Deeply concerned at the non-evidence based approach being taken by the NZ government to speed limit setting. The evidence on the positive impact of putting in place survivable 'safe system' speed limits is incontrovertible. The non-median-divided rural road network was never designed for 100 kmh. 80 kmh limits on this part of the network will save lives and reduce serious injuries.
The Global Road Safety Partnership endorses the Australasian College of Road Safety statement on effective speed management. When mean vehicle speeds rise, road trauma increases. 📈 When mean vehicle speeds reduce, road trauma reduces. 📉 Read it here: bit.ly/3VKbuLJ
We are well aware that many roads in NZ are not ideal and we need to acknowledge that with increased immigration and aging population, the level of driver skills varies which implicates that motorists feel comfortable driving st different speed on highways. This again, next to increase of distraction with laptop sized screens with people now able to watch movies while driving, leads to other motorists like busy tradies with powerful utes or high torque EVs to overtake in often dangerous situations or tailgate slower drivers. I would like to see more roads having recommendation of speed suggestion to those drivers not knowing road prior to penalize anyone feeling safe to drive 100km/h in an area that has good visibility but set at 80km/h because some scientists have proven it to be safer for the whole country. We need to prosecute cowboy drivers, those who tailgate, are impatient, overtake in double yellow line or before bends! Motorbikes to a certain extent behave like that and hardly prosecuted...but they seem high on the fatality stats. I proposed for a while to take a better look at statistics and add more parameters to the Police phone app that is limited to criteria. Let's focus on improving roads as priority.
The NZ Government can’t eat their ghost chips. Kia kaha to all those who continue to prevent loss of lives and livelihood. 🤙You deserve better leadership. Arohamai. In the end, the weight of wilful blindness exacts a toll on the conscience of political leaders — and this holds in all areas of policy. Decision-makers are not shielded to their bathroom mirrors. The tears of bereaved whānau and the broken dreams of mangled loves ones tend to stare back.
Thank you, Dave Cliff - I lived in New Zealand for a year in the 90s and am married to a New Zealander living in South Africa, and I'm very sad that speed limits there seem to be going up, not down. Already their death rate is unacceptably high for such a high-income country with a small, well-educated and largely law-abiding population.
We have had Dr Soames Job with us this week… it’s been magic.
CEO at John Brett Technology Ltd
4moWhat are these "survivable safe speeds"? Frontal Impact protection is for speeds up to around 50 kph, side impact to about 15 kph. There are no "survivable safe speeds" unless we limit all traffic to 15 kph.