April 16, 2025 • 19 mins
The Government is keen on making it easier to get more drivers on the road.
If proposed changes announced this week go through, the second practical driving test required for a full licence will be scrapped, and the number of eyesight tests needed will be reduced, with new safety measures being introduced as well.
It comes as the Government continues with its pledge to reverse Labour’s “blanket speed limit reductions” - something National campaigned on.
But will a more affordable drivers license system, and higher speed limits, make our roads any safer?
Today on The Front Page, we’re joined by AA road safety spokesperson, Dylan Thomsen , to discuss the Government’s latest plans for our roads.
Follow The Front Page on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Gilda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The
Government is keen on making it easier to get more
drivers on our roads. If proposed changes announced this week
go through. The second practical driving test required for a
(00:27):
full license will be scrapped and the number of eyesight
tests needed will be reduced, with new safety measures being
introduced as well. It comes as the government continues with
its pledge to reverse Labour's blankets speed limit reductions, something
National campaigned on. But will a more affordable driver's license
system and higher speed limits in some areas make our
(00:49):
roads any safer. Today on the Front Page, we're joined
by AA Road Safety spokesperson Dylan Thompson to discuss the
government's latest plans for our roads. So, Dylan, the proposal
on changes to how you actually achieve your full license
is out for public consultation. It includes new safety measures
(01:12):
like a clean driving record of restricted drivers, harving the
demerit threshold and introducing a zero alcohol limit for learner
and restricted drivers of any age. Now take me through
these changes? Are they long overdue use?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
From the AOS perspective, we think that all those changes
that you just mentioned would be good things that we support.
At the moment, we have a zero alcohol limit up
till the age of twenty, and then beyond that point
you just have the standard point zero five adult alcohol limit.
And what this change would mean is that anybody on
(01:48):
a learner or a restricted license, regardless of their age,
would have a zero alcohol limit. So it would only
be once you had achieved a full driver license and
were over the age of twenty that you could consume
any alcohol legally and get behind the wheel. We think
that's a good change. When you have people who, regardless
(02:09):
of their age, they have less experience on the roads,
they're still learning, they're still developing their skills, all those
kind of things, you want to not have anything that
can make your judgment of reactions worse, which alcohol can do.
There's no reason for somebody to have to need to
consume any alcohol in driving, So having a zero alcohol
(02:30):
limit until you get a full license makes a lot
of sense to us. The other changes really that are
being proposed, you could just call them really making tougher
consequences for people if they break the rules when they're
on a learner or restrictive license, we think that there's
a lot of good positive benefits to doing that. It's
the highest risk group on the roads in terms of
(02:50):
crash rates. People under twenty five and people who have
only recently started to drive have the highest crash rates
on the roads. And right now, far too many are
quite comfortable about breaking a whole bunch of rules. And
so if we can have more of a deterrent or
more incentives to get those people to stick to the
rules because they don't want to risk losing their license
(03:14):
or taking longer to progress to a full license, we
think that could actually motivate people more than the prospect
of a fine. That actual risk to a license may
make some of those people better behave and stick to
the rules, and that means less people using cell phones
while they're driving, potentially not wearing seat belts, driving drunk, speeding,
all those kind of things.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
The Transport Minister Chris Bishop says New Zealand is an
outlier internationally in requiring a practical test for someone on
a restricted license applying for their full license.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yes, that is true. So New Zealand is one of
the few countries in the world that has two on
road driving tests. Most other similar countries like ours, have
just one on road driving tests, which would be like
the equivalent of when you get your restrictive license in
New Zealand. Currently, most of those other countries that only
(04:09):
have one test also have requirements for a certain number
of hours of practice that learner drivers have to clock
up and complete before they can sit that test. So
some countries have requirements for having to complete certain number
of practice hours with a supervising driver who is somebody
(04:31):
with a full driver's license, and other countries, mainly in Europe,
they have requirements for learners have to complete a certain
number of professional lessons or hours of professional training before
they can sit that test. So from the AA's perspective,
we think New Zealand could look at moving to one
single on road test. But what we think should be
(04:53):
part of that if we're going to do it, is
introducing some minimum number of hours that learners would have
to complete of super high practice before you could sit
that test. Do we know why people don't have their
fool license?
