Bad driving and poor roads a fatal mix
I’ve been watching the debate on lowering speed limits on state highways across Northland with interest.
It seems officials are telling us that lowering speed limits will save lives, while the opponents seem to be struck on the mantra fix the roads first.
Both are correct, sort of. Research (there’s plenty online for anybody to check) from overseas shows that lowering speed limits makes drivers overall slow down and therefore lead to less deaths and serious injury.
And there’s no doubt that the state of Northland’s roads are shocking, with constant potholing and resealing and patching jobs across the region.
But, and here’s the rub, Northland motorists know this yet don’t seem capable of doing the one thing that will help — driving to the conditions.
You now the roads are shoddy yet still expect to be able to travel on them at 100km/h or higher, then complaining when they are not up to those sorts of speeds.
It’s just like when it rains — the roads will not have the same grip and will be more slippery than usual and you will have to slow down to drive to the same level of safety and ability to stop in a hurry if needed.
The fact we have had 33 road deaths in Northland so far this year — the same as the whole of 2021 with a full month to go — tells me that we are not driving to the conditions.
So in my eyes we do need the speed reductions as that may be the only way to get people to actually drive to the conditions — at least until we can get the roads sorted out.
I speak as a former driving instructor who has been a professional driver for more than 40 years and driven in virtually every country in Europe, the US, Canada, the Middle East, parts of Africa and Australia and now New Zealand.
Ian Johnson
Northland
Fake weather news
I want my money back! I was sold on Northland by the catch cry the winterless North with Northlanders constantly telling me this was the place where winter never came.
Well I’ve lived here for two years now and I’ve found that not to be the case.
Take this past month, for example. Yes we’ve had some hot weather, but also some very cold temperatures . . . and don’t get me started on the rain.
Oh, go on then. It’s been absolutely pouring down on so many occasions this past month, with at least three heavy rain watches and flooded roads and paddocks.
It seems I’ve only just mopped up, dried out the place and removed the
flood/storm debris from the section when the sky opens up and it all starts again, and the experts say it could be quite a damp summer up here.
Maybe it needs to be renamed the far from winterless North, or the wet and wild and sometimes winterless North?
Whatever, it still beats the minus 15-20C I’d sometimes get in my former South Island home so I suppose I can’t complain too much.
Bring on the summer.
D Davis Whangārei