we think they’re an issue at all.

Awash in a flood of news about things we might not know much about, but which affect all of us, we have to trust other voices, aka “the media” – whether it be journalists, experts, commentators, or blogs like Greater Auckland – to investigate and ask questions.

Many do an excellent job, but it can be easy to miss a step.

For example, looking at recent media coverage of the government’s proposed speed limits increases, you could be forgiven for assuming there’s a factual basis for Simeon Brown’s repeated claims that a) the last government implemented ‘blanket’ speed reductions, and b) the public doesn’t approve of safer speeds. For examples, see: Stuff (1, 2), RNZ (1,2, 3, 4) and 1news (1, 2, 3, 4).

While some of these pieces are pretty good, and most feature a variety of voices, they all repeat Brown’s claim of ‘blanket speed reductions’ – and often in the headline. This is a huge mistake. The problem is, Simeon Brown is wrong. Not just wrong in my opinion, but wrong in regard to the facts.


So it was a relief yesterday to see NZH journalist Thomas Coughlan tackle this misinformation head-on, in an article headlined “Large majority of Kiwis want slower speeds, despite Government policy to raise them.” (Unfortunately the story is paywalled, although library patrons can see it via PressReader).

Coughlan presents the results of the most recent survey on public attitudes to speed limits and road safety:

A survey commissioned by NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi(NZTA) found Kiwis support lower speed limits around schools and other high-risk areas.

In some cases, that support was very strong, with 70% supporting lowering speed limits around schools to improve road safety.

That is despite the current Government forging ahead with plans to change the rules that have seen councils choose to lower speed limits around the country.

He includes this graph, which illustrates how a significant majority of people support reductions in high risk areas and around schools – and even a 30km/h urban limit had over 50% support, with only 24% opposing and 23% neutral on the subject.

Source: Thomas Coughlan, “Large majority of Kiwis want slower speeds, despite Government policy to raise them,” NZ Herald 16 July 2024

Coughlan continues:

There is some controversy over just how “blanket” the former Government’s safer speed policy actually was, with proponents of the policy noting in many circumstances, councils could keep higher speeds outside schools if they felt it justified.

The Herald asked the Ministry of Transport to clarify the rules at 1pm yesterday, but despite being the agency in charge of overseeing the transport system, it was unable to provide a response by deadline.

Some councils have decided to oppose the Government’s changes, including Auckland Council, which voted 18-3 to oppose the Government’s plan to raise speed limits on the roads back to their levels at the start of 2020, and 12-11 to oppose the Government’s plan to allow “variable” speed limits around schools.

Several councillors said the minister had not provided evidence to support any of those claims. Instead, they cited a range of data they said showed his claims were wrong. They also said the new rule flew in the face of the Government’s commitment to allow local authorities to make local decisions.

Interestingly – because it confirms this aspect of the story isn’t going away any time soon – Russell Brown has a fresh piece in the NZ Listener along similar lines (also paywalled). Here’s a snippet:

If you can picture the Minister of Transport’s “astonished” face, that is what Simeon Brown was wearing after Auckland Council voted 18-3 to reject the government’s plan to wipe all speed limit reductions on the city’s roads since 2020. The vote does not mean Auckland Council – or any other local authority – can actually change what’s coming. Consultation on the new Setting of Speed Limits 2024 Rule is merely that: consultation.

Once it is in place, speed limits for most types of roads will increase and councils will be forbidden ever to reduce any of them, even at the request of local voters. The minister’s earlier promise that limits would increase only where it was “safe to do so” is undefined.

Spot the disappearing safety disclaimer. This is the introduction to the Draft GPS 2024, published on 4 March 2024 (see also our archived version here), which contains the key phrase “reverse speed limit reductions where it is safe to do so.”
… and this is the Minister’s introduction to the final version of the GPS 2024 (see our archived version here). The key phrase “where it is safe to do so” has vanished, and been replaced by “enabling people to get where they need to go quickly and safely.”

To be blunt, the Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, alongside others in his coalition government, is weaponising language and fudging the facts. He’s mischaracterising a relatively popular, evidence-based policy as unfounded and unpopular “government overreach” – in order to force through his demonstrably unfounded and unpopular government overreach.

And he’s being helped by parts of the media regurgitating his catchphrases and accepting his framing.

Here are some facts on the changes Simeon wants to reverse.

  • Changes proposed in 2022 were so uncontroversial that they only had 325 submissions over 9 weeks of consultation. While we don’t yet know how many thousands of submissions there have been on Brown’s proposed changes, he was clearly worried enough by the growing disquiet to take the unusual step of emailing National supporters urging them to submit on his plan.
  • The most controversial part of the 2022 changes was that submitters wanted lower speeds implemented around schools sooner than proposed. Moreover, they thought 60km/h was too high around rural schools and wanted it lower.
  • There is no ‘blanket’ approach in the 2022 changes (and the earlier 2020 shifts in policy). The well-supported rule explicitly gave local road controlling authorities (RCAs) and communities more control over speed limits in their areas – tasking them with developing locally tailored speed management plans based on evidence, in order to save lives.
  • In fact, these 2022 changes finally gave RCAs the tools to move away from the prior ‘blanket approach’ on speed limits. For areas around schools, it meant that RCAs could consider variable or permanent speed limits, based on the local context and community. Given that in Auckland, 85% of crashes that cause deaths or serious injuries occur outside of school hours, of course some communities and authorities chose to implement permanent speed limits.

A key point of the 2022 rule was Proposal 10. This replaced ‘urban traffic areas’ with ‘speed limit areas’. Prior to 2022, ‘urban traffic areas’ mandated a default speed limit of 50km/h inside designated urban areas, with a default rural speed limit of 100km/h outside the area, unless specified or excluded.

The 2022 change gave RCAs much more flexibility to implement areas of any speed limit under a ‘speed limit area’. This was overwhelmingly supported, including by Winston Peters’ favourite advocacy group Grey Power, who said approvingly that the change: “should help to remove the idea of an urban default of 50km/h”.

So, if the 2022 legislation granted local RCAs more flexibility – local solutions to local issues on local streets – what are Simeon and the coalition government proposing?

A return to standardising 50km/h and 100km/h, with narrowly specific and mandatory standardised variable speed limits around schools. In other words, Simeon is the only one applying a blanket here.

The same goes for state highways. The Road to Zero safety strategy (which underpinned the 2022 changes) aimed to right-size speed limits on many state highways around Aotearoa. It wasn’t a blanket policy – the only reason that broad swathes of highways were under consideration is because 90% of our state highway network was set to unsafe speed limits.

To quote NZTA itself:

speed limits were first set before we knew what was safe and appropriate for our roads.

And as CEO Nicole Rosie told AA’s Directions magazine in 2022,

We have done speed assessments based on best-practice evidence of our networks and we know a lot of them are overscoped for the safety of that network.

[The changes] will genuinely be dependent on each community and each consultation. We are consulting on speed changes in many communities at the moment.

To take a few minutes longer driving more slowly from A to B, you’ll see quite dramatic safety improvements with minimal impact on productivity.

The changes made by NZTA after 2020 (which Simeon Brown’s rule explicitly intends to reverse, for no evidence-based reason) resulted in a range of reductions on different stretches of the state highway network, based on the context of each specific area, including the state of the road and the crash history.

And, while some reports described these reductions as ‘sweeping’, they only covered 4% of the state highway network. In Northland – the single case where a whole-region approach was proposed – NZTA steered away from region-wide limits after community feedback, to focus on specific locations instead. But even this didn’t mean Northland’s communities didn’t want safety measures – they very much did.

New Speed camera near Kawakawa (Source: Waka Kotahi/NZTA)

Everyone agrees roads need to be taken on a case-by-case basis. As the national road policing manager Steve Greally said in 2022:

…a 80km/h limit should be a maximum for undivided roads but this should drop to 60km/h for “windy, tortuous, or unsealed roads”

A flat 100km/h (or 80km/h or 60km/h and so on) doesn’t make sense, and you need to provide the option for bespoke limits that depend on the context of the road in question.

And that’s exactly what the 2022 speed rule did. The point was to implement evidence-based speeds on roads, so the rule offered flexibility, as all roads are different and need to be treated differently. This allowed local RCAs to adopt evidence-based reductions on their roads, especially around schools – on the basis that local people are best suited to make local decisions on local roads.