Speaker 3 (05:08):
We don't know exactly. I'm an anecdotally certainly people I
talk to going from your restricted to your full sitting
that second test. If you already know how to drive.
It's really stressful. It's not expensive, by the way, it's
one hundred bucks. You've got to take time off school
or work or whatever you're doing. You've got to go
bock it. You've got to find a time that suits everybody.
A lot of people just don't bother graduating from their
(05:30):
restrictor to their full So there's a lot of people
out there right now breaking the law, just driving on
they're restricted. That's not good. You also want young people
in particularly to graduate through the system properly, and so
we're bringing New Zealand into line with other countries.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I got my driver's license in South Australia, and I
remember that all those trips, and we had a log book.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
That my dad had to sign.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Every time I'd drive to work or drive back or something.
We'd log it in the book and then take that
book and then go get the practic driving test.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Why is there such.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
An adverse reaction to there being two practical tests though?
Doesn't they give us the assurance that we need to
have someone on our roads full time.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
I guess the way the government's looking at it is
sort of asking are we actually getting benefits and do
we need that second test because it does come with
additional cost for people of having to pay about one
hundred dollars for doing that second test, and assuming that
they pass it that first time, and especially in a
bunch of more rural provincial parts of New Zealand things
(06:33):
like that, it can take quite a bit of time
and travel for somebody to go and do that second test.
They might have to take a day off work or
the outside of school, they might have to get a
family member or somebody to drive them quite a distance
to get to the testing location. The government is really,
i guess, asking the question of is that needed and
is it really delivering benefits to road safety? And if not,
(06:57):
then could we reduce some costs and make it's a
bit cheaper and easier for people to get a license.
And certainly we want people to be able to go
through that licensing process without undue barriers or difficulties. But
I think the key thing from the AA's perspective is
also wanting to make sure that we're actually having people
(07:18):
learn and develop and do the practice and build up
the skills and experience that we want before they start
driving solo. And that's why we think that having some
requirements around minimum number of hours of practice would be
a really good thing to bring in if we were
going to look at not having that second test.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Why hasn't it happened yet?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Because I don't want to give away my age. But
when I got my license and had to do those
hours in South I was it was a while ago.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
That's a hard question for me to answer. Really. I
think New Zealand has developed a culture that doesn't actually
take learning to drive and driving seriously enough. A lot
of people see it as something that doesn't require that
much time and effort. From the AA's perspective, we think
we need to change as a country. This is a
critical life skill and it's also something that literally puts
(08:10):
people's lives at risk. And right now New Zealand has
one of the worst road safety records in terms of
developed countries around the world. We have one of the
highest rate of road deaths from crashes and the highest
risk group is under twenty five year olds. They die
at the highest rate. So we have not been doing
(08:31):
a great job in terms of actually training and preparing
people to be safe drivers. Twenty eleven was the last
time that there was a significant review of driver licensing system.
That's the way government tends to work. For these things,
especially significant things, they're not going to be reviewed and
looked at all the time because it takes up a
(08:53):
bunch of time and effort from the government officials and departments.
You only get these opportunities come around occasionally, maybe once
a decade or so. And that's in particular why right
now we think, from our perspective at the AA, if
we're going to look at making some significant changes, we're
hoping the government is open to looking at some other
additional options as well as what's been proposed, and really
(09:16):
looking at a chance to increase and step up the
standards that we are preparing and training people to start
driving on our roads. We think if we do that,
if we build better foundations right from the start, that
is going to then flow on to a long term
improvement in road safety in New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Now all of this comes as the government is moving
ahead with reversing Labour's blanket speed limit reductions. What does
this reversal of a reduction mean.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
It's really unfortunate that I think the whole issue around
speed limits and speed changes has become very polarizing and
very politicized, and I don't think that's actually a good
thing in terms of just our approach to setting speed limits.
