There’s plenty wrong with this government’s approach to road safety, and nowhere is that more exemplified than their push to ignore evidence by imposing blanket speed limits (mostly raises), thus undoing work all around the country by councils and Waka Kotahi to improve road safety. Worse, these changes appear to be coming right at the time when the previous government’s strategy looks to be starting to really make an impact.
There has rightfully been a growing chorus of concern and disbelief around the proposed changes to speed limits. This includes the editorial in this month’s NZ Medical Journal from trauma surgeons, people who have to deal firsthand with the repercussions of crashes.
Chair of the Trauma Surgeons Committee Chris Wakeman published an article in today’s New Zealand Medical Journal along with other experts to express their alarm over the risks, arguing it will do more damage than good.
“I mean, it’s simple physics, you learn in high school, the faster you go, the bigger the problem and our roads aren’t fit for high-speed travel.”
Wakeman said the increase in speed limits would have roll-on effects that had not been mediated by the Government. He said the increase in injuries would further strain the health sector and there would be a greater demand for hospital beds, rehabilitation and ACC facilities.
We can see the impact the previous government’s changes are having in the road death numbers. (Unfortunately, we don’t have similarly regular reports of serious injury numbers to see the impact on those too.)
In July this year, 15 people tragically lost their lives on our roads. That’s 15 more than it should have been – but importantly, it’s 10 fewer than each of the previous two years. This is is also the second lowest July on record, after 2019 which saw 14 deaths.
A one-off “good month” would be one thing. In fact, following the terrible December and January – both of which saw the highest numbers in over a decade – the last six months have all been more similar to July, with low numbers being recorded. So much so, that in the calendar-year-to-date to the end of July there there have been just 156 lives lost on our roads – the second lowest number for the same time span in any other year. Only the first seven months of 2013 were lower (147), and that was the year we achieved our lowest ever number of road deaths (253 in total).
On a rolling annual basis, another low month in August will see us dip below 300 road deaths for the first time since May-2015. By comparison, around 18 months ago there were almost 380 deaths on our roads by this measure, so this represents a significant improvement – albeit with still a long way to go.
The previous government’s road safety strategy known as Road to Zero was introduced at the end of 2019, with the intention that it run from 2020 through to 2030. One of the key reasons it was brought in was to address a sudden rise in road deaths in the mid 2010s.
Despite a bit of annual variation, from mid-1990 to 2013, road deaths had been on a fairly steady decline, dropping from around 760 deaths annually to 253. This happened despite the country’s population increasing by more than a million people over the same time-frame. However, from 2014 the number of deaths on our roads rose again, and did so for a sustained period.
We know that better outcomes are possible. Since the recent surge in deaths on our roads, we have typically seen over 7 deaths per 100,000 people; meanwhile, fro our neighbours over in Australia, that figure is around 4.5 (and even lower ins some states). Further afield, countries like Norway and Sweden are around 2 per 100.000. If we achieved that, we’d have a couple of hundred more people getting home alive to their families each year.
Positively, our improving results are also showing up when compared on the same ‘road deaths per 100,000 people’ basis. On this metric, we’ve dropped to 5.7 deaths per 100,000 population, almost equal to the lowest result we’ve seen of 5.5 in early 2014, and we may just get there or even lower.
Road to Zero is based on the Vision Zero strategy first developed in Sweden; however, in practice, it’s not that dissimilar to the road safety strategy of the previous National government. One key difference with Road to Zero is that it set a target for improving road safety.
Released in late 2019, Road to Zero was a previous Government’s road safety strategy. The strategy included a vision for a New Zealand where no one is killed or seriously injured in road crashes, and a targeted a 40% reduction in death and serious injuries (from 2018 levels) by 2030.
An action plan accompanied the strategy, setting out actions to be delivered with our road safety partners across five focus areas: infrastructure improvements and speed management, road user choices, vehicle safety, work-related safety and system management. Annual monitoring reports were prepared to report on progress in implementing the strategy and actions.
In 2018, there were 378 deaths on our roads – so a 40% reduction would be 226 deaths, not that much lower than the 253 we achieved in 2013.
However, the Ministry of Transport now note, as of February:
Road to Zero will be replaced with an objectives document that sets out the National/ACT/NZ First Coalition government’s road safety priorities.
Road to Zero remains in place until the Government has released a new objectives document.
It is critical that we keep the pressure on road safety, and share the data around what works. Even putting aside the human cost of crashes, the Ministry of Transport’s Social Cost of Road Crashes highlights that these crashes are costing our economy billions annually. As RNZ reported just before Christmas last year:
The latest data from the Ministry of Transport shows the social cost of crashes was $9.77 billion in 2021 – [that’s] 4 percent of gross domestic product or GDP.
