Road to Zero ‘will need billions’
AA says lower speed limit not the final answer while Bridges says Govt ignoring big projects
The previous approach to speed cameras has been a covert model. That’s not actually slowing people down. It’s just ticketing people. Mike Noon, AA
The Automobile Association is welcoming the Government’s safety vision for zero road deaths, but says it will need billions of dollars to realise. But National Party leader Simon Bridges says the Government is ignoring the single best thing it could do — invest in its Roads of National Significance projects.
Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter yesterday released the Road to Zero strategy for public consultation.
It is based on the principle that one road death is too many, and aims to cut road deaths by 40 per cent in the next decade by:
● Improving infrastructure of existing roads.
● Making it easier for councils to change speed limits.
● Reviewing driver licensing and Warrant of Fitness systems.
● Setting safety standards for imported cars, and making ABS brakes mandatory for motorbikes over 125CC.
● Having more police on the roads, with more overt speed cameras.
Fines could also be reviewed, and even lowered, if the evidence showed that they played a trivial role in reducing road harm.
AA spokesman Mike Noon said it was a “comprehensive and ambitious” strategy that targeted all the right things.
“It will need a lot of investment. Substantial investment,” he said, noting the Government’s $1.4 billion announcement last year to make 870km of high-volume, high-risk state highways safer by 2021.
“Just lowering the speed limit on a road doesn’t necessarily deliver the benefits you want and the speed reductions you want. You need to do engineering to that road. A crash at 80km/h is still a very serious crash if the road is not safe.”
He said the vehicle fleet also needed to be made safer, even if that led to a “small risk” that some drivers would keep their cars for longer.
He also welcomed the review of fines to balance penalties and enforcement.
“The previous approach to speed cameras has been a covert model. That’s not actually slowing people down. It’s just ticketing people.
“This strategy follows the overt, Swedish model. We work out where there is a problem with speed, and we signpost that area to say there is camera enforcement, so people know they need to slow down.” He noted the Government’s stated intention to drop speed limits on 10 per cent of the country’s most dangerous roads.
At the last election National promised eight roading projects — including Auckland’s east-west link and a Napier-Hastings four-lane expressway — but the Government has dismissed them as a wishlist that was never budgeted for.
But Bridges said investing in those roads was the most important safety action the Government could take.
One of them, the highway north of his Tauranga electorate, was one of the most dangerous highways in New Zealand, he said. “A four-lane highway would have meant people no longer died. It was set to start last year, and these guys canned it.
“We would rather see our tax dollars spent on new, high-quality roads that are safe to travel on at 100km/h.”
Noon had some sympathy for Bridges, saying the Government could follow through with its safety plans as well as invest in the Roads of National Significance.
New Zealand driver safety advocate and motorsport legend Greg Murphy said that better driver training was crucial to lowering the road toll, which last year was 377.
The consultation period will run for four weeks, closing on August 14.