It's a lot more complicated than a bunch of people
have think it is, or some of the headlines have
(10:17):
made it out to be. Some of the roads that
had speed reductions in recent years are going to see
their speed limits go back up to what they were
before by the end of June. There is a lot
of variation in terms of some of the highways around
the country that had reductions going back up automatically. Others
(10:39):
are currently having consultation, so it's still not certain at
this stage whether they will go back or whether they
will keep the lower limit. Some of the urban roads
around the country going back up to the limits they
had before. A number of those in Auckland of urban
roads that went down to thirty kilometers an hour going
(11:00):
back to fifty kilometer or in our limits, and different
parts of the country and in different places, the picture
looks a little bit different. So the best I can
summarize it is that some of the speed limit changes
that we saw in the last few years are going
to go back to what they were before. Twenty twenty
and some of them are going to stay in place,
and we're still working through the details. It should be
(11:22):
May this year that we will have a complete and
final picture on which ones are going to go back
up and which ones won't.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Right, So, there are different categories of these roads, and
I think councilors have until you're quite right may to
advise the NZTA of those specified roads subject to those
reversals and things.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Why shouldn't we be driving slower on our roads? Though
there have to be more negatives than positives to upping
speed limits, I would presume.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I think that it's actually a more complicated picture than that.
One way of looking at it is you could say
that if we had people traveling slower speed limits, then
there's going to be less risk and less force in bold.
So if something goes wrong, people were going to be
less likely with that ending up in a crash and
less likely of harm from that crash. But we also
have the balance of people's ability to actually move around
(12:11):
and for goods to move and that's one of the
reasons why we have different types of roads, urban roads, highways,
rural roads and things like that. And from our perspective
here at the AA, we really felt that we needed
to be looking at three things for speed limits to
work most effectively, and that was having limits that match
the environment that they're in, having limits that make sense
(12:33):
to people, and having limits that are set using a
strong evidence base, looking at the crash history on those roads,
the likely impacts, those kind of things. And in recent
years there was a growing sense amongst a bunch of
communities out there and things like that that they are
a bit of a disconnect had developed, and speed limits
(12:54):
were being put in place by authorities that didn't match
the environment or the purpose of the roads in some cases,
or didn't make sense to people. We actually did some
research for our research foundation a few years ago looking
at a number of highways that had reduced from one
hundred kilometers an hour to eighty kilometers an hour, and
it was really interesting to see the varied impact on
(13:14):
some of those stretches of highway. After the limit changed,
you saw reductions and the speeds people were traveling, and
they were traveling quite close to the limit. On other
stretches of highway you saw very little change and actually
the speeds that people were traveling, and you ended up
with the majority of the traffic just traveling above the
speed limits. So we think the best result here is
(13:34):
we need to try and find that sweet spot of
having speed limits that are going to make sense to
people and suit the environment, because that is where then
you get good compliance and you have people traveling at
those limits. If you have situations where the limits just
feel and seem too low to people, they can often
just choose to ignore them, and then you're not actually
(13:57):
getting their safety benefits, and you've got a situation where
you just have the majority of people flouting the rules.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
So you just have to take in human nature as well.
There are always people who are going to be flouting
the law and going higher than eighty on a highway.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
There are going to be some, absolutely, but it's trying
to find what works for the majority. So it's not
thinking about the complete outlies those people who deliberately and
knowingly just want to drive really fast and go way
above the speed limit because they want to or they
don't really care about the rules. I think it's more
focused on the vast majority of generally compliant people and
(14:34):
trying to work with what's going to make sense to them.
Example of some of the survey work we've done around
our AA members, we've seen really strong levels of support
for variable speed limits and low speed limits around schools
at those times the start and the end of school
days when there's a lot of kids around, and people say, absolutely,
we think lower limits at those times would be a
(14:56):
good thing and we should do that. But then if
you're talking about those lower limits being in place when
it's nine o'clock at night and there's very few people
or traffic around, then people have a different view and
think doesn't really make sense to me at that point
to still be doing thirty kilometers an hour when I'm
the only car on the road. So we think that
(15:17):
the approach that the government is taking around variable speed
limits around schools and having lower limits at those key
times makes a lot of sense and is going to
work well with a lot of people slowing down those
high risk times. Twenty twenty four looks set to have
the lowest toll in more than a decade. This road
(15:38):
safety advocate has a theory on why it.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
Is globally recognized that the road toll follows the economy.
