The Minister of Transport’s speed obsession has this week resulted in two new consultations for 110km/h speed limits, one in Auckland and one in Christchurch. There has also been final approval for the Kapiti Expressway to move to 110km/h following an earlier consultation.
While the changes will almost certainly see a majority of submissions in support – based on previous consultations for 110km/h speed limits on the Waikato Expressway, Tauranga Eastern Link and Kapiti Expressway – what frustrates me about the proposals is how little the potential impacts of the changes are discussed.
Time Savings and Productivity
The impression given off by proposals to increase speed limits is that doing so will enable a much faster journey. But in reality, the time “saved” is just not that much. For example, the Orewa to Warkworth section is around 25km, so at 100km/h it would take 15 minutes to drive the entire distance. With a speed limit of 110km/h there is a time saving of about 1 minute 20 seconds. That’s not nothing, but it’s pretty insignificant across the full length of a journey. You could easily spend more time than that sitting at a single traffic light.
The impact of the Christchurch proposal is even less. In that case, the proposed section is about 17.7km so the travel time savings are less than a minute.
Especially if people are traveling towards central Auckland or Christchurch in the morning peak, there’s a good chance this change will just get you to the back of a queue very slightly faster.
Yet all of the press releases from Transport Minister Simeon Brown about the proposed and confirmed changes contained something similar to this, from the Orewa to Warkworth section.
“Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy. This proposal supports that outcome by reducing travel times and increasing efficiency for travel north of Auckland,” Mr Brown says.
…..
“These roads provide a faster, safer and more resilient connection between Auckland and Northland, helping to unlock economic growth and productivity by moving people and freight quickly and safely between regions.
“Delivering 110km/h speed limits on Roads of National Significance where it’s safe to do so is another part of our Government’s Accelerate NZ plan to grow the economy, reduce travel times and increase productivity on our transport network.”
The main boost to economic productivity doesn’t come from getting people to their holiday homes in Omaha a minute faster, but from improving travelling times for trucks so they can do more trips per day. However, there is no proposed change to the speed limit for heavy vehicles – which remains at 90km/h.
Fuel use and emissions
Driving faster also means vehicles will burn more fuel. As this excellent article in Newsroom about the Christchurch changes highlights:
However, vehicles travelling at 110km/h, as opposed to 100km/h, use more fuel, so there’s an added cost. (Via Strada’s Koorey says such an increase could add 3-4 percent to vehicle operating costs.)
Is the time benefit of more value than the added cost of extra fuel? “Probably not,” Kingham says.
Higher fuel use also means increased greenhouse gas emissions. Building motorways between cities and satellite towns encourages people to live further away, Kingham says, which induces demand.
Safety
Both the Minister and Waka Kotahi talk up the safety of these roads, for example:
“These motorways have safety features that greatly reduce the risk of death or serious injury in a crash, including two lanes in each direction, flexible median barrier between opposing lanes, and a smooth alignment that offers good forward visibility for drivers.
These roads are certainly safer than the roads they replaced – though in the case of Orewa to Warkworth those old roads are still there and still with the same unsafe design as ever. However, if a crash were to occur on even the new and improved roads, at higher speeds they would likely be more dangerous, with less “productive” outcomes. Again, as that nNewsroom article notes:
Koorey says the number of crashes may well reduce on well-engineered roads.
“It’s what happens when those crashes do happen; they still end up being more severe,” Koorey says. “There’s pretty good evidence about what happens when people go faster. Certainly, if it was 10km/h difference at those kinds of speeds, your deaths and serious injuries are often increasing by 30 percent, equivalent.”
Note too that despite these roads apparently already being super safe, the higher speed limit means they will need upgrades. This is only briefly mentioned in the press release for the Christchurch consultation and isn’t even mentioned on the consultation page.
Increasing the speed limit to 110km/h may require some safety improvements (installing around 6km of side protection barrier from Barrington Street to Halswell Junction Road) prior to the implementation of any speed limit changes.
That should at least be fairly straightforward in Christchurch, but is likely to be more difficult for the Puhoi to Warkworth section in Auckland due to the PPP setup. I asked Waka Kotahi about the impact of this on the PPP, and they said:
We will work with our PPP partners to understand any implications or additional requirements for safety features to enable a speed limit of 110km/h.
