We often look to local police experts to comment on driver behaviour when our region's road toll starts to climb, but our roads are a big factor in fatal crashes, too. Two pieces of good roading news that will help save lives in Northland have emerged this week. One is the reduction of the State Highway One speed limit between Rewa Rewa Rd and Murdoch Cres at Otaika.
It is only a small piece of highway, but it is a transition stretch where southbound drivers, having already gone from 100km/h to 80km/h a few kilometres back, suddenly find themselves switching from 80km/h to 50km/h. Changing the pre-50km/h zone from 80km/h to 70km/h and even lower makes absolute sense. Workers and residents nearby will tell you that the area already has a disproportionate number of crashes and, with ongoing development looming, it needs to be made safer. Add to this the investment of $26.9 million in roading improvements around Northland, which is part of a $600 million national road safety programme aimed at bringing down the road toll. Having lost 18 people on our roads in 2016, compared to 11 at the same time last year, it is a pertinent subject in our region.
There is one factor that is difficult to combat when it comes to preventing road deaths, the human element. We are complex individuals - we speed, we drink, we drive, we make mistakes ... all because we are human. It is not something that a multimillion-dollar announcement can counter. Which means that as wonderful as it would be, we are probably never going to have a zero toll. That doesn't stop us, though, from aspiring to save lives, and these two pieces of good news will go some way toward that.
