Public should get a say on speed limits

Speed limits are a sensitive subject, and not only because we are liable to receive a small fine in the mail for a flicker above the limit caught by a street camera. Speed limits control the pace of much of our lives, the time it takes us to be where we need to be. So if speed limits are to be changed, it ought to be done democratically following a good public debate.

That is not the way it appears to be happening. On Wednesday we reported the chairman of Auckland Transport, Lester Levy, and his chief executive, Shane Ellison, had presented their “speed management intervention programme” to the Auckland Council planning committee the previous day. Among other things, they intend to reduce the 50km/h limit to 40km/h and even 30km/h on many of the city’s streets.

The planning committee, which is in fact the full council including the mayor, gave the plan unanimous support. It is not clear that they could have blocked it in any case. Auckland Transport is one of those misnamed “council controlled organisations” that have been set up with authority to decide many things that ought to be resolved by the elected council members.

AT is even more independent of the council than the other agencies because its board is partly appointed by the Government. And the Government has issued a national transport policy that makes road safety one of its priorities.

Few would argue it should not be a priority but, as so often happens, the decisions that flow from that policy can be very contentious indeed. Those decisions are made beneath the democratic level, elected bodies are not accountable for them. If members of the public do not like slowing to 40 or 30 km/h on urban roads they can only blame “AT”, a body that is not on their ballot paper and can do whatever it thinks fit. This is how it was intended to work. The contentious decisions of local government have been delegated to appointed agencies so they will be based on objective technical information rather than the popular will.

AT has studied the rate of fatal crashes at different speeds and found that at speeds up to 40km/h we are more likely to survive a crash, at 50km/h and more we are more likely to die. It has also noted that serious collisions in Auckland are rising at three times the national rate and five times the increase in the number of vehicles on its roads.

Furthermore, it says, the rate of death and serious injury is rising fastest among the most vulnerable road users, motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians. So all traffic is to be slowed to well below 50km/ h though perhaps not on all city roads and not on motorways. Not yet. Motorways are controlled by the NZ Transport Agency, and it too will apply the road safety policy in the way it decides.

The 100km/h limit is too high for most of our rural roads and 50km/h seldom applies in city congestion, but it is not too fast when traffic is light. Lower limits are appropriate near schools and the like but before lowering them more generally, the public deserves a say. Sadly it sounds unlikely to get one.