Surely that work should have been done before the proposal was put out for consultation. One of the many downsides to PPPs is that they’re locked into contracts, and any changes to those contracts require armies of costly lawyers. Given there has already been a lot of dispute between Waka Kotahi and the PPP contractors over the project, it wouldn’t surprise me if the delivery partners extract a heavy price for any changes – the cost of that surely be made available to the public as part of the proposal.
While these changes will almost certainly get strong public support regardless, it seems negligent of Waka Kotahi not to at least mention these impacts – and possibly others – in the consultation, in order for there to be proper transparency about what people are providing feedback on.
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Someone watched too much Top Gear as a kid.
It seems we are likely to see many extra kilometers of side protection installed to accommodate 110 kph. Surely the best economic use of this resource would be as a central barrier on some of our notorious 100 kph opposed traffic roads.
This article should be called “satisfying the public’s speed obsession”. The public are the ones demanding this and the minister is simply delivering. This article also fails to mention the safety benefits of being able to overtake trucks quicker meaning less time in their blind spot which btw people get off speeding tickets all the time because they were overtaking a truck as it’s considered speeding in the name of safety.
What is the time difference of passing a truck at 110 km/h versus 100 km/h? You’re really clutching at straws here.
Well Zippo it’s a great question. The difference in speed in distance terms would be 2.778 meters per second. Passing a standard B-Train would save you a massive 7.2 seconds actually huge for getting out of a blind spot so no not clutching at straws at all. Better question would be why are you against this?
Because it’s uses more fossil fuel and increases emissions. Because it requires road upgrades costing millions that could be spent on projects that reduce transport emissions etc etc.
I think you are exaggerating the savings, the truck can only be travelling at 90km/h, so the difference in speed between that and the 100km/h vehicle is 10km/h – 2.778m/s – with a 20m long truck, this gives a overtake time of 7.2seconds, while the difference doubles with a speed limit increase, to 20km/h – 5.556m/s, and a time to overtake of 3.6seconds, ie a 3.6 second saving only.
Why are these heavy vehicles with blind spots permitted on our roads? Most modern vehicles have blind spot warning lights on their mirrors and my car has 360° cameras for a birds-eye view of the surroundings.
Why do we tolerate these heavy vehicles that, in the event of a tyre blowout, can lose control, crash through a wire barrier and collide head on with oncoming traffic on a 110 km/h expressway and kill multiple people?
More “productivity BS”.
@wynyard Because really, the only reason speed limits are being raised is to get Simeon Brown’s jollies off when he goes vroom vroom fast.
110km/h vs 100km/h, doesn’t save much time even in the best case scenario – not taking into account traffic and weather. On an intercity drive scale you might only save a few minutes, which becomes irrelevant if you stop for lunch, the WC, a rest, or get caught in traffic once you get off the highway.
You also burn through fuel about 10-15% faster from what I can find, so need to refuel more often. So congratulations, you’re spending more to barely go faster, you and Simeon are playing yourself.
@notagretqueston – exactly, and when you consider that trucks often speed and drive at the signposted limit, that overtake time increases even more when the speed difference is even smaller (<10km/h)
The truck should not be exceeding 90 kph, in any circumstance, and the driver should be ticketed.
In my journeys around the country I’ve observed that it is a rare truck indeed that sticks to the 90km/h limit. So yes, they should be getting ticketed, but no, it isn’t happening and as a consequence trucks routinely flout their own speed limits.
I’ve even had trucks come up dangerously close behind me while I’m cruising at 98 – 99 and flash their lights because I’m not going fast enough for them.
Indeed, I wonder if Simeon is saying the increased speed limit is for both cars and trucks. He is wrong as the road said:
Open road speed limits
The signs below mean that the maximum speed that a light vehicle can travel at is 100km/h. However, the maximum speed heavy vehicles can travel at is 90km/h (except for school buses, which are limited to 80km/h).
There is no productivity gain for the trucks as the trucks still need to stick to 90km/hr, unfortunately not all are doing it – sadly.
The public compare speed limits from other similar 1st world countries where 100 is comparatively slow, and 110 (70mph) is still on the slower end of normal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_by_country
Define normal??
Poor argument. 110k only applies to roads with a median barrier, ergo the “blind spot” you refer to doesn’t exist any more than passing a truck at 95k on the motorway.
ah – I see, you were “speeding in the name of safety”
your’re free to go…
😉
“This article should be called “satisfying the public’s speed obsession”
No, that is giving the minister a get out of free card. It is his responsibility to understand the issue, formulate the best response to said issue and then explain that to the public.