There’s more to say about the statistics, especially in terms of the age of those who are dying on our roads, and the travel modes. I’ll get to that in future posts, but please feel free to examine the stats and share your observations in the comments.
Finally, because we focus primarily on Auckland, here’s the 12-month rolling total for Auckland. Draw your own conclusions.
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About 4 months ago, when the new Govt put the kibosh on Road to Zero, I mused on LinkedIn that the safety effects of the various recent R2Z initiatives would finally start to bear fruit and the new Govt would take the credit – the first part seems to be happening…
Yes, I hope the media will note this in future interviews with transport ministers, etc.
Yes that is probably a consideration here. Road deaths fell after the GFC in 2007/8/9/10. There is also less heavy traffic on the road when the economy slows down.
It is crazy to see that our deaths were around 800 prior to 1990, even with a far smaller population. I guess that is the invention of airbags for you.
Thanks Teacher, the economy will be playing most of the part of the road toll falling. Less trucks, drunk drivers all help in contributing to a lower road toll. For some reason this isn’t mentioned in the article.
Not most of the reason for decrease. All factors need to be considered together. Road to Zero (and Auckland’s Vision Zero) consists of all the factors. Vehicle kilometres travelled for trucks and for light vehicles should be plotted alongside the trauma stats, similarly to population, to help identify the hazard exposure level. The return to trend in 2010 shows the elasticity to VKT, similar to the post COVID 2023 stats. Plenty of other factors to dig into.
“Fewer trucks” not “less trucks” as they are countable .
You has compare the death rates of Sweden and Australia, can you compare their Speed limit as well. With speed comparison, it’s more clear to see the pictures.
Perhaps you should consider that the German autobahns are some of the safest roads in the world, without speed limits. The countries in the comparative analysis do a lot more than chant the “speed kills” mantra.
A 2008 report by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) found that of the 645 road deaths in Germany in 2006, 67% occurred on motorway sections without limits
I don’t think anyone here is suggesting that median divided roads with grade separated interchanges aren’t the safest in the world.
The problem is we don’t have many of them and they cost a fortune so we’re unlikely to have a whole lot more.
Govt is consulting on building quite a few aren’t they? Auckland to Whangarei, extension to Waikato expressway etc?
Cambridge to Piarere will add 16km to the road network. As discussed before the idea that Auckland to Whangarei will be a 4 lane expressway anytime soon is laughable.
In Sweden the highest speed, reserved for motorways, is 120km/h.
In the city centres the recommendation is 40km/h )was 50km/h until 2012) but the local municipality often owns the decision. This means that outside schools or busy buildings it is often 30km/h, while in the rest of the suburb it is 40 or 50km/h.
Outside towns and cities its a very different story. The focus is on expanding the motorway-network and there is a vision stating that all roads with more than 4k vehicles per day should have lanes separated by a median barrier. Then depending on width and layout a speed-limit between 80 – 120 km/h is agreed upon. Sweden believes in designing roads so human mistakes don’t prove fatal
One key element most foreigners fail to consider when they cherry-pick their favourite strategies from Sweden’s Vision 0 success was that the foundation came from addressing the most common cause of road fatalities i.e DUI. We discuss adjustments to speed-limits or rebuilding of roads, but Sweden started its journey by introducing new strict DUI laws (Driving, or riding a bike on roads /cycle lanes, under the influence of drugs sees similar laws)
Currently driving with over 0.2 ml-l alcohol means 12 months suspension of the license (if no prior convictions) and a fine (in the thousands of NZ dollars, if a repeat offender its instead a 1 to 6 months prison sentence).
If caught with more than 1.0 ml/l the person loose the license for good and receives a custodial sentence between 2 months to 2 years. Id be very interested to see this implemented in NZ (whoever that builds prisons would become very rich / very fast).
I can give some facts regularly visiting Aus myself. QLD has no 30kmh zones the road toll is lower. Most roads in Sydney and Brisbane are minimum 50k and many 60-70-80k arterials the road toll is lower. They are hostile towards bikes the road toll is lower. Undivided 110k roads.. once again the road toll is lower.
I think Pierce Street in Toowoomba and Hedges Avenue on the Gold Coast would like to disagree with you, they’re both 30kmh.
Have mainly been NSW, ACT and Brisbane to be fair. Having a look at those 2 extremely niche examples the point still somewhat stands. They don’t have any large wholesale 30k drops like we have had and the road toll is lower.
