The Mega Maps online risk assessment tool suggests speed limits should be reduced on most New Zealand roads. Photo / File
The Mega Maps online risk assessment tool suggests speed limits should be reduced on most New Zealand roads. Photo / File
EDITORIAL
"Holiday road toll rises after fatal crash." "Two people killed, one injured in crash between truck and car." "One dead in truck crash." "Car being dragged out of shop by crane after fatal crash."
These are a selection of crash headlines on the Herald website in the firstweek of this month alone. They represent a snapshot of our confronting road death statistics: A toll of more than 170 so far this year, almost 7000 fatalities and more than 45,000 serious injuries since 2000, and a probability of being killed or seriously injured on the roads two or three times greater than in comparable countries, according to the NZTA.
It is acknowledged that various factors contribute to the figures: Our terrain, road design and maintenance, older car stock, speed, and poor driving and decision-making.
Yet nothing, it seems, raises more ire than discussions about speed limits, which are in the headlights again after the Herald revealed suggestions the majority of our roads should have their speed limits substantially reduced.
The Mega Maps online risk assessment tool, being used by NZTA and councils as a guide for deciding new speed limits, suggests only 5 per cent of our open roads should have the current 100km/h speed limit, most stretches of open road should be reduced to 60km/h to 80km/h, and most urban areas reduced to 30km/h to 40km/h.
The Mega Maps tool suggests most urban roads should be reduced to 30km/h to 40km/h. Photo / File
Few would dispute the road safety slogan "the faster you go the bigger the mess" and, according to the NZTA, about 25 per cent of crash statistics have a speed component. Authorities are right to look at whether our current speed limits are fit for purpose.
Few would dispute the road safety slogan "the faster you go the bigger the mess".
But given that many crashes are are related to other factors, it is important to ask whether such a potentially radical rethink of speed limits on most of our roads is required.
Matching speeds to individual road conditions makes sense and would help reduce our road toll. But, like others, there is justification for fears that widespread measures on speed limits alone could slow the economy. Lower limits implemented unnecessarily could also encourage driver frustration, which would exacerbate safety issues.
But if speed reductions are anathema to New Zealanders, we must be honest about the alternatives.
Reduced speed limits are recommended for many of the country's urban roads. Photo / Supplied
If we blame our roads, we must wear the costs of the considerable infrastructure improvements required to updgrade them, and to support other transport options. That may mean less money in other vital areas; it may mean more and higher taxes or tolls.
Regardless of what we think about speed reductions, we must start doing better as individual drivers.
Lives are lost on the road because of decisions to ignore the speed limits, not drive to the conditions, to drive when impaired by alcohol and drugs, to text or talk on the phone while driving, to drive when tired, to speed up for that orange light, ignore that give-way sign, not wear seatbelts, overtake recklessly, flee police. Lives are lost because passengers condone poor driving decisions made by friends, family or colleagues.
The solutions do not lie in one area. But they do begin with all of us.