When you've got high unemployment, these guys don't have the
money to go out and buy big Harley Davidson's and
bang them into them posts. When the economy improves, everybody
gets optimistic. People buy fast cars, they buy fast bikes,
and the end result.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Is more fatalities.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Two hundred and eighty nine people lost their lives on
New Zealand's roads last year, and while that's still obviously
too many, it's the first time it's been under three
hundred since twenty fourteen, and the lowest rate of road
deaths per capita in a century, So are we doing
something right when it comes to road safety to have
(16:28):
such a milestone.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
We were extremely happy to see that result. It was
very pleasing to see us fall back below a three
hundred level, and if you look on a per population basis,
it was actually the lowest rate of road deaths New
Zealanders had since the nineteen twenty so basically in one
hundred years, and we hope that we're going to see
that continue. We've seen individual years in the park. Twenty
(16:53):
thirteen was one where we had two hundred and fifty
three deaths, the lowest ever achieved in recent times. So
we've had individual years in the past and then things
have jumped back up and they've just been a bit
of an aberration, so we are wanting to take a
little bit more time to see what happens in this
year and if we can replicate that performance. We're really
hoping that it is actually signifying that we've turned a
(17:15):
bit of a corner and are seeing some improvements in
our road safety record. There are some positive things that
have been going on in New Zealand over recent years.
It's often doesn't seem that way because most of the
stories that are out there about road safety are about
horrific and tragic crashes. But we have seen a lot
(17:35):
of upgrades and improvements, particularly to some of our highest
risk highways in New Zealand. Over the last sort of
fifteen to twenty years, a lot of those what used
to be our highest risk highways have been replaced by
new modern stretches of road or they've had significant safety
upgrades and they have delivered raally substantial crash reductions. We've
(17:58):
also continue to see vehicle safety improvements just progressing and
getting better over time, so vehicles are more protective and
also have more technology to help prevent crashes. We've seen
a bunch of changes happen around trunk and drugs driving,
and the police have really worked hard to ramp back
(18:19):
up alcohol testing because impair driving by alcohol and drugs
in New Zealand is a chronically bad problem and it
can get close to being forty plus percent of road
deaths in a year, so it's great to see the
police really cracking down on that. Again. We think that
one of the big things that we haven't been doing
enough on from the AA's perspective is actually around that
(18:42):
driver behavior, driver training and trying to upscale people, and
so if we can do more to actually have people
have a bit more knowledge, more awareness, more skills, more
experience as they're starting out, we really hope that we're
only going to see our road safety records keep gets
better and that means less and less people being hurt,
(19:04):
seriously heard or killed and creatures on our rights.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Thanks for joining us, Dylan.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front
Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
(19:35):
tune in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.
Gilda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The
Government is keen on making it easier to get more
drivers on our roads. If proposed changes announced this week
go through. The second practical driving test required for a
(00:27):
full license will be scrapped and the number of eyesight
tests needed will be reduced, with new safety measures being
introduced as well. It comes as the government continues with
its pledge to reverse Labour's blankets speed limit reductions, something
National campaigned on. But will a more affordable driver's license
system and higher speed limits in some areas make our
(00:49):
roads any safer. Today on the Front Page, we're joined
by AA Road Safety spokesperson Dylan Thompson to discuss the
government's latest plans for our roads. So, Dylan, the proposal
on changes to how you actually achieve your full license
is out for public consultation. It includes new safety measures
(01:12):
like a clean driving record of restricted drivers, harving the
demerit threshold and introducing a zero alcohol limit for learner
and restricted drivers of any age. Now take me through
these changes? Are they long overdue use?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
From the AOS perspective, we think that all those changes
that you just mentioned would be good things that we support.
At the moment, we have a zero alcohol limit up
till the age of twenty, and then beyond that point
you just have the standard point zero five adult alcohol limit.
And what this change would mean is that anybody on
(01:48):
a learner or a restricted license, regardless of their age,
would have a zero alcohol limit. So it would only
be once you had achieved a full driver license and
were over the age of twenty that you could consume
any alcohol legally and get behind the wheel. We think
that's a good change. When you have people who, regardless
(02:09):
of their age, they have less experience on the roads,
they're still learning, they're still developing their skills, all those
kind of things, you want to not have anything that
can make your judgment of reactions worse, which alcohol can do.
