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Speed Limit Reductions Reversed To Bring In Blanket Speed Limits
The Government is reversing speed limit reductions to bring in blanket speed limits. Lucinda Rees from NZ School Speeds is extremely disappointed about this decision, as evidence suggests that speed limit reductions make roads safer.
NZ School Speeds campaigns for 30km/h outside all schools, so that children can make their way to and from school in safety. The World Health Organisation recommends this as the maximum speed limit outside schools. “Children use school facilities at all times of the day, during the week and at weekends throughout the year, which is why the speed limit should be in place at all times,” says Ms Rees, Spokes Person for NZ School Speeds,
To slow in a school zone would take seconds off a journey time. Yet the Transport Minister Simeon Brown says that reducing the speed limit outside schools at other times is unneccesary, as apparently it makes “no sense to make a shift worker travelling to work at four o’clock in the morning crawl along our streets at 30kph”. Ms Rees wonders if these same shift workers should not have to stop at traffic lights at that time either.
According to the International Transport Forum report on New Zealand’s Road Safety Country Profile: ‘Road traffic crashes represent a high cost for New Zealand. The social cost of road crashes is estimated in 2021 at NZD 9.77 billion, 3.0% of the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“Raising speed limits will cost more lives. The only reason I can imagine that the National Party have done this is for what they perceive will be political gain, but hopefully it will have the opposite effect. Politicians should be protecting children who use the road, not threaten them,” says Rees.
“This announcement about reversing speed limit reductions is exceedingly irresposibe. They were well researched by the previous Government and following international trends. The current data of 195 tragic road deaths in comparison to 264 in 2022 shows that speed limit reductions were a success.
My heart goes out to all the children, who were set to become a priority on our roads rather than the inconvenience they obviously cause this current Government.”
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