Whereas it seems this government only seems to like localism when locals agree with the government.

This is why so many Councils and schools across Auckland and the rest of the country have expressed dismay and opposition to Simeon Brown’s proposal. Aside from the immense waste of ratepayer and taxpayer money that it would take to reverse existing speed zones, the evidence simply does not back the claims for higher speeds.

In particular, economic analyses back safer speeds as the key to “productivity” – in large part because more children and adults being injured or dying in crashes, which simultaneously clog the network and weigh down the health system, in order to ostensibly “save” a few seconds off someone else’s trip, is not actually good for the economy. Who’d have thought?

It’s also shocking that a key disclaimer, which is right there in print in one of the two coalition agreements this government rests on, has been quietly disappeared from Simeon’s draft rule: the promise to only “reverse speed limit reductions where it is safe to do so.”* Close readers of the draft GPS will notice that same phrase vanished from the final GPS, too.

In other words, the Minister of Transport is effectively pledging to forcibly revert to higher speeds whether or not it is safe to do so. Is this why he wants everyone to think about blankets all the time, so we don’t spot what’s hiding in plain sight?

Death and injury risk percentages at different speeds. Source: Auckland Transport

To sum up: the last government lifted a heavy blanket off New Zealanders – old-fashioned, un-evidenced speed-rules that were contributing to our horrendous road toll and costing us big-time, around $10bn a year, which is 4% of our GDP. The 2022 rule gave the power back to communities and local authorities, to work together to implement evidence-based speed limits, for safer streets and more transport choices, especially around schools..

In contrast: Simeon and the current coalition want to smother us with blanket speed increases rolled out over towns, cities and neighbourhoods, even those who object – especially around schools, where the plan is to impose one-size-fits-all, strictly time-limited conditions  – which all credible evidence shows will kill and maim New Zealanders.

Perhaps Simeon’s blankets will be useful to soak up the blood of those who will die if these changes are forced through? This is emotive language – but the increased risk is a point made by many level-headed experts, including former national Road Policing assistant commissioner Dave Cliff, who says:

Reversing life-changing speed-reduction measures and the planned approach to reversing speed limit reductions will not “boost productivity and economic growth” as claimed. It will increase the numbers killed and seriously injured.

The Australian College of Road Safety, referencing the current Government’s approach to speed, said it was ‘stepping back 20 years’. The college is right.


Returning to the theme I started with: the reporting around the speed-rule change should be a case study for journalism students in why and how not to swallow the bait.

We deserve due diligence, on this and all sorts of important changes underway right now. We should take any claim with a grain of salt – and always, always interrogate cute catchphrases. Avoid replicating metaphors, especially if politicians are spoon-feeding them to you with a view to headlines. A healthy dose of scepticism is the medicine for falsehoods and disinformation.

In the haste to deploy the buzzword “blanket” to what was in fact a nuanced and evidenced approach – thus uncritically reproducing the Minister’s framing in news stories – much (although thankfully not all) of the media coverage missed the real story: the dangerous reality of the proposed replacement. But this does not need to continue.

This is really important, because the way things are framed, and what is presented as ‘fact’, has enormous implications for how we all think about problems and what the needed solutions may be. In this case, if these policy changes go through, people will die who otherwise needn’t have.

Finally, even if you’re heartily sick of the discourse about speed limits, don’t think you’ve heard the end of it. As yesterday’s story shows, the Minister may have assumed this was a populist slam-dunk and yet it will continue to bounce back in his face. And I’m pretty sure his blanket won’t help him.


Header image via Pinterval, CC BY-NC 4.0

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93 comments

  1. It is populist I don’t know why people see one survey and think it means there is huge support for 30k areas. If we aren’t even getting 50% compliance in 30 areas that tells you all you need to know. Would be interesting to know how the survey was conducted it’s in complete contrast to what you hear from everyday people. 30 is a problem anyway it means police can’t enforce speed while the patrol car is moving unless they speed hence why people are rarely pulled over in temporary 30 areas.

    1. I think that at least some of the lack of compliance can be put down to a lack of enforcement and insufficiently sized fines to act as deterrents. Many people are willing to break laws where they feel that there is no real perceived harm and there is a very low risk of being caught, with minimal consequences even when they are.

      Also I fail to understand your comment about police not being able to enforce that, how is any other speed limit not affected by that logic?

      1. Hi Phil great question, The Stalker radar unit used in patrol vehicles. It cannot lock other vehicles speed in “moving mode” while the patrol car is moving at a speed less than 32kmh so in a 30 zone while the patrol car is moving they won’t be able to lock vehicle speeds like they can in 50 areas. The patrol car would have to be in “Stationary” mode to be able to check speeds in these areas which isn’t the most efficient use of time. Or they can use a Lidar gun but a big chunk of speeding tickets are issued in the “moving mode” basically removes the enforcement while the patrol car is moving meaning they could miss out on locking a high speed. This is a part of the reason why cars are so rarely caught in temp 30 zones.

        1. I struggle to see how it is more efficient for police to drive around looking for speeding drivers than just park up a stationary camera.

        2. I did not know that, that is interesting. So it would mean patrol cars would only be able to perform radar detection while parked up which I can see could mean fewer opportunities for catching people speeding. I still see patrol cars parked up periodically in problem locations though, so I don’t know that that is enough of a reason.

        3. I suppose the main reason they use moving mode is because it means people can’t mark a “stationary stalk” location on waze or google maps. It also gives people with radar detectors less time to react as the radar can be activated quickly and lock a target while in stationary mode the radar beam is constantly firing meaning the real speeders don’t get caught.

        4. It baffles me that we haven’t simply banned radar detectors in NZ. They have only one use in a car – to evade the law.

        5. I agree jezza radar detectors are also a huge distraction if nothing else. Arguably more dangerous than talking on the phone.

    2. I’d also like to know where this data is from as I certainly don’t believe that it is anywhere near the actual amount and I doubt that the compliance is even 50% high. I suspect there is a clear difference between everyday people and those filling in online forms on obscure council pages – AT are just checking a box with consultation after all. I travel through one of these 30kph zones from time to time and no one is travelling 30 and you get tail gaited.

      Compliance will never be sorted as you will never get the police waiting on suburban streets for someone going 5kph over the speed limit when there are more pressing issues for them to deal with. Only way to force any reduction is through road design – people will drive at the designed speeds as it feels safe. Therefore the way to do it is through changed road design to change how people feel about the conditions.

      If they are using schools as the reason then I see no reason for why it can’t only apply during times when school children are walking to and from school. Town centres are different but there is very low chances that a school child is walking at 7pm at night but we still have to drive slowly. I’m not even convinced many school children walk to the school near me as most seem to be driven but that doesn’t seem to make a difference.

        1. I wasn’t meaning road crossings as these only affect drivers on a short amount of road as much as I was meaning completely changing the road design. Making the lanes narrower, increasing tree size or something. I’m not entirely sure but I know that there is a clear different between how people drive in these 30 areas compared to other areas designed for lower speeds (Stonefields comes to mind).

      1. Schools can have children moving to and fro and all sorts of different times and days. After school programs, holiday programs, music lessons, sports practice to name only a few. Many schools operate weekend programs too. Not to mention kids like playgrounds and sports courts/fields.
        I can only assume that the school speed thing is either from people who don’t have, don’t know or don’t care about children.
        You’re right about road design, low speeds only work with the right design. Like narrow corner radii, raised crossings etc

        1. I understand that school children don’t move straight from school to house and that they have other activities, clubs and programs they are a part of. I wouldn’t change the speed limit straight once the school children pass a certain point at 3:34 or something but lots of the activities you discussed (in my experience) required parents to pick up the student or don’t extent particularly far into the morning/evening past schools hours. There remains no need for 30kph zones to be enforced for schools when it is dark outside as no school students should (and hopefully are) walking outside. Also midday shouldn’t need to be 30 zone for children as children should be in school so the hours could be one or two around school opening and closing.

          I also believe that 50 was too high to begin with and that 40 should be adopted as the general speed limit for some suburbs but 30 is defiantly too low.

      2. An example of a blanket speed limit is Pt Chev where the limit of 30kph 24/7 was implemented across most of the suburb on the basis that there is a school in the suburb.
        Compliance is probably <5%. If this was done during school times and more close proximity to the schools, people would likely comply more.
        Why is Pt Chev special you ask? I think AT thought it would be a way of keeping the GA and other commentators who live here happy.