The public also want free booze, free drugs, free food, free accommodation, by your logic that’s what the Ministers should be providing.
It’s an incredibly lazy and ignorant comment on what is a serious issue.
I second this. Even the already Green-left leaning Reddit user community is not buying the arguments presented in this article and support raising the speed limit.
I was surprised how many Boomers on Facebook were kicking back against the speed increases, responding to WK and National Party posts on the matter. The main arguments were “78secs?” and “the bigger the speed, the bigger the mess”.
Maybe there is hope afterall.
Re: “how little the potential impacts of the changes are discussed”, there doesn’t seem to be any consultation document at all. I would expect to see some list of factors for and against and some analysis of them. Who is supposed to do this work?
I asked NZTA if there was going to be a new national road safety strategy to replace Road To Zero and got the answer “not at present, that’s a decision for the Minister”.
I’ll put in a submission and file it in my “old man shouts at cloud” folder.
The international consensus seems to be that fatal crashes will rise 40% (4th power law), number of fatalities more than than that (as each crash is worse). In addition the speed differential between cars and trucks will increase, another known factor that increases risk. On the other hand, these roads are relatively safe to being with, so it is hard to estimate the total impact. Perhaps the data on divided vs undivided 100 km/h roads can be extracted somehow.
I have been using the 110 km/h SH1 expressway from Te Kauwhata to Tamahere a lot lately. My impression is that most people are happy to sit at 110 km/h so there are fewer passing manoeuvres than before. They just need to change the silly law requiring trucks and trailers to go a lot slower than everyone else.
So you haven’t been passed by Ford Rangers towing trailers at around 140 km/h?
I have.
It is not uncommon to encounter tractors doing 40 km/h on that expressway (I have) . That’s a 70 km/h speed differential assuming the traffic is observing the official speed limit. Our trailer-towing Ranger driver above has a 100 km/h closing speed.
Then there is the issue of cyclists. I have ridden on the Hamilton-Cambridge section at about 30 km/h. Our Ranger driver has a 110 km/h closing speed.
I’m not sure the speed limit is going to have much impact on the Ranger driver’s decisions.
Designing an expressway that carries 23,000 vpd to also be the designated route for tractors and bikes makes no sense at either 100kmh or 110kmh. The cyclist issue would be relatively easy to solve, although it would go against every grain of the current government.
Good point. I have too. Time to ban any vehicle travelling less than 100km/h from them. These roads shouldn’t be used for relocating machinery. They can use the back road.
I have yet to see a truck doing 90 on any motorway/highway. They drive to the same ‘limits’ as the rest of us (usually about 10 higher than the posted one).
I prefer trucks to be driven slower because it becomes easier to overtake and less likely to be tailgated by them.
I’ll be travelling at 80/90kmh as it’s the most efficient fuel wise. I don’t think the extra speed outweighs the safety consequences and I want to reduce my carbon emissions. I suggest anyone else who agrees with those principles does the same.
I’ve also taken to driving at 30kmh in all urban areas as it’s important to drive to the conditions.
Of all the current government’s plans for speed limit increases this one concerns me the least. These motorways were engineered for 110kmh and it was likely to happen at some point irrespective of who was in power.
My bigger concerns are around keeping the 80kmh undivided open roads and 30kmh town centres that we have at the moment, and ideally increasing their coverage.
It is a joke though that they are clutching at this as an example of how they are going to improve productivity, looks like they are out of ideas reasonably early in their first term.
If you travel from Warkworth to Auckland and take full advantage of the new speed limits, it saves you 3 minutes per day. If you add that to your 7.5 hours at work every day, that is about 0.7% more work you can do that day.
I think next on the agenda will be the “Poop at home bill” (adding on average more than 5 minutes to your workday!) and the initiative for instant coffee (think of the time savings over waiting for your filter/plunger/barrista!)
Build a Faraday cage into the walls of the toilet cubicle. Productivity will skyrocket.
And now imagine, that person travelling from Warkworth to Auckland could hop on a train for 45 minutes, open their laptop and start working before reaching Orewa Station. They briefly get up and grab a coffee and a bagel from the little cafe stand in the front carriage. By the time they reach their destination at Waitemata, they have sent 4 emails and worked on 3 powerpoint slides.
