Fines, tickets after buses exceed limit
speeding buses.
“My concern is that the road is full of distractions for all users and if, due to one of those distractions, the driver of a bus does not see a cyclist and had to stop quickly to avoid hitting the rider, surely higher speeds would make that more difficult.
“Buses are very large vehicles and could inflict much damage.”
Regional council legal and commercial manager Jessica Easton said the organisation did not monitor and was not notified about bus speeding infringements.
This was the responsibility of the bus operators and was consistent with Public Transport Operating Model (PTOM) contracts across the country, she said.
“Speeding by a driver is an employment issue dealt with by the individual bus operators. We have contacted NZ Bus and they have told us they received four speeding infringements in the last financial year.”
First Union Bay of Plenty organiser Graham Mckean said he was not surprised to hear of the speeding incidents.
“What I am surprised about is that we haven’t had more accidents in the bus fraternity simply because of the pressure and time constraints our drivers have.
“People are not happy. Drivers are stressed and it tends to express itself particularly in speeding.”
NZ Bus chief operating officer Jay
Zmijewski said company policy included obeying the speed limit and its vehicles were fitted with telematics systems that automatically notified the company if a bus sped. Zmijewski confirmed drivers had been removed from their duties because of speeding in buses but said because of privacy concerns he would not elaborate further. “Suffice to say this is not a regular occurrence as the telematics system continuously monitors the driver’s speed.”
Speeding tickets were paid by the bus driver, who was also subject to further training, counselling, disciplinary action and potential dismissal, he said.
“NZ Bus encourages the community to report speeding buses. We take speeding very seriously as it is a safety issue.” National Road Policing Centre director Superintendent Steve Greally said three camera-issued speeding fines were waived during the past three years, all in 2020.
“Two related to an administrative error at the police infringement bureau and one involved a transfer of liability from the registered owner of a vehicle to the driver.”
Police were unable to say how many offences resulted in a warning rather than a fine because vehicle data was not “in a retrievable form” from within the police system. To do so would require manually scrutinising each written traffic warning, which would take too much time and resource to carry out, Greally said.