        1. If less than 5% of the people actually comply with the 30kph speed restrictions, then it shows that AT’s consultation is a complete joke and that AT is completely undemocratic. If the consultation was done properly then way more people would fill it out and not the minority of people. AT is therefore serving to the wants of a highly vocal minority and completely ignoring the 95% majority who don’t spend their life filling out council forms over speed limits. If central government did this then there would be an uproar and they would be kicked out but AT and the council don’t care. This just shows that their whole process is BS and that they are going to do what they want – although not surprising based on how they’ve been acting over the past few years.

        2. Space – sorry but your ‘consultation done properly’ comment is a joke. AT spends rediculous amounts of time and money on attempting to engage with as many people as possible (normally).
          There’s no pleasing everyone, so comments on 30kmh is too slow, is not supported by evidence of crashes and harm caused.

        3. I would suspect some roads are even closer to 100% non compliance of 30 zones. Hendry ave downhill comes to mind. I would estimate 100% of cyclists exceed the limit and 95% of drivers. You are of course correct space AT doesn’t listen to feedback it’s pretty much pre determined the consultation just makes sure they check a box and then get on with pushing through unpopular changes. Of course a big chunk of the people submitting in favour also casually exceed the limit as well they just want to frustrate drivers. Some people on here were quite happy to advocate for no helmets on bikes despite evidence it’s safer but then suddenly the evidence really matters when it comes to speed.

      3. Because that assume that children will only be around the school or near the roadway at very specific times.

        But how many late school children will get caught out because they arrive just after the speed cut off? What about field trips where they may leave the school outside the posted hours. What about others that use school facilities outside of hours? 30km/h I agree is hard to police, but in some cases it is worth policing it.

    3. So just to clarify if a police car is doing 30kmh and following a car doing 40kmh it can’t accurately read the speed?

      If so it seems like a reasonably simple solution – speed up to 32kmh.

      1. Hi Jezza, The solution if the patrol car is following would be a “pace check” provided they had reasonable grounds to suspect a vehicle was speeding it’s mostly used on the motorway where the radar would go haywire trying to lock 6 different lanes of targets. Radar normally is used for “front opposite” targets and no the police can’t just speed to make sure the radar works pretty sure that would cause a whole legal battle. If they lock a speed patrol speed is also locked in so it could open them up to a legal battle if someone asks why they were speeding as well.

        1. Right, so it’s for cars going in the other direction. I still struggle to see how driving around in a low speed area would be more efficient than using something stationary.

          Stationary can use a non-sworn officer or even an unmanned fixed camera, which doesn’t tie up a squad car or a sworn officer.

        2. It’s a DSR Radar so can be used for “rear same” and “front same” targets as well however normally it’s more effective on unmarked units as people don’t slam on the breaks before a speed is locked. I still think it’s important to have more officer issued infringements as they also find drug/drink drivers at the same time. Really interesting debate overall though good discussion.

    4. “I don’t know why people see one survey and think it means there is huge support for 30k areas.”

      Can you cite something to the contrary? Or is yours just a “reckon” based on personal bias?

      1. KLK if you remember pre election a poll was done and people were asked about lower speeds only 13% at best supported them. The survey asks slightly different questions to get the answers they wanted. Besides you only need to drive in a 30 zone to realise less than 5% of vehicles and bikes actually follow it.

    5. I’m always intrigued that people focus on technical compliance of a new speed limit rather than what has actually happened to people’s travelling speeds – that is the key safety metric.
      By way of example, let’s suppose that previously in a busy 50kmh area, on average most people were doing 45kmh – hoorah! Technically most of them are obeying the speed limit. But the many people walking and biking in the area are probably still not appreciating much safety at that speed. So let’s introduce a 30kmh posted limit, and typically (based on evidence elsewhere) that will see mean speeds drop by about 5kmh in absence of any other changes. Oh no, all those naughty people are now travelling at an average of 40kmh in a 30k zone!
      But the thing doing the heavy lifting here in terms of safety is that people have slowed down from 45k to 40k. That doesn’t seem much, but typically that results in about a 30% reduction in deaths and serious injuries…
      If you want to also add in some street treatments to reduce speeds even more, great. But people do take into account both the road environment and the posted limit in their speed choices – and simply changing posted speed limits alone is a very cost-effective way to get safety gains now…

      1. Appreciate the insight GlenK. You can’t do something like that with the way speed is supposed to be enforced. You will cause a mass revolt as speed limits are supposedly enforced with no tolerance. You set speed limits democratically and then slap huge fines on the people in excess if that means the limit is 50 so be it.

    6. Kia ora mate!
      You can actually find the survey here if you are interested in seeing how it was done:
      https://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/resources/public-attitudes-to-road-safety/Public-attitudes-to-road-safety-Q1-jan-mar-2024.pdf

      Its been going on in one form or another since 2016 I believe? Support for 30km/h has actually dropped by 5% from 57% in 2022 -> 52% in 2024. Although the reasoning why is, imo, more important than the drop.

      Also if you are interested, Auckland Council & The University of Auckland did a ‘deliberative forum’ project last year, measuring average peoples views before and after talking to experts. The mean of support for Lowering speed limits went from 5/10 (ie neutral), to a 7/10 (ie slightly support). This forum wasn’t specifically about speed though, so I imagine one more focused on speed limits would produce similar if not more of a change. See here:

      https://bpb-ap-se2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.auckland.ac.nz/dist/2/799/files/2024/04/Deliberative-Forum-Interim-Report-da7347c925f76404.pdf

      Part of the reason I wrote this post was to highlight the importance of which language and what conversations that are elevated in discourse. The reality is people (myself included), don’t have time to have an in-depth understanding of every topic, we rely on folks in the media and commentators to present things accurately.

      Any speed limit change, say 50km/h – 30km/h, does take time to result in behavior change, but humans are wonderfully adaptable and adjust! Agree as well enforcement is important, but some people not following the rules does not mean the rule itself is the issue. There is absolutely ways to enforce this as well, and cities overseas are reaping the rewards which you can see here: https://www.nrso.ntua.gr/review-of-city-wide-30-kmh-speed-limit-benefits-in-europe-may-2024/

      Cheers,
      Connor

      1. Hey thanks for that Connor. Interesting way they used to conduct it… face to face interviews for 35 mins as if anyone who’s working has the time for that or even wants to give feedback to the online/phone survey now. I would sadly have to reject the premise of the survey but does have some interesting figures in it from those who answered. And thank you for providing some context.

  2. A lot of RCAs did try to take a blanket approach though. Remember NZTA trying to blanket northlands entire network in 80k speed limits until a poll found 13% support and it was changed before the election to only 1% of state highways. It’s hard to say AT didn’t blanket their approach either they went through and blanketed their east Auckland arterials with 50k limits no matter if the road was safe for 60 (e.g Chapel rd). They also took a blanket approach in the Katoa ka Ora right before it was stopped. Terry st in Blockhouse bay 30k only way that was proposed is because they wanted to blanket the entire area in 30K limits. Everyone does 50 down that road it’s wide and safe. AT also blanketed the rural roads by removing 100 altogether (most roads did need a reduction) even though a few roads could have kept 100.

    1. 7 blankets there …
      Chapel Road in Botany, why do you think 60kmh was safe? It’s a road with residential access, schools, shops etc, with very limited numbers of safe crossing points for pedestrians.

      1. Because by ATs own admission through the phase 3 reductions it was not about safety it was under the category “to make speed limits consistent with the surrounding area” because they wanted the blanket 50k across the arterials. So yes it’s safe it even has the special side road acess points making sure driveways in some parts aren’t directly connected to the road in places.

    2. Terry st which goes past a large park, a playground, a bowls club, a childcare centre, through a crazy intersection with Whitney st, and has cars parked on both sides of the street? Seems like a good candidate for 30 to me.

      1. I respectfully reject the premise of your statement cwnz. Terry st is a pretty wide fast moving road and the park is well off the road. Terry st is basically an arterial during peak times as people try to avoid the BHB roundabout compliance for a 30 zone on this road would be extremely low maybe sub 5%.

        1. Lol you’ve just proven your point. It’s a rat run. Put a camera in and compliance will shoot up.

        2. I wouldn’t characterise it that way. It’s an essential link for the west not just a rat run heavy vehicles also use this like a main road as well since it’s so wide. Especially now Donovan st has been closed on and off for months.