Alternatively, they have caught up on sleep.
‘And now imagine, that person travelling from Warkworth to Auckland could hop on a train for 45 minutes, open their laptop and start working before reaching Orewa Station’
This
I agree Jezza, and that is kind of the point. We are getting piecemeal proposals that affect safety (like the Setting of Speed Limits review and these ones) without any overall safety strategy being in place that they can be assessed against.
My main concern with 110-120km/h motorway speeds is more to do with reduced fuel efficiency and increased emissions at that speed.
“reduced fuel efficiency and increased emissions at that speed”
that would be covered off in the climate impact section of the proposal.
/s
probably identified by the minister as a benefit
Simeon Brown has also taken advice from NZTA on the requirements to raise the speed limit to 120km/h. He’s insatiable!
A 200 km/h limit on all roads will push productivity through the roof!
Thousands will die and be injured but their sacrifice is worth the benefits to the captains of industry.
I live in Canterbury and I’m pleased to be included in GA’s posts.
That aside these changes are actually about the next election. Making these changes will enable the three headed monster to say; “We said we were going to do this and we did it. We are the parties for getting things done. Not like the last lot. Remember light rail to the airport, 100,000 new homes. If you want things to happen vote for us again.” The value of what they do is irrelevant, it’s the doing that’s important.
Don’t mention the ferry debacle.
Canterbury loves their cars (I live in Christchurch). Even the chch reddit comments are positive towards the proposal.
And if the doing pisses-off us on the left of the spectrum all the better.
You’re bang on the money, I don’t think it can be understated how much of a petty ‘culture war’ thing this anti-public transport push from the right is.
I do not understand this proposal. If higher speed boosts economic growth then of course we should remove any speed restriction. Infinite speed for infinite growth! Why is the National government restricting growth?
Excellent points. It would also be interesting to know the safety implications of leaving a 110 km/hr section of road and entering a much less safe section of winding road, compared with the first section being at 100 km/hr. Another interesting point, the range of an EV gets used up much more quickly at 110 km/hr than at 100 km/hr. At least the new speed limit is not a requirement to travel at that speed.
Yes, I know that we do get used to driving the faster speeds and then find out how to drive slower afterwards. Eg around the local roads of a motorway interchange.
Is there cost benefit analysis to support these proposals?
The minister still fails to understand the physics of speed and energy.
As anybody who has studied physics knows the governing equation is E=1/2mv2.
The 10% increase in speed from 100kph to 110kph increases the available energy in a collision by 20%.
Just over a week ago a blown out truck tyre on the Auckland Southern Motorway killed three innocent people because the wire median barrier was inadequate to absorb the energy of a truck gone rogue after fairly common vehicle failure.
The resulting cost of loss of productive time for the deceased, the injured, the delayed motorists, the emergency responders, healthcare workers attending the injured, and resulting enquiries of just this one incident are horrendous.
And the costs of replacing repairing the damaged vehicles and roads.
It is difficult to reconcile these costs for a few seconds of time saving for very largely occupants of light vehicles, and very little time advantage to moving freight.
Increasing the speed limits, and especially if only for only light vehicles, just increases the differential, and therefore speed inflicted conflict, between vehicles travelling in the same direction.
This speed differential is a prime cause of vehicle movement conflict and therefore vehicle actual contact. The collisions. Collisions where energy is dissipated into human bodies.
There is another incredibly important crossover in the energy dissipation equation that needs a lot more consideration.
And that is the very sharp cutoff in the human body’s ability to absorb collision energy. For human versus solid body this very largely occurs between 30 & 60kph which very much covers the current difference between peak, and readily sustainable urban driving speeds.
So reducing the peak allowable speeds to closer to the readily sustainable speeds has remarkably little effect on urban journey times but a marked decrease in vehicle conflicts and thus accidents and their resulting costs and misery.
And as the difference between 30kph and 50kph means a massive 2/3 reduction in the kinetic energy, a massive decrease in fatalities and injury.
There is a massive amount of data and evidence to back this up, and at the moment an absolute void of data and evidence to back up the economics of raising speed limits.
Consultation surveys are not credible road safety, or even cost benifit, studies.
They are just populist crap.
Facts don’t matter to the NACT petrol huffers. Once confronted one on reddit with proof that vehicular emissions, air pollution, and accidents cost us billions per year in healthcare and social costs – they insisted it was ‘made up’ and there was ‘no actual link’.
