Speed kills.

The evidence is that changing speeding laws will kill and injure a lot of New Zealanders.

Here are two statements by Transport Minister Simeon Brown about why he is pushing to change the speeding rules.

1.        “Speed limits have been reduced using a blanket approach across many parts of the country by the previous Labour Government's Land Transport Rule, ignoring economic impacts and the views of road users and local communities. “

2.        "Our coalition Government wants to see a transport system that boosts productivity and economic growth and allows New Zealanders to get to where they want to go faster and safer."

In short, his argument is that increasing speed limits will increase productivity.

OK. This is a government where P.M.Luxon has repeatedly said decisions will be “based on data and evidence”. If Minister Brown took a moment to read his own Ministry’s website he would find under the Annual Statistics on Safety the following data from the latest report which is for 2022.

“The faster you go, the more likely you are to crash and the greater your risk of serious injury or death. No matter what causes a crash, vehicle speed directly affects the force of impact.”

“In 2022 there were 104 fatal crashes, 459 serious injury crashes, and 1405 minor injury crashes where speeding (travelling too fast for conditions) was a contributing factor.

In these crashes, 114 people died, 572 people were seriously injured, and 2043 people suffered minor injuries.”

Think of the productivity loss involved in those deaths Minister.

And let’s also just think about the lives of children for a moment.

Brown wants to introduce variable speed limits at an estimated cost of $30 million . This means amongst other things that the limit of 30 kpm around schools will only apply around pick up and drop off times and at other the speed limit could be 50kpm.Which means either installing high cost speed signs that can change at set times or requiring drives to check their watches and dashboard clocks.

When asked how increasing speed limits will increase productivity Brown  brushes it off by saying he as “received advice on it.” Well, I can’t find who provided that advice so I will send in an OIA and let you know what I can find out.

On the other hand the evidence is that lower speed limits that everybody understands no matter where you live in New Zealand is that road deaths are down 20% on this time  a year ago. There were 223 road deaths from January to August last year. In the same period there have been 179. That’s 44 people in the last year whose lives have been saves because of safter driving conditions .

As for productivity going up with raising speed restrictions, I invite the Minister ( and everyone)  to read the research on The Greater Auckland website:

https://www.greaterauckland.org.nz/2024/07/10/government-flooring-it-on-unsafe-speeds/

Here is a very relevant quote from that site :

“The evidence gap is clear in this 2022 economic assessment of options for speed management around Auckland schools. It gives the lie to the Minister’s claims of “productivity”, by showing:

• the best-performing option, with a benefit-cost ratio of 9.0, is closest to one of the current approaches:permanent 30km/h areas around schools. It would prevent 539 deaths and serious injuries over 10 years, and return $9 for every dollar invested.

• the costliest option, with a benefit-cost ratio of 0.2, is close to the Minister’s blanket proposition: short stretches of time-limited 30km/h at the school gate, in a sea of 50km/h traffic. This would only prevent 29 deaths and serious injuries over 10 years, and would return just 20c on each dollar invested, i.e. an 80% loss.

In other words, compared to Brown’s proposal, the current approach is up to 45x better for the economy, and would save an additional 510 people from serious injury or death.

The difference in driving travel times between these two options is a smidge over two seconds.”

As for increased truck speeds delivering higher productivity, a recent analysis by economist Bernard Hickey revealed that may trucks are not using the new Transmission Gully motorway neat Wellington and taking the old route because the lower gradient and slower speed limit actually saves fuel costs.

Minister Brown, you’ve got it wrong. Changing the speeding laws will kill and injure a lot of our people.

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