Holiday speed limit in place

The start of the annual 4kmh speeding tolerance has been derided as locking the stable door after the horse has bolted by a leading road safety campaigner.

‘‘For years, the police have been telling us that rigid enforcement of speed limits would lower the road toll. In fact, it’s gone up,’’ Clive Matthew-Wilson said.

‘‘When are they going to admit they got it wrong?’’

The Christmas reduction in speeding tolerance kicked in yesterday, with this year’s road toll standing at 362, already 35 more than the whole of 2016.

The rising road toll ‘‘wasn’t the result of ordinary motorists drifting a few kilometres over the speed limit’’, Matthew-Wilson, editor of the Dog and Lemon Guide, said.

‘‘It’s the result of a tiny group driving badly on a poorly designed roading system.’’

Motorists who persistently drove drunk or high, and did not wear seatbelts, were the main culprits, and it was time police focused their efforts on that small group, Matthew-Wilson said.

Citing Ministry of Transport research, he said speed was not the issue as 85 per cent of road deaths happened below the speed limit.

‘‘Of the 15 per cent of accidents that occur above the speed limit, almost all are caused by either yobbos, impaired drivers or outlaw motorcyclists.’’

If the new Government was serious about lowering the road toll, it would fully upgrade the country’s ‘‘Third World rural roads’’ while cutting the number of freight trucks and forcing middleaged motorcyclists to sit a much tougher licence.

Motorcyclists were 21 times more likely to be killed or seriously injured than car drivers, and middle-aged riders were especially at risk, he said. Of the 362 killed on the roads so far this year, 44 were motorcycle riders.

According to Transport Ministry figures, from 2013 to 2015, speeding was a contributing factor in fatal crashes for 6 per cent of truck drivers, 20 per cent of car and van drivers, and 40 per cent of motorcyclists.

Instead of ‘‘spending so much time on speed enforcement’’, police should have the right to temporarily impound cars in which the occupants were not wearing seatbelts, and should be able to permanently confiscate cellphones used by drivers in moving vehicles, Matthew-Wilson said.

The 4kmh speed tolerance policy came into force yesterday and runs until 6am on January 8.

Road policing national manager Superintendent Steve Greally said police were continually tweaking and re-evaluating the holiday speed tolerance policy.

The policy was introduced five years ago and initially coincided with a drop in crashes and speeding, before road deaths crept up again.

AA road safety spokesman Dylan Thomsen said the association still supported the 4kmh policy during the high-risk holiday season, but wanted new research done on the effectiveness of the policy.

The latest police and NZ Transport Agency safety campaign ‘‘We Want You Home for Christmas’’ zeroes in on four dodgy driving traits: travelling too fast for the conditions; not wearing seatbelts or restraints; alcohol, drug and fatigue impairment; and driver distraction, especially from cellphones.