Dylan Thomsen: AA Road Safety spokesperson on police missing funding for failing to issue enough speeding tickets

The police have missed out on a $6 million funding incentive for failing to issue enough speeding tickets. 

The Transport Minister promised earlier in the year that police could expect to receive $72 million as part of their funding from NZTA - if certain road policing targets were met.

 AA Road Safety spokesperson Dylan Thomsen says police managed to exceed alcohol testing targets this quarter - which the association is pleased to see.

"Really, this is just part of a huge push from the Government here to increase the amount of enforcement around alcohol and drugs and speeding."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now, six million dollars of police funding is on
hold because they didn't quite meet all of their new
infringement targets. You'll remember that some police funding is now
dependent on doing a certain number of roadside drug tests
and issuing a certain number of speeding tickets. Well, in
the July September quarter police met all of their targets
except one. They didn't issue enough speeding tickets on open roads.

(00:22):
Dylan Thompson is the road safety spokesperson at AA. He's
with us now, Dylan, good evening, Good afternoon, How are
you doing right?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Good? Thank you.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Does this mean that we just weren't speeding.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Well, that's a really hard question to answer, actually, because
nobody knows exactly what's going on on the roads everywhere,
all at once. Unlikely. So I think what it's just
meant is that the police probably didn't manage to spend
as much time in forcing out on the open roads

(00:55):
as they would have been aiming to.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Police have caught flak in the past for not doing
enough breath tests, So the fact that they've met the
breath test and the drug test target they should be
commended for.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Well, it's just the alcohol tests at the moment. We're
still waiting to introduce roadside drug testing next year. But
they not only hit the target for alcohol tests in
this quarter, but way exceeded it, and we're so pleased
to see that. So that is really good news. And
really this is just part of a huge push from

(01:28):
the government here to increase the amount of enforcement around
alcohol and drugs ultimately and speeding. They're really focused on that.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Which is good. I've noticed a lot in the central city.
I've noticed a lot of breathalyzer tests happening. I'm wondering,
and I noticed that these tickets that they're not doing
are on the open road. Are they taking the easy
option and doing breathalyzer tests and perhaps catching speed is
close to the cities rather than going out into the
regions and doing the hard stuff on the alcohol tests.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
You know, part of that target is they've got their
total number of tests and then they've also got a
certain number at what they have defined as high and
extreme alcohol risk hours. So I think they are trying
to target it. But you're always going to be able
to test more people quickly in our big urban centers

(02:23):
than out in the regions. And I mean, I think
we've got to get that mix right. And that's part
of the reason, I guess for the focus on the
open road enforcement of speeding, because those are the roads
that we tend to have higher rates of fatal crashes
and some of those really horrific crashes out there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
Interesting. Thank you so much for that, Dylan. Great to
have you on the show. As always, Ylan Thompson the
road safety spokesperson for AA. For more from Heather Duplessy
Allen Drive, listen live to news talks. It'd be from
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