Where are our wholesale drops to 30kmh? A tiny fraction of our urban street network has a 30kmh limit.
There are quite a few more in Queensland, it’s just your claim was so clearly wrong it didn’t need a lot of examples to debunk it.
Exactly, 30kmh zones in NZ are hardly widespread and in highly densely populated areas or school zones, not like you are hooning down SH1 and have to slam on the brakes for a 30 zone…but again, they all know this, its just smokes and mirrors and silly culture war nonsense.
Well hang on are they wrong? How often do you get around Auckland it’s really hard to not run into a 30 area? Think Pt Chev, Mt Eden, Stonefields, Glen Innes, Ōtara, Flat Bush, Mangere & Mang East & some parts of Mang bridge, Kelston, Te Atatu south and Henderson, Clendon, Devonport, Oteha. That’s just the blanket areas I can think of off the stop of my head there’s lots of random side streets that are 30 all over the city you’ve got to look out for. I think it was Kalmia st in Ellerslie which surprised me as having a 30k limit which I emailed AT after I saw that and asked why everyone does 50 down it still. (I assume this will be one of the first limits to be reversed) Now I don’t spend a lot of time in Australia just generally Sydney and can confirm most roads in Sydney are 60kmh +. They don’t seem to have suburbs of 30 like we do they have a few odd 40s and in rare cases 30s from time to time but nothing like we’ve got. How is the road toll lower? Well the lanes are wider than ours so that may have something to do with it. But bugger all pedestrian safety and traffic calming on arterials is quite rare.
@politcal science.
How can you run into a ‘blanket’ speed limit. Sounds like they are changeable rather than speed limits, thought you were a scientist?
@Joe, Lol good one. You’re not wrong either they are changeable and since they are politically unpopular speed limits they are indeed going to be changed back to 50.
Kalmia st in Ellerslie has a lot of bus to train station/township crossing pedestrains and ~700 primary school children at the school there is why it could be. I was nearly taken out by a car crossing on the corner there, bit hard to see, but was my fault really (looking at the bus or something across the road) I started to cross before looking, but the car came really close to the curb/cutting the corner.
Town centres with 30kmh speed limits make up a tiny fraction of Auckland’s road network and are hardly revolutionary.
Auckland was a bit late to the party, many cities such as Wellington had introduced these well before Labour came to power. It’s going to be a bit odd to have to reverse these in Auckland but keep them in Wellington.
There are no thoroughfares in Stonefields, it’s entirely residential side streets. I’d be surprised if there is much support in Stonefields for returning this to 50kmh, it’s basically just central government giving the middle finger to the suburb because some people are grumpy about an 80kmh speed limit between Waiuku and Drury.
You’re right, they will probably get reversed. Then the council will have to spend a pile of ratepayers money consulting one-by-one to get all of the reductions that had widespread community support back again.
I could have sworn National campaigned on a platform of reducing central government control over local decisions…
It’s much harder and more expensive to get a drivers license in Australia than it is in New Zealand. My friends oldest is going through his license at the moment, he said it will cost about 3000 AUD by the time he’s completed it.
Drivers are not properly trained in NZ. I believe that’s one of the main reasons for our road toll, it’s not just speed, it’s speed mixed with poorly trained drivers.
As usual, Chrisb and Auckland trains with a very basic view everything.
To actually measure road deaths against other countries you’d have to compare the exact enviroment those deaths occur, type of road, hazards on road such as curvature, bends, on street parking. Compare number of cases where alcohol was a fator per capita.
We clearly can’t rebuild all of our roads to those standards and if we could it wouldn’t be a quick fix. So what’s a better way to try and limit death? Speed, as proven by data showing crashes are less fatal at lower speeds. So the only question is, are we willing to slow down in areas where slowing down makes sense.
All of this Germans drive 99243435 kph on Autombahns is the most disenginous strawman you can post about this debate…buy you already know that
You can’t get more basic than the simpleton approach of low speed limits = road safety panacea.
The Germans and all European nations put a very high emphasis on driver training, which doesn’t even appear on this site. Couple this with a police force that looks for actual dangerous road behaviour rather than people going 5kph over some ridiculous speed limit and you have a real reason for those countries much safer roads
Cars and drivers are a complex system that goes beyond third form physics to understand properly; excess speed is a symptom of poorly trained drivers, not the root cause of all road deaths.
and yet I didn’t say that did I? I said speed is the quickest and cheapest tool to implement first rather waiting to build 4 lane highways and hoping some additional driver training helps..although less and less young people want a car so maybe that won’t even be a problem in a generations time.