There's no reason for somebody to have to need to
consume any alcohol in driving, So having a zero alcohol
(02:30):
limit until you get a full license makes a lot
of sense to us. The other changes really that are
being proposed, you could just call them really making tougher
consequences for people if they break the rules when they're
on a learner or restrictive license, we think that there's
a lot of good positive benefits to doing that. It's
the highest risk group on the roads in terms of
(02:50):
crash rates. People under twenty five and people who have
only recently started to drive have the highest crash rates
on the roads. And right now, far too many are
quite comfortable about breaking a whole bunch of rules. And
so if we can have more of a deterrent or
more incentives to get those people to stick to the
rules because they don't want to risk losing their license
(03:14):
or taking longer to progress to a full license, we
think that could actually motivate people more than the prospect
of a fine. That actual risk to a license may
make some of those people better behave and stick to
the rules, and that means less people using cell phones
while they're driving, potentially not wearing seat belts, driving drunk, speeding,
all those kind of things.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
The Transport Minister Chris Bishop says New Zealand is an
outlier internationally in requiring a practical test for someone on
a restricted license applying for their full license.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yes, that is true. So New Zealand is one of
the few countries in the world that has two on
road driving tests. Most other similar countries like ours, have
just one on road driving tests, which would be like
the equivalent of when you get your restrictive license in
New Zealand. Currently, most of those other countries that only
(04:09):
have one test also have requirements for a certain number
of hours of practice that learner drivers have to clock
up and complete before they can sit that test. So
some countries have requirements for having to complete certain number
of practice hours with a supervising driver who is somebody
(04:31):
with a full driver's license, and other countries, mainly in Europe,
they have requirements for learners have to complete a certain
number of professional lessons or hours of professional training before
they can sit that test. So from the AA's perspective,
we think New Zealand could look at moving to one
single on road test. But what we think should be
(04:53):
part of that if we're going to do it, is
introducing some minimum number of hours that learners would have
to complete of super high practice before you could sit
that test. Do we know why people don't have their
fool license?
Speaker 3 (05:08):
We don't know exactly. I'm an anecdotally certainly people I
talk to going from your restricted to your full sitting
that second test. If you already know how to drive.
It's really stressful. It's not expensive, by the way, it's
one hundred bucks. You've got to take time off school
or work or whatever you're doing. You've got to go
bock it. You've got to find a time that suits everybody.
A lot of people just don't bother graduating from their
(05:30):
restrictor to their full So there's a lot of people
out there right now breaking the law, just driving on
they're restricted. That's not good. You also want young people
in particularly to graduate through the system properly, and so
we're bringing New Zealand into line with other countries.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
I got my driver's license in South Australia, and I
remember that all those trips, and we had a log book.
Speaker 4 (05:51):
That my dad had to sign.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Every time I'd drive to work or drive back or something.
We'd log it in the book and then take that
book and then go get the practic driving test.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Why is there such.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
An adverse reaction to there being two practical tests though?
Doesn't they give us the assurance that we need to
have someone on our roads full time.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
I guess the way the government's looking at it is
sort of asking are we actually getting benefits and do
we need that second test because it does come with
additional cost for people of having to pay about one
hundred dollars for doing that second test, and assuming that
they pass it that first time, and especially in a
bunch of more rural provincial parts of New Zealand things
(06:33):
like that, it can take quite a bit of time
and travel for somebody to go and do that second test.
They might have to take a day off work or
the outside of school, they might have to get a
family member or somebody to drive them quite a distance
to get to the testing location. The government is really,
i guess, asking the question of is that needed and
is it really delivering benefits to road safety? And if not,
(06:57):
then could we reduce some costs and make it's a
bit cheaper and easier for people to get a license.
And certainly we want people to be able to go
through that licensing process without undue barriers or difficulties. But
I think the key thing from the AA's perspective is
also wanting to make sure that we're actually having people
(07:18):
learn and develop and do the practice and build up
the skills and experience that we want before they start
driving solo. And that's why we think that having some
requirements around minimum number of hours of practice would be
a really good thing to bring in if we were
going to look at not having that second test.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Why hasn't it happened yet?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Because I don't want to give away my age. But
when I got my license and had to do those
hours in South I was it was a while ago.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
That's a hard question for me to answer. Really. I
think New Zealand has developed a culture that doesn't actually
take learning to drive and driving seriously enough. A lot
of people see it as something that doesn't require that
much time and effort. From the AA's perspective, we think
we need to change as a country. This is a
critical life skill and it's also something that literally puts
(08:10):
people's lives at risk. And right now New Zealand has
one of the worst road safety records in terms of
developed countries around the world. We have one of the
highest rate of road deaths from crashes and the highest
risk group is under twenty five year olds. They die
at the highest rate. So we have not been doing
(08:31):
a great job in terms of actually training and preparing
people to be safe drivers. Twenty eleven was the last
time that there was a significant review of driver licensing system.