It is possible that there is some validity to his argument, as many of these studies are conducted by large non-governmental organizations that would likely face financial difficulties if there were no controversy, fear or conflicting viewpoints to disseminate.
Carbon dioxide is an essential natural gas that is crucial for life on Earth. Furthermore, it has contributed to a significant increase in vegetation over the past few decades. While it is understandable that individuals who have been heavily influenced by certain ideologies may find this difficult to accept, it is important to consider the scientific evidence and recognize the positive impact of carbon dioxide on the environment.
If you love trees and nature you love more CO2
Climate change denier is, as expected, also in denial that tree cover has been in a net decline since the 1960s.
Opinion invalided. Go take your oil lobby funds and troll someplace else.
Oh, and before I get any condescending blathering misinformation about “CO2 is plant food”
– Plants acclimatize to higher CO2 levels and the increased photosynthesis benefit will inevitably fade away
– CO2 is not the sole factor in plant growth. Water, soil nutrients (particularly nitrogen), flooding, droughts and soil moisture deficit, heat stress, pests and diseases… it doesn’t matter if “CO2 is plant food” if the plants have *died* from another variable. The so-called research climate deniers cite comes from experiments that isolate plants in controlled laboratory conditions.
It is important to consider the scientific evidence Bart.
Ah yes the profitable NGO-research complex trying to disseminate false information to hurt the poor little oil and automotive industries.
Well written, obviously by somebody who is aware of the facts!
In a first world country they usually have highways like that connecting all major cities with speed limits of 130km/h
I think starting off with 110km/h here and there is a good step in the right direction.
Norway enters the chat.
In first world countries they also have intercity rail and coherent, convenient public transport networks so people can live and get around without cars.
Empirical evidence says after 80-100km/h the fuel efficiency of cars drops off sharply due to air resistance: “The OECD has estimated that the fuel consumption of vehicles travelling at 90km/h was 23 percent lower than at 110km/h. In the Netherlands, increased enforcement of 100km/h speed limits reduced average speeds by 7km/h. This resulted in savings of 40 million litres of petrol, 40 million litres of diesel, and 15 million litres of LPG.”
Less dependency on fossil fuel imports, less emissions, in exchange for journeys that are maybe a couple of minutes longer at worst? Sounds like a win to me.
If you’re really dying to go fast, spruce up the rail network for 130-160km/h speeds that are perfectly possible on our track gauge.
Yes indeed.
Feels very post-science. Populism is the essence of democracy it seems.
Transport decisions made by politicians not transport professionals.
Outcomes delivered in votes received, not lives saved, or even productivity.
Don’t forget, it’s what the people voted for. If the people vote for hornet stings then let loose the hornets.
As a person without a car, and at the moment, without my (push)bike, I am enjoying the speed with which I can move around the central city, on foot.
Nearby cars are stuck in all the rat holes of the CBD, while I stumble on by, possibly drunk, possibly over caffeinated, but usually able to not fall over.
There are always several attempts by PRIUS, AUDI and other cars to run me over, which offends me intensely, whether with my two young boys are with me, or not.
Are they trying to run over a dad?
We know well that most of the social problems in this entire motu are due to the lack of a good dad, but both parents, if possible, are fantastic for kids, even if in separate places. I spend most of my time alone, but always planning where to take my kids, usually based on the risk of not being run down by a motor vehicle.
The Central City, and also Takapuna, are much better than they were even a few years ago, due to the pedestrianisation and art that has made everywhere a beautiful walk, at any time of day, and night.
Drivers of cars miss this, and they miss the intimacy you can maintain with your kids when sitting on a bus, train or ferry with them.
A pedestrianised city, with excellent public transport, will make us all better people, better parents, better grandparents, better children, better grandchildren.
Just nicer, calmer, more pleasant citizens.
Who needs intense policing when no one drives? We could just have Tourist Police, like we have now, with some awful name like Compliance Officers, but they are basically walking Information Services, if you do not appear suspiciously non Pakeha, of course.
At least we don’t live in Wellington!
bah humbug
I always thought a good advert for AT/PT would have been: Picture 1 Frustrated car driver, kids messing about on the back seat Caption ” Fed up with kids playing up?” Picture 2 Family giggling, having fun on back seat of a bus Caption ” Why not join them!”