Joe you need to look at the political evidence for a second to understand the reasoning behind decisions. New roads are a big vote winner! Slower speed limits are a big vote loser it’s actually pretty basic when it comes down to making decisions. Median barriers are politically somewhere in the middle of support so may be still installed from time to time. Chris B thinks like the majority of drivers it’s important to understand why. People like to go fast Seymour’s “taking the joy” quote or whatever it was probably isn’t far off the truth behind some of the reversal of limits. The govt knows this is a vote winner which is why they basically sent out a warning saying the decisions have been made no matter what the consultation feedback is. That’s the way it is unfortunately it’ll be interesting if any party is brave enough to bring slower speed limits as a policy for the election.
There should be a mandatory requirement for the role of Transport Minister to personally attend every funeral of anyone who dies on the road and explain to their family why their death was necessary to help grow the economy. With the evidence. And how it was worth it so drivers could avoid having their joy for life drained by going less fast (to paraphrase David Seymour).
The reason probably “Speeding”! Hurting the death family more shame!
We should consider the lag time between policy change and crash stats response. After policy comes funding, and only after funding comes construction, so a lag is expected.
Road to Zero was a re-boot of previous policy that lacked a strategic plan and matching investment it is still in progress, although cuts to funding by this GPS will begin to accelerate crashes again. Also, the speed limit changes have not been reversed yet.
Any sensible government would require assessment of effects before increasing speed limits.
Vision Zero is a vision and this should not be lost simply because a government starves RCAs of funds to implement the vision. The government has not yet specifically legislated a vision of more deaths and serious injuries, although this appears to be coming with the Speed Limit Rule change. Throwing the burden of road safety fully onto ratepayers is unreasonable and hardly something that Councils will be happy with.
Great to see you back on the blog Matt L
We need some more data to analyse what is happening here but I’ll start with a quick overview. Though the recent trend is heading in the right direction, we could also say we’ve gone nowhere since 2014. Matt L – for your next blog could you look at the following:
1. How the weak NZD and associated higher petrol prices have influenced VKT
2. How the weaker economic conditions have influenced heavy haulage
3. Regional impact of Transmission Gully which is a huge safety improvement on the old coastal highway
4. Regional impact of the Waikato Expressway which is a huge safety improvement on the old highway system
5. Open road vs urban fatalities and their respective trends
e.g. If we see the biggest fatality drops in Waikato and Wellington regions it would strongly point to highway infrastructure investment as a prime factor.
There is more to unpack on this topic – might be another 2-3 blog posts in it
There are obviously a lot of factors at play but there is a reasonably strong correlation between those expressways opening and the road toll increasing. Presumably it didn’t happen on these sections of road though.
No new expressways are pretty safe. So long as they have median barriers. Road to Zero planned and partially delivered, before being killed, many many more kilometres of median barriers on the State Highway network all over the country. Now we will only get them on new parallel highways instead. Overall we will have a less safe network at far higher cost, and much much later. More people will die, more lives and families ruined by lifelong injury.
The Real Midwit, great to have you on board as a sponsor.
You’d like three posts?, as is a bit of a bulk request let’s say $3000 a piece, donate button up top, I’m sure matt could be nagged into action once the support is banked. Would you like a receipt?
Ngā mihi nui.
The truth is we need both new expressways and median barriers to get towards zero. My question is Patrick are you wiling to accept big new expensive expressways to save lives? Think Puhoi to Warkworth which you were against you used to hear about a serious or fatal at least once per year and it’s been Zero since it opened. Ignoring the cost for a second as Heidi has pointed out before “nickel and diming when lives are at stake is not professional”. Would you still want expressways built?
If the aim was saving lives we wouldn’t build anymore expressways. We would instead spread the money over putting median barriers and roundabouts along a much larger portion of the nation’s highways.
I said we need BOTH median barriers and expressways. What I’m advocating for is the only genuine way to save lives. We need to rapidly roll out median barriers on the existing network then start building new expressways which are even safer. “We wouldn’t build anymore expressways” just sounds anti-car to me. In what way is it going to make the roads safer by not building new expressways? We got Puhoi to Warkworth down to Zero since it’s been open it wouldn’t have been possible to install median barriers on every bit of the old road.
I was specifically answering your question about saving lives. If you wanted to save the most lives possible you would instead spread the money spent on expressways over the wider network.
There are of course other reasons to build expressways, moving vehicles quicker. However, it is definitely not the most effective way of saving lives across the network, although it is of course great on that short stretch of road.
One thing I never see mentioned in these arguments is whether the general driving population actually *want* to be saved by lower speed limits.