    3. It’s hard to find a section of Northland’s road network that is safe at 100kmh. There is only one small section with a median barrier and ironically that has an 80kmh speed limit in place that was implemented when National were last in power.

      1. Apart from pretty much the whole section of SH12 from Ruawai into Dargaville and SH1 Brynderwyn to Whangārei and Kamo to Waiomo and Taipa to Kaingaroa and a big section of the road between Kaitaia and Cape reinga. But yes let’s implement a blanket reduction because screw the north. If you’ve driven these sections of road you would know that 100 feels pretty safe but I agree these sections should definitely have median barriers to make 100 safer as the undivided parts do cause a little bit of issues but that’s mainly the poor quality of the drivers in the north who are quite happy to pass on blind corners it seems.

        1. The road from Whangarei to the Marsden Point turnoff carries around 15,000 vpd while the road south of there has some significant intersections. There’s no way this should be 100kmh without a median barrier and roundabouts at Ruakaka and both Waipu entrances.

          SH12 from Ruawai is full of farm driveways and regularly used by farm machinery.

          SH1 north of Awanui is basically an upgraded council road with little in the way of verges and some poor cambering in places.

          The only reason 100kmh seems safe is because it’s what we’ve done for years. None of these roads would have that speed limit if they were build anytime this century.

          ‘because screw the north’ – ‘mainly the poor quality of the drivers in the north who are quite happy to pass on blind corners it seems’. Maybe it’s the north screwing itself?

          I don’t think it is screw the north, I would be happy if they applied that regionwide in Taranaki where I live.

        2. So what if there is farm driveways if you somehow don’t see the machinery on that flat wide country plain a lower speed limit would not have helped you. SH1 north of Awanui is only bad for the first bit which I agree should be 80 then it flattens out and there are some long straights. “None of these roads would have that speed limit if they were built anytime this century” I’m sorry but that’s a blatant lie in 2005 a rule was introduced that it was inappropriate to have a country road with a speed limit lower than 100 so they almost definitely would’ve gotten 100 limit on them.

        3. Can you point me towards where the rule was in 2005 that stated that it is inappropriate for a country road to have a speed limit less than 100kmh?

        4. “In situations where the safe operating speed is below 100 km/h due to the road geometry or other limitations on the roadway, drivers should be made aware of the need to reduce speed. This can be achieved by means of warning signs, delineation and by the physical nature of the road itself. Using derestriction signs should also be considered as an alternative to using 100-km/h signs. Generally, it is not appropriate to install a lower speed limit.”
          That Generally not appropriate is basically where you realise if those roads were built then they would’ve had an almost 100% chance of a 100k speed limit. SH12 being 80 would’ve been laughed off as some sort of a joke. Using farm driveways was never an excuse the houses are well off the road and there’s good visibility.

          My source: This was part of the 2005 amendment to the land transport rule 54001/2003. Check under section 2.2 for quick reference about rural roads.

        5. That 2005 Amendment to the Speed Limits Rule was to allow for the use of 10kmh and 90kmh speed limits. Section 2.9 of that same amendment says “In circumstances where the operating conditions of a rural road are not suitable for the rural speed limit of 100 km/h, the Director may approve a 90-km/h speed limit, subject to any conditions that the Director considers appropriate.”

          Such a 90kmh limit was introduced to a section of SH2 near Maramarua in 2011. Compared against the next section of SH2 east, with 5 years of data before/after, the reduction in DSIs was 36.1%…

        6. Thanks Glen, except that’s not the point I was trying to make. I was calling out the lie that if SH12 was built this century it wouldn’t have had a 100k limit. That’s simply not true the director almost certainly wouldn’t have stepped in as the traffic volume on the road simply doesn’t justify it under the guidelines. It would’ve been 100 even “if it had been built sometime this century”. When people make a claim like that it deserves to be called out for what it is a lie.

  3. The old system was based on roadside development, which is a strange way to figure out what speed limit to put up. You added points for each gateway and more points for schools. There was a second half that was based on everything else including the road conditions and cross section. But the second part couldn’t outweigh the development score so it was really all about development. It was mechanistic but not evidence based. The result was a blanket 50kmh in towns, 70km/h at the edges where only one side of the road was developed and 100km/h everywhere else. It really was a terrible system.

  4. Make no mistake…these are modern fascists.

    They may not use Hitler’s or Mussolini’s or Franco’s physical tactics, but they have weaponised their limited linguistic abilities.

    These are neoliberals, raised on the power of numbers, which is a notion invented by a human, and actually numbers are for idiots. Words are more powerful and unfortunately a universal right to the literate among us, which is why these types of ruling parties do not like to improve literacy, and want teacher’s limited energy and resources to be wasted on numbers; which kids these days basically learn from birth, as the cost of existence is so visceral to most parents of our generation.

    As a father I want lower speeds. As a public transport user, I want lower speeds (except for trains and ferries and buses), as a pedestrian I hope to survive each day that I need to cross a road; and since my ex-wife’s car was hit from behind by a Volvo moving at 70kmph, on a motorway at a standstill, and rear ended a vehicle carrying my four and three quarter year old; I have become more militant in my personal challenges to motor vehicles impeding my passage.

    I hope the police have the driver of that Volvo in a very safe space because to imagine losing a child on the eve of the Matariki weekend is not what we should be reflecting upon.

    bah humbug

  5. Great post Conor. Hope it reaches all the journalists who repeated the “blanket” line without question.

  6. This is an excellent article. It’s absolutely baffling how the majority of our news media repeats lies, misinformation or out of context lines without so much of a whiff of care.

    Yesterday I wrote about how Simeon Brown was repeating the old tripe about the last Government throwing away $1.2 billion on 3 Waters.

    Stuff repeated it verbatim without any context.

    That’s like me saying I ripped out someone’s indoor pool because I didn’t like its colour. And then telling my local newspaper that the owner wasted $15,000 on the pool. And the paper putting that as a headline “Old owner wastes $15,000 on pool that went no-where”

    1News were repeating “blanket” speed limit lies of Simeon Brown over and over again as well, just recently.

    It’s always been obvious NZ Herald support whatever National are trying to say.

    And Taxpayers Union shouldn’t be featured anywhere given their links to Atlas Network, Heritage Foundation, mysterious foreign money, big tobacco and fossil fuels.

    I finally figured it out when I realised this is all paid for corporate media – https://mountaintuihere.substack.com/p/the-politics-of-money

    And it’s a terrible thing that even the most basic stance of journalism is being gutted, and we are often reading promotional channels.

    Anyway thanks for this great article.

  7. With all these blankets everywhere I can see why Chris Penk thinks in his considerable building wisdom we might need to rollback insulation standards…

  8. A First class post. Everyone, please email this to your MPs so this can be aired in Parliament.
    Never mind the few sceptics posting misinterpretations. They seem to have Simeon’s blanket over their heads.

  9. One thing seldom mentioned is a lot of areas are a lot busier than 2019. The speed limits need be lower than 2019 in these places because of increased traffic.

  10. This Minister also said money from the regional fuel tax was sitting unused in a bank account even though he knows it was all allocated.

  11. Yes the minister is a proven and repeated liar.
    Actively disregards safety; life and death for the people he is supposed to care for.
    Overrules local democracy.
    Contradicts clear economic evidence.
    A minister without integrity.
    Apparently claims to be some sort of Christian.

    1. Addiction to speed is hard to overcome, but a 12 Step Program can help people, including Christians, to come to terms with it, find forgiveness and try to put things right.

  12. Time for some TRM style myth busting!

    Myth #1 – The Labour government speed reductions weren’t blanket
    You have to employ serious semantics to argue this. NZTA decided 85-90% of our roads had unsafe speed limits and had already changed limits on 4,400km of roads. That was going to increase to the arbitrary 10,000km in 2024. NZTA had literally taken away community rights by deciding en masse that speed limits were unsafe. It’s a blanket approach

    Myth #2 The NZ public wants lower speed limits
    The only surveys to produce such a response have had leading questions. A great example above being the question that talks about “more survivable” collisions. That is inserted in the question to produce a pre-determined outcome. An independent survey produces a very different response with just 12% of respondents agreeing with the notion of lower general speed limits.

