Let’s be very honest.
We are such a cheap bastard nation altho we don’t build safe roads or well engineered roads.
We build cheap goat tracks through Mordor.
And because we are such a nation of cheap bastards we have this appalling carnage on the roads that costs us 4% of GDP!
4% of GDP from terrible car crashes!
It’s a social obligation and responsibility to properly fund and build safe roads when the damage being caused is 4% of GDP!
BUT because we are a nation of cheap bastards, instead of building and engineering safe roads we simply lower the speed limits which generates gridlock, impatience and extreme frustration because there are no upgrades to infrastructure to cope with the huge levels of immigration!
Of course we should lower speeding limits but this must be ON TOP OF better built roads and better engineered public safety and we do that by TAXING THE FUCKING RICH!
Not user pays, not more privatisation, we need a Ministry of Green Works that builds the roads and we need to propel fund it by TAXING THE FUCKING RICH!
We need to see our roads as part of the common good and engineer it for safety, adaptation to climate change and funded by TAXING THE FUCKING RICH!
We need to increase road deaths because Jacinda saved 20k lives by being responsable .So now the right want those 20k deaths to lower the tax take so they dont have to fund better roads and carry on withe the road safety program that was in place .So instead of the lazer focus we had on 10000 km of our most dangerous roads we will focus on building another 20km of uneeded roads in some national party strong hold .
Natzos proposing increased speed limits in certain places (even in school zones, and on some routes up to 120kmh) when the roads are by and large shit at the moment is a scary prospect. Higher speeds mean more death and injury in crashes. This is not the imagination of road safety experts and researchers–it is proven fact. Jase above has a good link.
I am no fan of the cops at all, but do have some empathy for the ones that have to deal with crash sites and mutilated people. The traffic Police say it too–speed kills.
As a long time V8 petrol head (with an EV too) it is easy to work out who the dickheads are aiming their “hammer down” approach at…
She’ll be right mate plough another track through the hill over there
The ‘ rich’ don’t use the roads. Helicopter only.
You beat me to it! LOL
Freedom to smoke weed will lead to far more road accidents than increase speed which often was the save speed limit for years
You can’t spell safe so why would we believe anything else you write? In my lifetime the maximum speed I can remember was 60 mph, which went to 50 mph/80 kph during the 70s along with carless days & sometime in the 80s we were allowed 100 kph on open roads/motorways again. Alcohol causes many more road deaths than weed & while I advise that people should not use mind-altering drugs your ignorance regarding established facts would suggest that you live a sheltered life.
Our roads are indeed dangerous, but there are a few good reasons for this:
Firstly, NZ is at the end of the line – the last place colonized by Europeans. The last place to see the benefits of the civilization and the industrial revolution. So, we started road building after most others.
Secondly, we lack the population to support good infrastructure. We have one tenth of the population density of the UK compounded by half the GDP per capita. There’s a price to pay for all that wonderful open space!
Thirdly most of the North Island is a geotechnical nightmare of earthquakes, unstable hillsides and swamps. Building almost anything will always be far more difficult and expensive here than almost anywhere else except maybe Papua New Guinea.
Lastly, we are inefficient at building roads because of the impediments imposed by our laws and bureaucracy. Up until the RMA was modified by the Key government every motorway construction spent about a quarter of our precious capital on lawyers to appease the Gods of the RMA. It’s much better now, but there is still too much paperwork and too many grifters in the way of getting the job done. As an engineer I still vividly recall the 7 years we spent in court before we built the Meremere/Long Swamps section of SH1 during which time another 20 people died on that section of road. That is literally criminal incompetence!
Having outlined the issues, tell me how will higher taxes fix the problem? 😉
‘We’ do nothing of the sort. What ‘we’ have to live with is asked for, decided by and then signed off by the public service. If ‘we’ did have an input the roads would be better.
There is more than enough money to build decent roads but the public servants (yes I know that’s an oxymoron) prioritize consultation, redesigning the same thing over and over, they also love the massive road cone battle groups that infest the land which do fuck all in 50% of the situations they are in. But then if they regard all road workers as having less intelligence, less thought processing skills and less common sense than a 6 yo school girl, which the public service obviously do, then maybe acres of road cones are needed just to save them from themselves.
Also we have 4 different repair outfits working our area. 3 of those teams have less road repairing knowledge than I have on what colour undies King Chucky is wearing today. Some of the repairs are worse then what they we supposed to fix. But I bet the management love the the fact the new Government will be buying them flash new stuff to replace all the flash new stuff Jacinda and Chippy gave them.
None of this is new but also none of this seems to be changing.
I personally think NZ roads are some of the best in the world. After spending time overseas, I came back to NZ and was so stoked to be back in our great roads. Most road damage is done by heavy vehicles: a loaded logging truck does as much damage to our roads as 10,000’cars, do you think the RUC’s for logging vehicles are 10K times more than a diesel golf? What about how the last NAT govt increased maximum truck weight? Heavier vehicles on roads that weren’t designed for them. Let’s REGULATE trucks off roads where possible and onto rail. Let’s CHARGE trucking companies through RUC’s what they should be paying rather than the rest of us subsidising them.
Yes, our roads appalling and yes the cost of that and our shitty driving habits cost us in lives and treasure.
While the focus is on roads, there’s a lot that the cops could do to reduce the toll.
By that I mean enforce – properly enforce with strict penalties – the existing traffic laws.
One law in particular would both reduce road rage, improve traffic flows and reduce accidents.
That law is clearly and unequivocally in the Road Code.
“When traveling less than the speed limit, a driver MUST pull off to the left and let faster traffic pass. If on a motorway, slower drivers MUST stay in the left hand lane.” Penalty: “Careless Driving infringement – $150”.
For the simple minded people who might read this;
if you’re on the motorway, stay in the left hand lane unless overtaking – that means ALL you truckies – most of you do, but there’s always one objectional bugger who gives every other truckie a bad name. So report him!
If you’re on a dual carriageway (that’s two lanes roadway in opposite directions for the ignorant) and you’ve got more than one vehicle behind you, then you MUST pull off the road and let them pass.
It’s fairly simple – you can go as slow as you like BUT you MUST NOT impede the traffic following you, so pull over, dummy.
I bet our road toll and road rage incidents would have if this rule was rigidly enforced.
100kmph in what is essentially a tin can, now increasingly made of plastic, in the hands of clever creatures prone to distraction and inattention … well, what do you expect? Some countries have stats that make NZ look like road safety gold medal winners.
The roads in NZ are exciting. If we want less road users then we need exciting rail. Like a belt and rail bullet train from Whangarei to Bluff.
In about 40 years time in a world where China is the dominant power kiwis will be like why didn’t we take them up on that belt and rail offer. Just like we wonder why we never let the US Army Corp of engineers build transmission gully in 1946.
What’s the point in engineering and building a decent road in AO/NZ if telecom of a utility will inevitably dig trenches through it within weeks of its completion?
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