I don’t think anyone with half a brain actually disagrees that lower speed limits reduce the impact and chance of death if an accident were to occur. The question is how people weigh up the unlikely possibility of being killed in an accident due to high speed limits vs the certainty of having a longer and less enjoyable journey due to low speed limits.
Like all things there is a balance – We all agree on what the evidence says, and I dont think anyone in government can honestly dispute that lower speed limits save lives. However whether you like it or not, society at large DOES put a value on a human life, and sometimes people will put their overall enjoyment and time savings ahead of potential lives saved. So if the majority want to take that risk – so be it. I guess the next election will show us whether the speed limit reverses are popular or not.
I don’t think last years election was won or lost on transport let alone speed limits. The fact that there are a number of relatively recently elected councils that continue to support these speed limit reductions suggests opposition isn’t as strong as it often claimed.
Three very clear answers to that:
1. Yes we do know, the previous safer changes were all widely consulted on and supported, in fact in many cases were begged for by communities.
2. We do not ask whether people ‘feel like’ paying for safe drinking water, and what that involves, we look at the evidence and charge the experts to deliver it. We may ask do you want the treatment plant here or there, but not if it gets treated.
3. There is no one policy that any govt ran on that the can claim they have a perfect mandate for, they all run promising all sorts of things, and have other appeals etc that may get them elected. To claim that cos they won an election where they said, among so much else, they would raise speeds ‘where safe to do so’ means they have carte blanche to prohibit safer speeds everywhere in a sweeping, yes ‘blanket’ way, against all evidence, is dangerous culture war nonsense.
Patrick wouldn’t the answer to number 2 be because the public would revolt if the water isn’t safe?
People died in the Hawkes Bay from a water quality fail and there was no revolt. Or rather people ‘revolted’ like they do over traffic violence – replying to consultations, being civil in their opposition to malignant politicians mandating unsafe roads. That is our usual ‘revolting’ style. Mostly, except when the global culture-war gets going as we saw over vaccinations. Civil society doesn’t riot, only the uncivil one.
It is probably worth pointing out that despite it being stated many times as part of the governments 3 waters sales efforts and media hype, the subsequent enquiry only found that “It is possible that the outbreak contributed to three deaths”.
See the issue here is every death and accident puts a strain on the economy, effecting everyone, not just those who drive. There’s pedestrians who either can’t drive or who make the decision not to that are in danger from higher speed limits. Lower speeds help out *everyone* at the sacrifice of *only* a few seconds to a couple minutes of reduced travel time. Is it important to take into account the desires of drivers? Yes, should it come at the expense of non-drivers? Absolutely not, no matter how engrained driving is in kiwi culture, it has always been a privilege, not a right.
I find it difficult to believe that the “tourist driver” mania of 2014 has nothing to do with the increase in the road toll. After years of a really steady decrease in the road toll (absolute and per capita), the driving culture (or, alternatively, the political culture around driving) changed dramatically in a really short period of time and since then… well, you can see for yourself.
I guess far fewer people see safe driving advertising campaigns post-Netflix as well.
I know, I know, Vision Zero says people are inherent fuck ups and the idea is to stop the fuck ups from killing people, but Vision Zero was developed in Europe with its riot culture problems. Simply dropping speed limits is not supposed to lead to slower driving and yet… that’s what happened here. Maybe the ads were working.
Whatever the case, stay safe, stay in mantrol.
Vision Zero was developed in Sweden, apart from a few malcontents in Malmo, Swedish follow rules just like there neighbours in Norway, they are also much better drivers than kiwis, the license process is really difficult and pretty expensive.
Sweden spent vast amounts of money dividing all the highways, Norway always a bit late to the party are also upgrading their highway network. In Norway when the old road is replaced with a new divided road the speed limit is increased, old 80’s become new 90-110km/h highways.
GA’s sole focus on speed vs looking into the wider causes of the DSIs is all about your anti-car philosophy. You need to tell the whole story. The recent decrease is just as likely to do with police refocusing on breath testing and being more visible on the road in general – something that seemed to be drop off in the previous term. As others have said, the economy will also have a big influence? Or the great weather in the first half of this year vs last? It still amazes me how many deaths are reported where people are not wearing seatbelts.
It is difficult to separate out contributing factors in general statistics eg. safer vehicles, speed & DUI enforcement, driver training/culture, safe speed limits, safe roads. A lot of study is needed for that. The bottom line is to ensure that all the above together are in place to improve safety stats.
It is clear that giving political publicity to some retrogressive measures, such as speed limits and raised crossings, fuels a regressive, aggressive driving culture that undermines any safety efforts.
Having 2Fast, 2Furious as Minister in charge of road safety is not going to help.