    Even when respondents were asked a leading question only 17% wanted highway limits dropped. The public are very much against speed reductions. https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/350074748/public-politicians-dont-lower-speed-limits

    Myth #3 We need lower speed limits around schools and playgrounds to protect kids
    The 0-14 year old group is massively under-represented in NZ’s road toll data and has been for a long time. Without referencing population data, approx. 15-20% of our population would be in that age group, yet represents (in most years) less than 5% of the road toll. It’s incredible this group is so low.

    The situation is self-policing. In busy times around schools/playgrounds when kids are moving, traffic is high and you can’t go 50kmph if you tried! The data and common sense suggests there is no problem here to be fixed.

    The media are part of the problem here. Breathlessly reporting dodgy surveys and not mining data to create a perception that doesn’t exist. The media should be holding agencies like NZTA to account, not being a mouthpiece for their propaganda.

  13. Is there a case to take to the media council? All NZ journalists have a responsibility to report factual and balanced articles. Even if the ruling doesn’t come in our favour, it may still help to lift the standards of reporting.

    I think you would have a hard time getting any with complaints about what Simeon says directly.. NZ politicians have too much privilege.

    ‘Opinion’ pieces are another matter which I think have far too much prominence in our news media.

    1. Unfortunately, most journo’s and to be fair even the general public are totally clueless on transport stuff, occasional hot take on facebook comments or the yearly BBQ is the limit of their engagement.

      On other issues the media generally seem to question things and frame things more appropriately, but they totally fall over with transport, short perhaps Simon Wilson.

      They just quote and put complete faith in unsubstantiated claims like pedestrian crossings costing millions, blanket speed reductions and Geoff Upson being a “road safety campaigner” when he is undoubtably the reverse, actively campaigning for higher speed limits. Then there is completely bizarre negative takes on most things AT does, especially from Bernard Orsman, almost like he’s just there to get them. List goes on.

      1. Media almost never seem to cover transport as a topic on affairs programs either, the last time I remember anything decent on modal choice was from Campbell live back in the day where they raced cycling, train and car during peak from A to B to see which had the better travel time.

        There is so much great potential for content on transport woes in Auckland, but the coverage is always limited to poorly researched copy paste articles that change nothing and just push our transport authorities into tip-toeing on egg-shells of uneducated hot takes from people and ultimately politicians because it keeps them in favour of said people.

    2. I did think about this. Even Simon Dallow allowed himself to use ‘blanket’ as if it were more than the Minister’s personal opinion.

  14. People keep saying there’s no way to enforce the speed limits. The solution is mentioned in this article. Speed cameras.

    In the UK they have average speed cameras which track your speed over a set distance on major roads and you’re fined if your average speed is too high. So you don’t have to just have cameras at pain points.

  15. To the people complaining about the validity of the research. It is research that has been conducted with published method. Sure you can point out that the methods don’t represent the full population etc, but the data is there and transparent.

    The other side has zero data or evidence, just reckons. If there was such a strong case for people wanting faster speeds then by all means set up the research with well documented method so it can then be reviewed.

    It’s good to debate this but if one side has evidence and the other has none, there just isn’t a debate. This is the way science works, you have a hypothesis and set up experiments to challenge it. So far the evidence is all on the side of lower speed, both in actual numbers of injuries and deaths, and opinion surveys. Again if you have a hypothesis that people want faster speeds, please set up trials to test that. Even if you do prove people want faster speeds you’re not going to get any actual death and injury statistics to support a hypothesis of faster speeds actually being safer. The debate then becomes whether sacrificing lives is a good tradeoff for that fun feeling of speed.

    1. Route. You’re correct lower speeds are probably safer. But to come out and say most people want them is disingenuous beyond belief there was a poll pre election that only 13% wanted lower speeds. If they were so popular like you claim then it would be a simple policy to take to the election and win. Except as you know full well low speeds are unpopular. And compliance in zones they have changed is shockingly low only 60% compliance in an 80 zone up north and you can tell compliance in 30 zones is probably 10% at best for the most complied areas with some areas having almost 100% non compliance. The govt knows what they are doing with this they are gaining votes otherwise they would never do it.

    2. The method is biased due to the phraseology of the questions and how they misrepresent what NZTA decisions actually would be. It’s quite obvious in this case, but doesn’t have to be and polling can be influenced by prior questions if you want one response, such as the case here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks

      It doesn’t help that anyone “complaining” with “reckons” doesn’t have the right to speak freely and gets their comments deleted, after all I’d assume that someone claiming to have mountains of evidence would happily debate this topic. Reposting said removed comment below:

      The poll mentioned with overwhelming public support is biased in itself with the questions – who wouldn’t support lowered limits in high-risk areas? But who defines what high-risk actually means? Parts of 25A are still 100km/h with the rest being 80, but so is SH2 between Featherston and Masterton. Are we saying that those roads are equally dangerous and have similar speed-based risk profiles?
      School speed limits will always be popular even though they aren’t that significant, given only 8 kids under 14 died in 2023 as a result of road accidents, most of them likely being passengers. Maybe focusing on the other 333 would be better and make a licence difficult to get with qld-like fines and penalties for distracted driving.

      As for the 30km/h question, this is probably the most manipulative one yet. Yes it is true that 30km/h is more survivable than 50km/h and that will naturally lead to a (likely) reduction in pedestrian fatalities, but again only 25 pedestrians died as a result of road accidents last year. Some of those will be from boy racers going twice the limit, and others from inconsiderate cyclists not stopping for red lights. It is quite sad to see, but why shouldn’t the focus be on the vast majority of crashes – those caused by (not just influenced by) driver distraction, drink/drug driving, and general reckless behaviour?

      It seems like the main pro-speed reduction arguments right now are to do with:
      a) Pedestrian deaths – 30km/h is the fastest (collision) speed at which someone will realistically survive a crash
      b) Speed contributes to all crashes regardless of the cause, meaning that a reduction in speed will lead to a reduction in DSI.
      However, this is really just an excuse to justify being anti-car, as no matter how safe the road is – even if the superelevation is perfect – people will still find a reason to reduce the speed limit.
      I still remember posts about how we shouldn’t raise the Waikato expy to 110, and DSI didn’t even make the list (obviously) so other justifications had to be found.
      That time it was mostly discussing emissions and the social pressure of being forced to go 110, along with the relatively little time savings involved.

      The point I’m trying to make is that this isn’t new, the speed restrictions aren’t founded in logic, and are rather political. If the claim is that speed makes all crashes much worse but 30km/h is survivable even for pedestrians, you should be pushing for a 30 nationwide. We can agree that’s delusional and getting to Hamilton in 4 hours is a joke, meaning that there is a tradeoff between productivity and safety. Let’s focus on the leading causes first like drugs and alcohol – since they are proven to increase the probability (not just the effects) of an accident no matter what, and then look into cellphone use. If the fine for being on your phone was $1200 and you would get a 6-month licence suspension for being slightly over the limit, that would do much more to reducing DSIs than speed limits ever could.

      1. “Let’s focus on the leading causes first like drugs and alcohol”

        But isn’t the single leading cause of accidents just….accidents? People making mistakes? Hence the speed restrictions. You can’t do much about simple errors, so the speed limits are just as much about mitigating the adverse outcomes.

        1. “You can’t do much about simple errors” – that is a very pessimistic viewpoint. New Zealand is so much worse off than almost any civilized country in the world, even our brothers across the ditch. Don’t have the numbers on hand but I recall Aussies having around half the road fatalities per capita compared to us. If they can have higher speed limits while having fewer crashes, we should strive to be like them.

          Saying that a mistake led to an accident is true, but it’s equally important to understand what caused that mistake. Drinking six beers will lead to a slower reaction time, meaning upon seeing anything out of the ordinary (including small mistakes made by others on the road) could prove fatal. Same thing with focus and distracted driving – if you’re on your phone you can’t see the road. All these things are made worse with speed, I agree with you, but why not just tackle the issue at its root?

          https://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/About-us/docs/oia-2024/oia-14334-attachment-1.pdf
          Here’s an OIA from early last year showing that of the 372 fatalities in 2022, 112 of them involved drivers being under the influence of drugs, and 124 over the limit for alcohol. Another 53 tested positive for alcohol but were under the limit, so take that as you will. Regardless, we could avoid the majority of crashes on our roads if we focused more on policing poor behaviour and factors which are known to cause crashes rather than merely exacerbate the effects. In QLD you’d get your licence suspended for at least a month for a low-range offence (>0.05) while here it’s just 50 demerits.

