Safer speeds

• In 2008, speed contributed to 34 percent of New Zealand’s fatal crashes and 20 percent of serious injury crashes. These crashes resulted in 127 deaths, 560 serious injuries and 2,049 minor injuries.
• Our progress in reducing speeding has stalled. Many drivers still exceed speed limits or drive too fast for the conditions.

How can we make our speeds safer?

Reinvigorate our education and advertising efforts to improve understanding of the risks and consequences of speeding
Many people do not understand the consequences of speeding and the importance of driving to the conditions. We could reinvigorate our education and advertising in these areas.

Improve the effectiveness of enforcement
Enforcement works best when it is highly visible and where drivers can expect speed limits to be strongly enforced ‘anytime, anywhere.’ The following are ways of improving the effectiveness and consistency of our enforcement.

a) Improve detection coverage by increasing the number of road safety cameras
New Zealand has relatively few road safety cameras (this term includes speed cameras and red-light cameras). We could employ more road safety cameras, and place them where they will have the most effect.

b) Change the penalty system to deter speeding (higher demerit points and lower fines)
Our current penalty system for speed enforcement is based more on fines rather than demerit points. Demerit points and fines are currently awarded when a Police officer issues a ticket, but camera-detected offences attract only a fine. This gives the public mixed messages.

We could reduce fines and increase demerit points for speeding and apply the same penalties for offences detected by a speed camera and those detected by a Police officer.

Create more speed zones to establish the criteria for what roads with different speed limits should look like (eg 80 km/h, 90 km/h)
This initiative focuses on roads where speed-related crashes are a big problem and the existing 100 km/h limit is clearly unsafe. On these roads a number of 80 km/h or 90km/h speed zones would be created, supported by engineering treatments and other signage where possible.

Review speed limits on mixed-use urban arterials
Moderating speeds on arterials (main urban roads) would reduce crashes, because when crashes do occur they would not be as serious. This initiative would be integrated with the proposal to develop new engineering approaches to safety on mixed use arterial roads.

Increase the adoption of lower speed limits in urban areas
In New Zealand, 30 km/h or 40 km/h speed zones are beginning to be introduced for safety reasons. These are mainly on central city streets (such as shopping centres) and in residential neighbourhoods. We could build on this momentum and continue to improve the way we target and treat these areas.

Investigate the introduction of an Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) system in New Zealand
Intelligent Speed Assistance is a device in a vehicle that alerts the driver when they are speeding. It can also slow the vehicle automatically.

Download the full section on areas of high concern (PDF v7.0, 935kb)

Download the full discussion document (PDF v7.0, 2.50mb)