Bikers query spend of levy
Only a fraction of the money raised from a Government motorcycle levy launched six years ago has been spent on road safety.
Meanwhile, the toll of motorcyclists killed on the roads has risen significantly – in 2015, 54 bikers died, making up 17 per cent of all road deaths that year.
Critics have attacked the levy, with one calling it ‘‘delusional’’, but ACC says safety investments made as a result will soon exceed the money collected.
Ulysses Club president Mike Dew said bikers were ‘‘frustrated’’ at the lack of spending, and better research was needed into motorcycle safety.
‘‘I don’t agree that this money we’ve collected should be spent on improving the roads. I think it should be spent on research,’’ Dew said.
By October, $15.1 million, excluding investment income, was collected through the levy, thenACC minister Nikki Kaye said.
Spending from that on safety projects was only $2.9m, projected to reach $6.3m by June this year.
Labour transport spokeswoman Sue Moroney said the road toll showed the levy had brought no demonstrable improvements.
The 54 motorcyclists killed in 2015 were the most since 1997. Fifty died last year, compared with 33 the year after the levy started.
‘‘There was a lot of anger from motorcyclists at the time, and they predicted this would happen.’’
She said taxpayers should be concerned at ‘‘sluggish’’ investments in safety.
The levy fell from $30 to $25 last year, but Moroney said it should be scrapped, or overhauled.
An ACC spokeswoman said the agency was focused on research that would form ‘‘a strong evidential base’’ for targeted motorcycle safety initiatives.
‘‘ACC has already approved $15m over 10 years for a motorcycle road engineering programme to address high-risk motorcycle routes,’’ she said.
ACC intended spending $4m of levy funds this financial year.
It was working with other
‘‘I don’t agree that this money we’ve collected should be spent on improving the roads. I think it should be spent on research.’’ Ulysses Club president Mike Dew
agencies to give motorcycle safety a special focus, and $3.5m would go to 5000 training places on the Ride Forever course.
Other levy funds would go to road safety improvement, including barriers, and a motorbike awareness campaign targeting car drivers. The levy price would be reviewed next year, and bikers would be consulted on that.
Motorcycle Safety Advisory Council chairman Mark Gilbert said the speed at which money was spent should not determine the levy’s success.
‘‘That fund is sort of like an initiator for doing things . . . looking back, you could say ‘Yeah, it has been a bit slow’, but there’s been a lot of [lessons learnt].
‘‘Whatever money we have in that motorcycle levy bucket isn’t going to fix motorcycle safety at $1.8m of income a year.’’
But Dog and Lemon editor and road safety campaigner Clive Matthew-Wilson called the levy ‘‘another delusional road safety policy’’.
‘‘The highest-risk groups at present are middle-aged men riding large and very expensive bikes. The additional cost to these groups was nearly meaningless.’’
He said the $3.5m was being ‘‘squandered’’ on training, when it was universally accepted that advanced training for bikers was ineffective at reducing crashes.
He believed New Zealand needed harder licence tests for older riders of big bikes, and road design changes.
Median barriers and roadside fencing would help, ‘‘because it’s generally far safer for a motorbike rider to hit a wire median barrier than a tree, or to slide into the path of an oncoming car’’.