Kiri Gillespie: Slower speed likely saved my life but lower limits still not the answer

Old Tauranga Rd bypasses Waihi, and much of it is long and straight. Photo / NZME

OPINION
I'm no fan of lowering most speed limits.

I've written before about how I think many lowered limits are a cop-out and that driving slower isn't the sole solution to New Zealand's dreadful fatal and serious accident toll.

But travelling 5km under the speed limit on Anzac Day quite likely saved my life.

It was mid-afternoon on the long 100km/h straights of Old Tauranga Rd near Waihi. My husband was driving us home.

As we crested a blind hill, we saw a station wagon hurtling head-on towards us in our lane.

It was alongside the car it was trying to pass and could not easily get back to its side of the road.

I can vividly picture how the vehicle lurched directly in front of us as its panicked driver tried to slow down.

My hand shot to the passenger door, the other to my chest. My husband, a former rally driver, safely but firmly pumped the brakes and swerved left as far we could go.

The station wagon was still on our side of the road as it passed, my last glimpse of it was its left headlight squeezing in centimetres behind the car he originally tried to overtake.

My husband says the driver's eyes were as wide as his at this moment.

I appreciate everyone makes mistakes, including on the road. No one is perfect.

But this driver was overtaking on a blind hill. On a yellow line. Coming straight towards us.

Idiot.

Had we been travelling the full 100km/h speed limit, New Zealand's tragic Anzac holiday road toll of 11 could have easily been higher.

So does this awful experience mean I now think Old Tauranga Rd's limit should be lowered? No, but it provides food for thought.

Our slower speed gave us critical time to evade a head-on collision but the 95km/h also meant my husband was alert and focused on the road in front of him. Had the limit on that long, straight stretch of rural road been 80km/h or less, I'd wager he - and any driver - would be more distracted and less swift to take evasive action.

Ultimately, the fault in this incident doesn't lie with the road or the limit.

That oncoming driver flouted crucial Road Code rules and put our lives, his life, and likely also the lives of anyone in the car being overtaken in peril as a result.

I can only hope he realises it and uses this near miss as a lesson. It's a second chance those who lost their lives in those many heartbreaking crashes throughout New Zealand over the long weekend will not have.

A driver's licence is a privilege, not a right.

It's up to all of us to drive like it.