Big road toll drop will take ‘many decades’

WELLINGTON: It will be ‘‘many decades’’ before there is a substantial change in New Zealand’s road toll, Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter says.

Her comments came after New Zealand experienced its highest annual road toll since 2009 last year, with almost 400 deaths.

There were nine deaths on the road over the Christmas holiday period, three fewer than during the same period last year.

Ms Genter said the Government was in the process of implementing a road safety strategy that would save lives.

But this would take time.

‘‘The reality is these things take time and [there’s] a huge amount of road upgrades that need to be completed.’’

Last April, Ms Genter said the Government would look at introducing a zero road death policy by 2020.

‘‘Clear, truly ambitious targets drive policy and help deliver meaningful change.

‘‘That’s why this Government will investigate adopting a target of zero deaths and serious injuries on our roads,’’ she said.

Last month, the Government committed $1.4 billion to making roads safer.

The policy, called the Safe Network Programme, aims to make 870km of highvolume, highrisk state highways safer by 2021 with improvements such as median and side barriers, rumble strips and shoulder widening.

That policy strategy will be in place in 2020, but Ms Genter said it would take ‘‘many decades to substantially bring down deaths and serious injuries on our roads’’.

‘‘We’re talking about road deaths and serious injury having increased over a fiveyear period. It took time for that to start happening — it’s going to take time for it to turn around as well.’’

In 2007, the road toll climbed to 421. It fell to 253 in 2013 before rising to 382 last year.

In terms of how long it would take to bring the road toll back down, Ms Genter said the Government would be working on setting those targets.

‘‘The targets haven’t been set exactly, but we’re making the improvements to the roads and we’re building up safer speeds.

‘‘I want to see this happen as soon as possible but we live in a democracy so there are certain approaches we have to take.’’

Ms Genter said the Government was moving as fast as it could, but it was important people accepted its strategy.

‘‘It would be great if we didn’t have to have a debate about whether speed is the appropriate way to save lives because we know it is.

‘‘It reduces deaths and serious injuries having more appropriate speeds.’’

She said the Government had authority over the state highway network and that was what it was moving forward on, but local government had responsibility over local roads.

Some local bodies were already taking action but ‘‘we need this to happen right across the country’’.

Nine people were killed on New Zealand roads over the holiday period.

The official ChristmasNew Year holiday period began at 4pm on December 24 and ran until 6am yesterday.

Last year, 12 people died on the roads over the break, but the holiday period was slightly longer. — NZME