          I drive a lot for work and then again to have a break over the weekend, and have seen incredibly reckless behaviour on almost every road as well. Some of these crashes will be caused by poor judgement such as overtaking on a blind corner or not getting your headlights fixed, others by terrible lane discipline. Speed in itself doesn’t really cause crashes, or at least not many of them anyway, which is why I’m baffled at the fixation on speed limits with complete disregard for major risk factors.

          But even if everything I said is wrong and I have no idea what I’m talking about, the very notion of a speed limit above 30 will inevitably lead to more fatalities if mistakes (see: poor decisions) are made at the same frequency. By not supporting this you are justifying some level of DSIs in the pursuit of productivity. The only way I see the speed limit wars progressing is either some of the above punishments get implemented and our road toll goes down, or people eventually start pushing for 30km/h on the Waikato expy since highway speed limit reductions aren’t achieving anything.

          Regarding your second comment, I’m not triggered at all – it’s just better to openly state that you are anti-car just like I can say that I love cars and high speed limits – while also using public transport often.

        2. It’s the Austroads guidelines that recommend having speed limits at 80kmh on open roads without centre dividers and 30kmh in areas with high numbers of pedestrians.

          They don’t follow these religiously but they are much better than NZ at applying 80kmh speed limits on country roads and building roads that have centre dividers with 110kmh speed limits.

        3. “it’s just better to openly state that you are anti-car”

          Why would I be anti-car? Because I want safer residential streets? Is it that binary? Are car lovers that precious? I bet I drive as much as you do too.

          It’s a very simple mind that thinks anything that might marginally impinge on driving is considered an attack by people who must be anti car.

        4. “It’s the Austroads guidelines that recommend having speed limits at 80kmh on open roads without centre dividers and 30kmh in areas with high numbers of pedestrians.”

          There are the stats you were looking for, Andrew, on Australia’s better road toll numbers.

        5. Jezza, are you implying that the difference between 80 and 100 leads to more DSIs than drink driving and cellphone use? Focusing on the minority of fatalities and ignoring the rest is strange to say the least.

          “The 2 default speed limits QLD roads are 50km/hr (for built up residential areas), and 100km/hr (roads in rural areas).” – TMR
          Brisbane CBD itself has 40 streets and 60 arterials, again higher than Auckland, and I think Sydney is the same.
          Vague and ambiguous guidelines such as “high numbers of pedestrians” usually aren’t applied since the definition of high varies from person to person, and if it isn’t applied then it won’t impact the number of fatalities.

          The obsession with speed isn’t addressing any real issues, and there’s little reason why a straight, level, rural highway can’t be 100km/h – assuming that you aren’t drunk, on drugs, or distracted.

        6. KLK, forget the anti-car comments, they’re meaningless in this debate anyway.

          The Austroads comments – if true since I couldn’t find anything – are a red herring. Most Australian roads are 100 or even above, even a quick look on street views gives you plenty of 110km/h two lane roads with no median such as the A79 in Victoria.

          You’re trying to look for data that brings speed into the conversation while ignoring obvious issues with any other factors contributing to the road toll. I have no doubt that we can find slow Australian roads and fast NZ roads all day, but the fact remains that the default limits of 100 and 50 are identical, except a significant proportion of our roads have been reduced from 100 to 80 and 80 to 60 with no benefit in sight.

          And I’m not too sure why you’re anti car, maybe you’re not and just hate speed based on a past experience, or misinterpret the data – which is why I’ve tried to explain the real causes of road fatalities with little success. Most deaths don’t occur on residential streets though, they’re either single vehicle or vehicle-vehicle collisions on rural highways where the driver is under the influence or on their phone. It’s unbelievable that >50% of drivers involved in fatal accidents were under the influence of alcohol or drugs and you just ignored that fact in favour of speed.

        7. The A79 is a long straight highway that carries similar traffic volumes to the Forgotten World Highway. I think 110kmh is entirely reasonable on this stretch of road, there is nothing that remotely matches these conditions in NZ.

          Victoria has also had a significant programme of speed limit reductions in the last 20 years, funnily enough running into the same resistance we see here, the major difference is they pushed through.

          A reduction in speed from 80kmh definitely makes a significant difference in DSI if you are hit by someone who is drunk, on drugs or distracted.

          Yes, you need to Police these, but no country has gone even close to eliminating them and more countries are slowly coming to the realisation that the best way to protect others from mistakes or reckless behaviour is to design roads to with protection in mind.

        8. Your original comment stated that country roads in Australia and especially open roads without centre dividers are 80, and implied that this is the reason behind Australia’s lower road toll.

          I showed you an undivided, two lane highway with no median with a speed limit of 110. It has at-grade intersections, and isn’t particularly remarkable. Another one is the A8 West of Buangor, where it becomes a two-lane undivided road but keeps the 100km/h limit. I just looked at these two roads on google maps and scrolled a few kilometres until I saw a speed limit sign. They are both flat, straight roads, but so is SH2 from Featherston to Masterton and we decided to reduce the limit there didn’t we?

          I think the speed limit reductions were on inner-city streets, but it doesn’t matter. Most crashes are on rural roads – the same as here – yet they have a lot less while speed is mostly the same if not slightly higher on average. You don’t need to look at the past for validation, just look at the limits we have compared to the ones they have, and look at DSI data accordingly.

          When you say reduction from 80, I assume you mean from 100 to 80 – and of course you’re right. But I would rather not get hit by a drunk at all, and nobody gives up on addressing the root cause by treating the symptoms. There’s no reason why more thought can’t go into better policing our roads. If I drive 120kmh past a speed camera on SH2 or past Mercer where the cops sit around on the expressway I will get an instant fine, but if I drive drunk there’s an almost guaranteed chance that nothing will happen in terms of law enforcement and penalties. Even if I am caught, my licence won’t get taken away instantly, and even if it is taken away, it will be reinstated promptly – especially if I sulk about how that would impact my life.

          And drink driving isn’t the end of it – mobile phone use is another one. QLD is addressing this now with intelligent cameras which can detect when you’re using your phone or have it in your lap, issuing a $1200 fine for each driver – a good lesson and a great budget injection to build better roads. We haven’t even considered that, but we’ve wasted money in the form of lost GDP with reduced speed limits.

          In terms of policy and key decisions, the question should never be only if something works, but rather how well it works compared to other approaches. Given the same effective spend, we could save more lives on our roads without slowing the country down. You’ll never eliminate anything – just like people will always speed on our roads – but you can definitely shift your focus to a different approach which could work better. After all, five or ten lives saved is better than three or two.

        9. ‘Your original comment stated that country roads in Australia and especially open roads without centre dividers are 80’ – No it didn’t, it stated that this is the AusRoads standard. Australian states are better at following these than NZ but they also face political realities.

          Agree, we can definitely police our roads better, although that hits political issues as well, with people complaining about too much time spent road policing and not enough time dealing with ‘real’ crime like burglaries.

          Completely agree with you in policing of mobile phone use. Policing is important but it has it’s limits, hence designing busier roads to allow for both genuine mistakes and idiots.

          Featherston to Masterton carries between 7000 and 17000 vpd and has numerous intersections. Without a median barrier it is the perfect example of a road suited to an 80kmh speed limit and many similar roads in Australia would have the same speed limit.

          NZTA have recently completed the median barrier and roundabouts between Masterton and Carterton and are now consulting on increasing this speed limit back too 100kmh.

        10. Austroads is just an advocacy organisation as far as I’m aware, with their recommendations having no bearing on any decisions, such as those made by TMR in QLD or Vicroads in VIC.
          By itself, their statement is meaningless and therefore also has no bearing on DSIs. Your claim that Australian states follow these recommendations better than we do was interesting, but a quick review of speed limits along undivided single lane rural roads (essentially the worst quality road you can have) showed no evidence of that occuring with many stretches of road being 100kmh or above.
          I couldn’t find an Australian database for roads grouped by type (divided/undivided, number of lanes, median, etc.) and speed limit. If you can point me towards that data showing that they have slower roads on average, then your comment might make more sense but at this stage it seems like the AustRoads reccomendation isn’t what make Australia’s road toll better than ours.