That's the way government tends to work. For these things,
especially significant things, they're not going to be reviewed and
looked at all the time because it takes up a
(08:53):
bunch of time and effort from the government officials and departments.
You only get these opportunities come around occasionally, maybe once
a decade or so. And that's in particular why right
now we think, from our perspective at the AA, if
we're going to look at making some significant changes, we're
hoping the government is open to looking at some other
additional options as well as what's been proposed, and really
(09:16):
looking at a chance to increase and step up the
standards that we are preparing and training people to start
driving on our roads. We think if we do that,
if we build better foundations right from the start, that
is going to then flow on to a long term
improvement in road safety in New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Now all of this comes as the government is moving
ahead with reversing Labour's blanket speed limit reductions. What does
this reversal of a reduction mean.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
It's really unfortunate that I think the whole issue around
speed limits and speed changes has become very polarizing and
very politicized, and I don't think that's actually a good
thing in terms of just our approach to setting speed limits.
It's a lot more complicated than a bunch of people
have think it is, or some of the headlines have
(10:17):
made it out to be. Some of the roads that
had speed reductions in recent years are going to see
their speed limits go back up to what they were
before by the end of June. There is a lot
of variation in terms of some of the highways around
the country that had reductions going back up automatically. Others
(10:39):
are currently having consultation, so it's still not certain at
this stage whether they will go back or whether they
will keep the lower limit. Some of the urban roads
around the country going back up to the limits they
had before. A number of those in Auckland of urban
roads that went down to thirty kilometers an hour going
(11:00):
back to fifty kilometer or in our limits, and different
parts of the country and in different places, the picture
looks a little bit different. So the best I can
summarize it is that some of the speed limit changes
that we saw in the last few years are going
to go back to what they were before. Twenty twenty
and some of them are going to stay in place,
and we're still working through the details. It should be
(11:22):
May this year that we will have a complete and
final picture on which ones are going to go back
up and which ones won't.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Right, So, there are different categories of these roads, and
I think councilors have until you're quite right may to
advise the NZTA of those specified roads subject to those
reversals and things.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Why shouldn't we be driving slower on our roads? Though
there have to be more negatives than positives to upping
speed limits, I would presume.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I think that it's actually a more complicated picture than that.
One way of looking at it is you could say
that if we had people traveling slower speed limits, then
there's going to be less risk and less force in bold.
So if something goes wrong, people were going to be
less likely with that ending up in a crash and
less likely of harm from that crash. But we also
have the balance of people's ability to actually move around
(12:11):
and for goods to move and that's one of the
reasons why we have different types of roads, urban roads, highways,
rural roads and things like that. And from our perspective
here at the AA, we really felt that we needed
to be looking at three things for speed limits to
work most effectively, and that was having limits that match
the environment that they're in, having limits that make sense
(12:33):
to people, and having limits that are set using a
strong evidence base, looking at the crash history on those roads,
the likely impacts, those kind of things. And in recent
years there was a growing sense amongst a bunch of
communities out there and things like that that they are
a bit of a disconnect had developed, and speed limits
(12:54):
were being put in place by authorities that didn't match
the environment or the purpose of the roads in some cases,
or didn't make sense to people. We actually did some
research for our research foundation a few years ago looking
at a number of highways that had reduced from one
hundred kilometers an hour to eighty kilometers an hour, and
it was really interesting to see the varied impact on
(13:14):
some of those stretches of highway. After the limit changed,
you saw reductions and the speeds people were traveling, and
they were traveling quite close to the limit. On other
stretches of highway you saw very little change and actually
the speeds that people were traveling, and you ended up
with the majority of the traffic just traveling above the
speed limits. So we think the best result here is
(13:34):
we need to try and find that sweet spot of
having speed limits that are going to make sense to
people and suit the environment, because that is where then
you get good compliance and you have people traveling at
those limits. If you have situations where the limits just
feel and seem too low to people, they can often
just choose to ignore them, and then you're not actually
(13:57):
getting their safety benefits, and you've got a situation where
you just have the majority of people flouting the rules.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
So you just have to take in human nature as well.
