Transporting New Zealand is behind the Government’s announcement that it is reversing speed reductions on 38 sections of the state highway network. Consultation has also started on whether speed reductions will be kept on 49 other sections of the network.
CE Dom Kalasih says these changes reflect this Government’s approach to a more balanced approach to speed management.
“Our members and many of the motoring public have been frustrated by the introduction of blanket speed reductions over the past four years that did not consider the impact of increased journey times, dangerous overtaking and tailgating by frustrated drivers, and increased freight costs for businesses and consumers.
“We’ve made these points consistently to road controlling authorities across the country so it was good to see the changes now in progress and the fact that 65 percent of those that made submissions supported the changes indicates pretty strong public support for it.”
He says most of the questions from the media related to the impact on safety that the speed increases might have.
“Not unexpectedly, some transport experts, or at least some people who claim to be experts, say they expect the road toll will increase. One even quoted the old adage, “the faster you go, the bigger the mess”. From a pure physics perspective that’s correct, higher speed means there’s less time to react, and there’s higher kinetic energy to dissipate if there is a crash,” he says.
“I’m mindful everyone is entitled to their opinion and that should be respected. However, I believe there is considerable risk in these experts basing road toll predictions on one aspect like posted speed limits. In our view, there are no silver bullet solutions to managing road safety.”
He says blanket speed limits were introduced in 2020, the annual road tolls since then have been 318, 319, 372, 341 and 293 which shows there isn’t a linear relationship between speed limits and the road toll.
“In our view, a multi-faceted approach to managing road safety is vital.
“With the government’s commitment to maintaining roads to a safer level, building safer alternative routes, increasing funding for roading enforcement, and taking an evidence and risk-based approach to speed management, we believe our roads can be both safer, and faster, where they are designed for both.”