          I don’t think that anyone will mind more enforcement of drink driving and distracted driving laws, as long as it’s accompanied with a reduction in speed enforcement – in fact this would be quite a popular policy. Police budget isn’t limitless as it is, so someone is conciously making the decision to utilise the limited resources available to police the Waikato expy or ping someone for going 85 in a newly created 80.
          Public support isn’t the main barrier, and that’s not a good excuse anyway when pushing through unpopular speed changes. If QLD can do it then so can we, the technology is there and you could even reallocate manpower from within the road transport area so ‘real’ crimes aren’t affected.

          I don’t understand the fixation on vpd though, since as far as I’m aware it doesn’t affect the frequency of crashes, but rather the number. By that logic you’re actually optimising for lost time with more road users affected, while ignoring more dangerous roads since not enough people use them. The speed limit should be decided purely based on the road itself – including surface quality, geometry, intersections, etc.
          It’s great that the speed limit of that stretch of SH2 is getting increased again, but I’m not sure why you agree with that given your previous comments. If the bar is having “numerous intersections”, then you just described 90 to 95% of our state highways. Do they all need to be 80 as well, or would it be better to address the real causes of accidents?
          A side-on collision still has a near 100% probability of a fatality occuring at 80kmh so I have no doubt that the next logical step would be to reduce it to 50 or even lower, where the chance of survival is around 10%.

          This all seems terribly wasteful and unpopular, and doesn’t even have a clear logical backing to it. Policing does have its limits and you can’t catch 100% of the drunk drivers and 100% of all distracted/reckless/etc. drivers on our roads, but you don’t have to. Any improvement would be great and even utilising existing frameworks to dish out harsher punishments would be a step in the right direction, achieving much more than reducing limits would ever do. There’s no such thing as an idiot-proof road (although motorways get pretty close) but if we work on isolating the idiots and reducing idiotic behaviour, our roads will be much safer.

          In a below comment I posted a few links to the prevalence of texting while driving, and between 30% to 40% of drivers admit to doing it. Nobody will argue that such behaviour directly causes accidents and revenue-positive cameras which punish that aren’t out of the question. But for whatever reason the fixation on speed has led to everything else being swept under the rug. NZTA had a trial which gathered data with automated camera technology in 2022 but that never went anywhere – all the while speed limit reductions were pushed through against public will.

      2. “However, this is really just an excuse to justify being anti-car…”

        P.S. Using that phrase is a great way to lose credibility on the rest of your argument. If minor impacts to car travel get you that triggered, the problem isn’t the proposals.

        1. I think to come out and try and claim that lower speeds are safer by using Australia is a poor argument to make. Almost all their arterials are 60,70 or 80 if Pakuranga road was in Australia the speed limit would be 70 possibly even 80. Many states most of the more minor roads also have a 60k speed limit. 30 zones are rare if at all depending on area. As other commenters have carefully researched very few of the deaths are related to pedestrian/child fatalities which is what it’s claimed to help and the real causes of fatalities is of course reckless driving,drugs and alcohol. Even in the rare case a pedestrian is involved it’s still very rarely a mistake that a lower speed limit would’ve fixed. I do think KLK is one of the genuine ones who isn’t anti car and truly believes lower speeds would make a big difference. I don’t think KLK was one of the hypocrites who advocated for removing compulsory helmets on bikes anyway. Anyone advocating for lower speeds after saying compulsory helmets should go is clearly not concerned about the safety aspect and is entirely focused on being anti car. That’s just how I see it anyway.

        2. That’s great then Auckland Trains, I hope that KLK has looked at some of this data, then and realised that speed won’t change much and we need to consider the more important factors.

          People are big hypocrites in general, with something like “Ministry of Transport surveys [in 2019] show almost 40 percent of people admit to writing or reading a text message while they’re driving.” or “Almost a third of Kiwi drivers (32%) said they would text/message someone while driving” from a Vodafone survey just showing the extent. No doubt some of these people are big advocates for speed limit changes while creating more risk for them and for others than even going 150 on the expressway.
          https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/386550/texting-and-driving-mangled-bodies-are-not-nice
          https://media.one.nz/news/community/driver-distraction

          I like reading this blog due to the public transport focus and striving to improve our world-lagging network, but unfortunately mission creep has resulted in a lot of misinformation about quite a few social and political issues, speed limits being one of them. It doesn’t help that the obvious conclusion that people can draw is that speed leads to risk which then leads to crashes – something I’ve also heard all too much. Having disingenuous comments claiming to be in support of one thing and really meaning something completely different ruins the discourse, but I’m glad that some people are genuine and can change their viewpoints after being exposed to further evidence.

        3. Melbourne has far more 30kmh zones in inner city suburbs than any of New Zealand’s cities. Yes, they are rare, but not as rare as they are in New Zealand, the proportion of our road network with 30kmh limits is tiny.

        4. Lots of things “cause” (or contribute to) crashes, relative speed being just one of them. But speed affects the CONSEQUENCES of virtually all crashes – that’s the key here. And a thing as simple as lowering a posted speed does lower the distribution of travelling speeds – which reduces both the likelihood and severity of crashes.

          We’ve actually got dozens of examples of this already in NZ, in both urban and rural areas (I’ve personally analysed quite a few of them). The standard evaluation method (e.g. like the recent Auckland changes) is to compare the changes in a similar nearby untreated area – that way we control for external factors like changes in traffic volumes. And time and time again, we see significant reductions in casualties after the lower speed limits are introduced.

          OK, so how come we haven’t seen big reductions in our crash statistics? Basically because, while these reductions are good, they make up a tiny fraction of the total road network, and associated deaths and injuries – so the impact is just “noise” in the bigger numbers. It’s particularly a pity that we haven’t rolled out more lower speeds, especially on our 100kmh undivided state highways – that’s where a lot of our deaths and injuries are happening (like the recent ones down near Tekapo for example)….

        5. Jezza – again you are acting as if pedestrian fatalities and inner city crashes make up a significant amount of road deaths. Of the total road deaths in NZ in 2023, pedestrians made up 7.3%.

          The difference between deaths in NZ and Victoria is 73% (7.3 deaths per 100k pop compared to 4.2 in Vic). You could actually eliminate 100% of pedestrian fatalities along with all deaths on urban roads and it would still be miles off. I don’t even need to look at Victoria’s 30kmh implementation to know this.

          Furthermore, QLD, a state which doesn’t have 30kmh limits and has a higher VKT per person still manages to get a rate of 5.35 fatalities per 100k, or a 36% reduction compared to NZ. Brisbane is also a city which has 60km/h arterials going through it and there aren’t as many motorways, leading to more traffic on lower quality roads. Again you could remove all pedestrian fatalities from NZ stats and most (probably not all) urban crashes without reaching that number.

          You’re concluding that since Victoria has better road toll statistics and they have lower speed limits, the two have to be linked. But you should also consider places which have lower road tolls while having higher speed limits, or alternatively where speeds limits are lower but the road toll is higher.

          GlenK – you should read my previous comments above regarding crashes, and causes vs contributing factors. When we can seriously reduce major causes which directly lead to crashes such as intoxication and mobile phone use, why not do that and reduce >50% of the road fatalities? Speed may affect the likelihood of an accident somewhat, but it’s known that being under the influence or not looking at the road will have a much greater effect.

          If we can agree that it’s unfeasible and idiotic to limit all speed limits in NZ to 30km/h, then you know that productivity plays somewhat of a role in determining speed limits. Wouldn’t that reduction in GDP and therefore tax revenue be better used in the police budget where we can add more roadside testing or implement phone cameras dishing out fines? I’m pretty sure it’s revenue positive for many Aussie states so could be a win-win. Even before that existing police manpower could be reallocated away from mobile speed cameras to random checkpoints? There have been cops stationed on the Waikato expy for some reason, you can’t tell me that they reduce crashes more than they would’ve looking for drunks.

          You can try to analyze specific areas all day long (and it would be good to see some of that data) but external factors outside of your control will always leak in and ruin your data. There are changes which occur . Analysing single roads or segments of roads leads to single-digit crash numbers and potentially zero fatalities over multiple years. So much of the crashes on roads are random that where a crash occurs is more or less a coin flip (did the drunk driver get distracted on Khyber Pass Road or Gillies Ave?) Even if you account for pre and post-lockdown traffic volumes, time of day, road condition, and every factor under the sun – a crash or fatal accident being such a low-probability event will make your results next to useless.