There are always people who are going to be flouting
the law and going higher than eighty on a highway.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
There are going to be some, absolutely, but it's trying
to find what works for the majority. So it's not
thinking about the complete outlies those people who deliberately and
knowingly just want to drive really fast and go way
above the speed limit because they want to or they
don't really care about the rules. I think it's more
focused on the vast majority of generally compliant people and
(14:34):
trying to work with what's going to make sense to them.
Example of some of the survey work we've done around
our AA members, we've seen really strong levels of support
for variable speed limits and low speed limits around schools
at those times the start and the end of school
days when there's a lot of kids around, and people say, absolutely,
we think lower limits at those times would be a
(14:56):
good thing and we should do that. But then if
you're talking about those lower limits being in place when
it's nine o'clock at night and there's very few people
or traffic around, then people have a different view and
think doesn't really make sense to me at that point
to still be doing thirty kilometers an hour when I'm
the only car on the road. So we think that
(15:17):
the approach that the government is taking around variable speed
limits around schools and having lower limits at those key
times makes a lot of sense and is going to
work well with a lot of people slowing down those
high risk times. Twenty twenty four looks set to have
the lowest toll in more than a decade. This road
(15:38):
safety advocate has a theory on why it.
Speaker 5 (15:41):
Is globally recognized that the road toll follows the economy.
When you've got high unemployment, these guys don't have the
money to go out and buy big Harley Davidson's and
bang them into them posts. When the economy improves, everybody
gets optimistic. People buy fast cars, they buy fast bikes,
and the end result.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Is more fatalities.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Two hundred and eighty nine people lost their lives on
New Zealand's roads last year, and while that's still obviously
too many, it's the first time it's been under three
hundred since twenty fourteen, and the lowest rate of road
deaths per capita in a century, So are we doing
something right when it comes to road safety to have
(16:28):
such a milestone.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
We were extremely happy to see that result. It was
very pleasing to see us fall back below a three
hundred level, and if you look on a per population basis,
it was actually the lowest rate of road deaths New
Zealanders had since the nineteen twenty so basically in one
hundred years, and we hope that we're going to see
that continue. We've seen individual years in the park. Twenty
(16:53):
thirteen was one where we had two hundred and fifty
three deaths, the lowest ever achieved in recent times. So
we've had individual years in the past and then things
have jumped back up and they've just been a bit
of an aberration, so we are wanting to take a
little bit more time to see what happens in this
year and if we can replicate that performance. We're really
hoping that it is actually signifying that we've turned a
(17:15):
bit of a corner and are seeing some improvements in
our road safety record. There are some positive things that
have been going on in New Zealand over recent years.
It's often doesn't seem that way because most of the
stories that are out there about road safety are about
horrific and tragic crashes. But we have seen a lot
(17:35):
of upgrades and improvements, particularly to some of our highest
risk highways in New Zealand. Over the last sort of
fifteen to twenty years, a lot of those what used
to be our highest risk highways have been replaced by
new modern stretches of road or they've had significant safety
upgrades and they have delivered raally substantial crash reductions. We've
(17:58):
also continue to see vehicle safety improvements just progressing and
getting better over time, so vehicles are more protective and
also have more technology to help prevent crashes. We've seen
a bunch of changes happen around trunk and drugs driving,
and the police have really worked hard to ramp back
(18:19):
up alcohol testing because impair driving by alcohol and drugs
in New Zealand is a chronically bad problem and it
can get close to being forty plus percent of road
deaths in a year, so it's great to see the
police really cracking down on that. Again. We think that
one of the big things that we haven't been doing
enough on from the AA's perspective is actually around that
(18:42):
driver behavior, driver training and trying to upscale people, and
so if we can do more to actually have people
have a bit more knowledge, more awareness, more skills, more
experience as they're starting out, we really hope that we're
only going to see our road safety records keep gets
better and that means less and less people being hurt,
(19:04):
seriously heard or killed and creatures on our rights.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Thanks for joining us, Dylan.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
That's it for this episode of The Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzdherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page is
produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also
our sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front
Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and
(19:35):
tune in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.
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