National have weaponised our impatience – More speed = more deaths not more productivity
‘Risky, expensive and confusing’ – councils challenge government’s proposed speed limit changes
“Well ultimately, New Zealanders voted to reverse Labor’s blanket speed limit reductions. That’s what we committed to do.”
In 2023 there were 341 fatalities on New Zealand roads – speed was a factor in about a third of these.
Risk increases exponentially with speed. If a pedestrian were to be hit by a car travelling at 30km/h, their risk of death would be about 10%, if the car was travelling at 40km/h that risk would increase to 32%, and if the car was travelling at 50km/h the pedestrian would have a very high chance – 80% – of dying. Speed also increases the chances of a driver hitting a pedestrian by reducing their ability to stop quickly.
The previous government had a Road to Zero strategy, aiming for a 40% reduction in deaths and serious injuries on our roads by 2030. The speed limit reductions were mostly targeted in urban areas, school zones, and some rural roads.
That strategy will be scrapped and replaced with a new set of road safety priorities decided by National, ACT, and New Zealand First, most of them set to be implemented in July 2025.
Our roads need upgrading which causes more gridlock.
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!
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It’s just more ideological bullshit from this lot. Look at speed limits on highways that meet criteria sure, but all this crap with lifting limits in suburban areas is just another type of virtue signal
SPEED KILLS
True. I agree. But why is it the Germans can drive like a bat out of hell and have nowhere near the fatalities we do? When looking at fatalities in NZ more than speed is at play.
They do on the big autobahns but trucks are still restricted to 90kmh.The roads in Europe are way better than even our best here .By comparison our roads are got tracks and the speed allowed is way to high for such roads so we cant compare like with like as we dont have that class of road here .
The Germans don’t have autobahn’s in suburbia.
and they dont drive at 1ookph in town either
Once again the government has fallen at the first fence of health and safety ,DO NO HARM .Brown is prepared to sacrafice live to please a few ranger drivers who think the road is their own race track .Once again councils need to stand up and be counted and refuse to enact the stupid law change .
How can the case studies that approved the lowering of speed now be so difference that it approves an increase in speed .After all councils have not spent billions on safety measures such as barriers down the sides and center of each road in question ,which should be the only justification for any increase .
Any death after the increase in speed should have charges raised against the minister of at least manslaughter or in the case of a child ,infantcide .
Brown thinks he was given a mandate at the election which is bull shit, his voters voted on race bait only and had no idea what other shit they were voting for .
I hit a parked car a month ago at 30-40kph caused by a medical event. What a hell of a mess, 3 x cars written off and another one damaged. I was battered and bruised and still aching in certain parts of the body, I would hate to see the carnage if I was going any faster. Good Luck Simeon and Fellow Drivers on NZ Roads.
As a driver in NZ for over 40 years I can comfortably say that most Kiwi’s drive way too fast for the conditions. I frankly don’t care what your excuse – unless someone is dying and you are transporting them to hospital, you have none either. While I would love to think that ‘trusting’ people to manage their behaviour on the road might be successful, the evidence (observing poor and mainly too fast driving – yes I know this is anecdotal but this is more than adequate for the current government) suggests otherwise.
Simpleton’s arguments about increasing productivity are balderdash at best and must be rebuked on the back of substantial empirical evidence. Clearly this government doesn’t not care for evidence rather is happy to oblige the ‘flavour of the day’ – whatever will allow it to stay in power. This clearly is wrong and if you can’t see that I strongly suggest an urgent visit to SpecSavers – FFS!
cars have come a long way in 40 years. drivers on the other hand – we have just imported 100’s of thousands of recently licensed drivers on to our roads. all seemingly believing the inside lane is for scooters and ox carts.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/350401504/disappointed-gp-visits-were-free-young-people-here-now-some-could-pay-64
Speaking of health. Nationals policies have impacted the health of all New Zealand in such a disastrous way to fund tax cuts and give landlords financial gifts.
We don’t have a govt we have a three headed monster made up of three patched gangs.
The COC Coalition of Chaos.
they put a blanket 30 kmph speed limit on part of our suburb in AKL (with 4 little signs easily missed at the two entrances to it). It is impossible to drive that slow (the reality for people who need to move around the city) and is only ever practiced around the school at pick up and drop off – even cyclists and buses ignore it – however, it has brought the overall speed ceiling down, so it is a positive but fairly limited.
For the small percentage of lunatics that don’t care and cause the majority of the statistics, it doesn’t make a shred of difference.
New Zealand is a dog being wagged by it’s tail – enforce against the lunatics not everyone. Same with the proposed 9pm off-license laws – enforce against the drunken arseholes not everyone.
We are too cheap to pay for proper enforcement and too lazy to do it. Easier to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator and dumb things down to the intelligence level of sheep. baaaa!!!
Make all traffic infringements an instant $1000.00 fine no excuses seat belts, smoking, phones the lot then see who passes a school doing 40. problem solved maybe not for parking fines though
Good thought but maybe add in what one country does (I think it maybe Finland) and make the fine reflect the income of the offender. After all rich people are smarter so they shouldn’t get caught should they.
I am certain that any one who gets to work 51 seconds early is not going to rush in and start work 51 seconds early .More likely they will check the phone and start work 10 minutes late .
I hit a parked car a month ago at 30-40kph caused by a medical event. What a hell of a mess, 3 x cars written off and another one damaged. I was battered and bruised and still aching in certain parts of the body, I would hate to see the carnage if I was going any faster. Good Luck Simeon and Fellow Drivers on NZ Roads.