'People will die': More concerns raised over proposed speed limit changes

A group of local and international road safety experts, academics and health professionals have penned an open letter to the Government over its proposed moves to reverse speed limit reductions, saying it will result in lost lives if it proceeds.

The letter, headed by the Global Road Safety Partnership, is addressed to the Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Minister of Transport Simeon Brown.

Non-profit Global Road Safety Partnership is based in Geneva and was created in 1999 in an attempt to minimise the lives lost or altered due to road accidents. The letter is co-signed by 46 New Zealanders, and 51 people from overseas, including Australia, the UK, Sweden, Hong Kong and the Netherlands.

The letter is in response to the Government's draft Speed Rule that would reverse the previous Government's move to reduce speed limits. It also aimed to ensure that when speed limits were set, "economic impacts - including travel times - and the views of road users and local communities are taken into account, alongside safety", according to a statement from Brown in March.

The letter warns raising speed limits would lead to more fatalities and severe, life-altering injuries on New Zealand roads, and disputes claims that higher speed limits will yield economic benefits, saying the assertion is flawed and unsupported by credible evidence.

Co-author, the University of Canterbury's Simon Kingham told 1News the letter was a "last ditch" attempt to persuade the Government not to proceed with the rule change.

He said it was a message from experts locally and around the world to say "this is madness".

"All the experts are saying 'this is a really bad idea' and it's inconsistent with what's happening in the rest of the world, it's against all science and evidence, please don't implement it, it's a bad policy."

Kingham was formerly the Ministry of Transport’s chief science adviser from 2018 to May this year. The role has a six-year term.

He said lower speed limits were not about a "Nanny State" but rather what was safe and what reduced the chances of death and serious injury on the roads.

Those deaths and serious injuries also had a cost, he said, and when an economic value was placed on that it "far outweighs time savings".

"Overwhelmingly you get these huge benefits from lower speed limits."

Meanwhile, he said, the worst part of raising speed limits was that "people will die".

He said deaths on the road were down 20% on a year ago.

There were 223 deaths on the roads from January to August last year. In the same period this year, there have been 179.

"That's a huge saving, these are people's lives.

"People will die - without a shadow of a doubt - if you implement this. The benefits are negligible.

"There's nothing wrong with admitting you maybe got something wrong. Quite often Governments make a promise, they get in, they then look at the evidence and say maybe this isn't such a good policy."

He said while changes to make time-limited lower speed limits outside schools were better than not, they could be confusing for motorists and it was better practice to have a consistent 30 km/h zone outside schools.

Asked his response to the letter and the concerns in it, Transport Minister Simeon Brown said there were "a range of factors behind improving road safety on our roads" and the Government was "deeply committed" to that.

"That's why the rule is going to actually require there to be a speed limit, a reduced speed limit outside all schools during pick-up and drop-off times because we know that's the most high-risk time for our children.

"But at the same time, we campaigned on reversing Labour's blanket speed limit reductions, and we're going to do that."

Asked what his response was to the contention people would die as a result of increasing speed limits, Brown said the highest risk times at schools were during pick up and drop off times.

"That's why we're going to ensure that all schools have a slower speed limit during those high-risk times, and that's actually about improving road safety."

He said the Government was doing other things in the transport portfolio, such as introducing oral roadside drug testing, increasing all breath testing and increasing road maintenance funding, as well as the Roads of National Significance programme.

"There's a range of factors behind road safety risks, and we need to address all of them.

"It's too simplistic to say that speed is the only factor to be focused on."

He said he did not agree with Kingham that there would be fatalities as a result of the rule change.

"Ultimately, what we've been advised is there's a range of factors behind improving road safety outcomes on our roads, and that's what this government's focused on.

"It's about making sure we can enforce the law.

"You've got to have a reasonable approach to doing this.

"You've got to actually have enforcement, and you've got to focus on those high-risk behaviours, times and locations.

"It doesn't make sense to make a shift worker crawl to work at 30 kilometres per hour at 4am ... when the high-risk time is actually between 8 and 9.30[am]."

He said it was also important to consider drugs, alcohol, driver inattention, road surfaces, and improving road quality, and statistics suggested that "in the last number of years, the number of deaths on roads with a speed limit of 20 to 50 - which are the roads we're talking about here - has not changed".

Road deaths on local roads between 20 km/h and 50 km/h between January 1 and September 16 in 2023 were 44 - the same number as this year to date.

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