From a safety point of view I would be in favour of these changes if it wasn’t for the differential between trucks (or cars and trailers) and general traffic as there would now be a bigger difference. Nex minute they’ll up the top truck speed. From a climate perspective though we will loose out as already mentioned.
Another thing is if you argue this is safe for 110 current 80 roads probably should be 70 for instance.
Funny coincidence is your last point is pretty much what the general Vision Zero speed recommendations are for undivided single-carriageway highways – 70km/h maximum where the main risk is head-on collision.
Some interesting debates here. I would agree 110kmh seems like the logical step to take if the road has been designed for it and someone raised a good point about the emissions impact. Personally would say yes to 110kmh with low tolerance as it seems to be about the speed many travel at anyway.
Industry and banks want people to spend more on bigger, faster cars, more fossil fuel (or bigger batteries), more pay-off to PPPs for changing the goalposts.
Road freight want shorter journey times, based on travel distance per driver shift. Are they looking to get that by stealth, with trucks exceeding 90 km/h by as much as they can?
How will NZTA and Police get people to slow down at the end of 110km/h sections? Brain-adjustment once you have passed through an interchange is hard enough, but what about SH1 southbound at Silverdale interchange, where joining traffic has to accelerate to merge into the left lane traffic stream? No more visibility distance available, no more acceleration and merge length and plenty of traffic steaming on at 110-115 km/h.
Looks like the 110 changes to 100 well before Silverdale before that Orewa Grand Drive interchange.
Better side barriers on the tolled section.
As an aside, note this work about to be done, was getting very hard to turn right out of here particularly:
“Traffic lights are about to be installed at the Bombay Interchange and the adjacent BP Bombay service centre exit on Mill Road”
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/media-releases/traffic-lights-coming-soon-at-bombay-interchange/
It’s the one from CHCH to Rolleston that irks me a bit. All so people can get to the cluster f that is brougham street a few seconds faster, which the same minister cut the funding to upgrade. Who cares what speed you do on the motorway when brougham is walking pace.
I’ve come back from a holiday in Europe and did a roady through Portugal. Most of their intercity motorways are of a lower standard than our equivalent (like Waikato or northern expressways). The posted limit was 120kph. Some trucks were going that speed, but the flow of traffic was generally 130-145kph. If you overtook someone and didn’t pull into the slow lane quickly, you’d have someone coming up behind you quickly wanting you to move back to the slow lane (going 130+ in slow).
It’s interesting how we get really wound up about making our roads have slow limits. Our intercity expressways can easily be 110 and 120kph would be more in keeping with a lot of Europe and USA. Those intercity roads aren’t gold plated abroad. Just that there is a priority for getting where you want to go.
The same thinking seems to plague Auckland’s trains. Most cities you visit overseas the train doors fly open quickly, dwell times are short and run times quicker. A few of the Paris metro lines the doors open just prior to coming to a full stop. Why is everything so slow poke in NZ?? We’re not a retirement village… yet.
We’re just not good enough drivers. Look how many people we kill every year already.
Yeah, European drivers are generally much more engaged with their driving than the average kiwi. I’ve been in vehicles where the radios blasting and the drivers zoned out, or driving super casual while conversing with the passengers. People also do dick moves left right and centre, things like not even waiting in a queue, just going to the end of it and butting in sometimes nearly colliding with the car they’re merging with. Skipping down medians for extremely long distances rather than waiting until a reasonable distance – sometimes even using this as an opportunity to skip back in to “pass” 100 cars they were meant to be in queue behind.
Playing around on cell phones, failing to give way, not using roundabouts properly or indicating wrongly or not at all, not stopping for pedestrians at a zebra crossing or sometimes even a red signal, running red signals, sometimes late or sometimes even when it’s been red for minutes.
Also speed limits? I wish we actually enforced them. Seems almost everywhere people do +10km/h & they ignore dynamic or temporary ones most of the time as well.
Road policing seems almost non-existent as well. Has this every been scaled up to population? I swear in the 90s/00s there was far more road policing than today. Seeing a cop whose pulled someone over is about as rare as winning the lottery.
I mean list goes on and on. Horrendous state of affairs on our roads. Now some of the tools to calm things down a bit aren’t even allowed anymore. Minister having a ridiculous go at reasonable speed limits as well. Is he paying for all the extra funerals?