          Crashes on 100km/h undivided highways happen since that’s a majority of our network. Why don’t crashes happen at the same frequency in Victoria or Queensland? I guess isolated anecdotal evidence is good but state-wide aggregate statistics aren’t?

          One thing I’ve noticed is that you’ve completely ignored the fact that the majority of fatalities on our roads involve intoxicated drivers. This is nothing to scoff at, and should never be something that we just accept while trying to reduce some effects of those causes.

        6. Appreciate the insight GlenK as always love a good open debate like this one. I do however think you’ve misrepresented the data a bit at least referring to Auckland reductions. 39% yep 39% of the entire Auckland road network has had its limit dropped I know it’s shocking when you hear it like that but that is the truth. We’ve actually had a more extreme limit drop than anywhere around Australia and we’ve ended up with a worse road toll. I know it’s hard to get your head around it when it’s what we’ve been told for years that speed is the main issue. I feel uncomfortable admitting this as well as I’m pro strict speed enforcement and pro revenue raising but being completely honest most speed ads were simply made to make the public accept speeding tickets rather than improve safety. Even TAC Victoria admitted 60K was a safe speed for an urban area provided no one went 5K over. The data seems to change to suit whatever speed limit they feel like which is why I find it difficult to believe any data as it’s constantly changing to suit whatever speed limit said agency wants. We have to look at the concrete data and that tells us the public want to keep 50 as the urban default and there’s nothing unreasonable about that after all the ads have told them that 50 is safe. We have to be realistic about this not just using ATs data remember MOT disagreed with ATs own data so you’ve already got a conflict there. Wouldn’t you have to admit there is something a bit cheeky about wanting to change speed limits on every road in spite of a majority against. Hence why NZTA tries to come up with data to make it look like there is huge support when in reality it’s just not even close. I know some people on here genuinely think they are in the right by forcing changes through, I suspect others are more concerned about making driving annoying hence why the pro slow speeds articles have been run again and again. One thing that makes it obvious is many comments with well researched data for pro speed arguments are deleted rather than debated on.

        7. Auckland Trains, I’m aware how much of Auckland city’s limits were reduced (although some of it only relatively recently); you’ve got ~7800km of roads in Auckland, so 39% is 3000km – that’s only 3% of the country’s entire network. Being largely urban too limits how much you will see fatalities (mostly active modes in urban areas). Despite the amount of traffic in our biggest city, on average Auckland only sees about 50 road fatalities a year (but plenty more serious injuries) – so even (say) a 20% drop in fatals would only see a change in 10 fatals/yr (and that assumes the untreated areas don’t get worse due to traffic growth).

          The MoT’s analysis of DSIs in the central city was simplistic (AT suggested their boundaries were different) and didn’t compare against a similar control area, which is the best way to account for other possible external changes. It’s actually hard to argue with the casualty data after the fact – it goes down. Granted, the original Auckland phase 1 analysis was only 2 years worth of data (I’m keen to explore what it’s like now after 4 years), but it repeats the same trends elsewhere. As for consultation, notwithstanding the self-selected bias of people tending to submit on things they’re against, lots of people getting grumpy about the proposed reductions has more to do with the fact that we really don’t do a great job of explaining things like (a) casualties do drop, and (b) no, you won’t end up losing many minutes of your daily life as result…

        8. “[Auckland fatalities are] mostly active modes in urban areas”
          In 2022, there were 53 fatalities and 649 DSIs in Auckland. Of those, 13 fatalities and 139 DSIs were active modes (peds + cyclists) – 24% and 21% respectively. Sure, this is more than the 14% and 15% we see nationally, but the word “most” along with what you’re trying to convey is plain misinformation.

          You can check these stats yourself using MoT’s open data portal if you don’t believe me.
          https://www.transport.govt.nz/statistics-and-insights/safety-annual-statistics/crash-and-injury-data/

          “It’s actually hard to argue with the casualty data after the fact – it goes down”
          I assume you are referring to this Abley report?
          https://at.govt.nz/media/1990901/aukland-transport-report-24-month-safe-speeds-tranche-1-monitoring.pdf
          It’s actually very easy to argue with that data, even ignoring the fact that the report states quite clearly that it’s “important to note that road trauma does fluctuate over time, therefore changes in road trauma
          between years are expected”.

          Their methodology was to essentially take all Auckland roads which haven’t had their limits changed and compare them to those which have. There was no effort made to consider even something as simple as the change in the number of vehicles on those roads in that timeframe. We know that usage patterns change over time and AT has that data on a per-road basis, so why wasn’t that done? Either lazy work and a lack of thought, or someone wanting to further their narrative at the expense of the truth. For how much this report is cited, it seems I’m one of the few people who has read it and understands the methodology.

          It’s not hard to inconceivable for traffic volumes to change over time naturally for a myriad of reasons, or even for a correlation to exist – such as people not driving on roads with lower speed limits and increasing traffic volumes on faster arterials. The point is that we don’t know and none of this research was done to further reinforce the point.

        9. Great data Andrew not too sure why Glen keeps ignoring it. Everyone seems to just keep ignoring the fact very few of the deaths are pedestrian and somehow that’s a justification to slow all the roads down to 30. One of my least favourite lies is that 30 zones do not increase travel time by more than a few seconds. What is that based on whenever you test it in real life (doing 30 vs 50) on the same route 30 always takes significantly longer. Another lie is that a majority of people want 30 zones which is a pretty desperate lie whichever way you look at it. It’s fair to say the days of 30 as a permanent speed limit is numbered get used to 50 or 40 being the appropriate speed limit.

          https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/350074748/public-politicians-dont-lower-speed-limits

        10. (for some reason, I couldn’t write two replies in a row the other day to two different people, so here is the second one now, referring back to the comment on July 20, 2024 at 10:19 pm…)
          Andrew, the challenge is assuming that we will get perfect behaviour from every human and that none of them will ever drink and drive or use a mobile phone while driving. Enforcement/education can only do so much in that regard (and you have to keep spending money on that year after year). No argument though about trying to boost that effort – and also with ramping up infringement fines.

          I don’t think I (or anyone else) said everywhere should be 30kmh – the point is though that you determine appropriate speeds that are largely survivable. If you have a head-on crash or hit a roadside object, that is very likely to be fatal (or at least quite serious) at 100kmh; same with a side-on crash at ~70kmh and hitting a pedestrian/cyclist at ~50kmh. That’s why you aim for scenarios like 80kmh on undivided rural roads, 50kmh for urban intersections, and 30kmh for areas with ped’ns/cycles. And contrary to simplistic opinion, the relative time effect is typically minimal, usually because you’re already mostly travelling at lower speeds due to other traffic, intersections, curves, etc. If you end up with fewer crashes as a result, you also save additional delays when those hold you up. As for GDP, I’ve heard of plenty of cases of trucks driving their goods to port only to have to queue for ages on arrival anyway, so I’m not sure that an extra 5 minutes will affect them…

          Comparisons with Victoria and Queensland are not exactly apples vs apples. Both have highly concentrated urban areas, where fatality rates are always lower than rural areas, and also feature fairly extensive divided highways for inter-city traffic. Meanwhile, their rural fatality rates elsewhere are much higher, just like NZ. Victoria’s lower crash rate is also in part due to the fairly extensive 80kmh limits they’ve got in places like Mornington Peninsula and the Great Ocean Road.

          I noted in my earlier comment that the biggest problem with data validity in the various NZ case studies to date is that the sample sizes for many are relatively small – we often don’t do big enough road sections or areas to see a (statistically) significant change. But that’s the power of combining them all together – collectively you get a strong trend. Now to tackle the other 95 % of our road network…

          I’m not sure where you read that more than half of fatalities are due to intoxicated drivers – the figure is more like a third (and only about 10 % of serious injuries – focusing on just fatal crashes alone is not useful road safety analysis). We know that lots of drivers do dumb things like this, but (a) ethically, I’d still rather they were also saved thanks to impacts at lower speeds or with measures like safety barriers, and (b) we have research showing that most serious/fatal crashes in NZ are simply the result of ordinary folk like you and I making a simple human mistake or misjudgment. Most of the time, us imperfect humans get away with it but, when we don’t, I’d rather everyone was travelling a bit slower…

          [And separately, Akld Trains, stop focusing on just deaths, which are relatively few – speed management impacts deaths AND injuries, and pedestrians (and cyclists) are affected a lot by the latter as well at higher speeds]

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