SAFETY FEATURES DON’T END AT THE CAR DOOR

Opinion: Make it click – seatbelts save lives. Regulations requiring safety features within vehicles, such as seatbelts, anti-lock braking systems and airbags, have dramatically improved safety for drivers and passengers, and it’s difficult to imagine any government abandoning those regulations, much less removing safety features that have already been installed. Yet that’s exactly what the coalition Government proposes to do with its new draft speed limit rule, currently open for submissions.

The evidence for safe speeds in our towns and cities is just as compelling. The physics of tons of metal impacting flesh and bone are unforgiving; our reaction times developed over the millennia when no human being could travel faster than a sprint. At 50km/hr, a crash is both more likely and more devastating: a pedestrian hit at 50km/hr has a 90 percent chance of dying. At 30km/hr, we’re more likely to be able to react in time to turn a crash into a near miss, and if a crash does happen, we have a 90 percent chance of survival.

This isn’t simply academic; too many of us have lost someone on our roads, and most of us know someone with a story of a near miss, or who walked away from a crash because it happened at survivable speeds.

In 2018, NZ’s damning road safety record placed us 4th worst of 32 OECD nations in road fatalities per 100,000 population, and the Labour government’s speed rules took an evidence-based approach to changing that. Road controlling authorities were required to take account of the evidence on road safety, and to prioritise streets around schools, where our most vulnerable citizens – children – travel most often.

Arrival time and home time are crucial, of course, but children and others travel around schools at all times of day, and we know that most deaths and serious injuries on the streets around schools take place outside the times proposed for variable speed limits. Reflecting that, a strong majority of principals who provided feedback on Auckland Transport’s safe speeds programme supported all-day safe speed limits on residential streets around schools.

The coalition Government proposes to take away those all-day protections, leaving safe speeds in place only around 9am and 3pm. Students who arrive or leave outside those fixed periods, perhaps for a class trip, a music lesson, a bike skills class, or an after-school club, will have to navigate streets where traffic travels at speeds we know are unsurvivable in a crash.

Local authorities are also currently able to take account of local conditions and set speed limits that make sense for their communities. For some streets, like most arterials, this will be 50km/hr, while for others, such as quiet residential streets with no formal pedestrian crossings, or main streets through bustling town centres, a limit of 30km/hr allows everyone using the street to share space safely. The coalition Government’s proposal sets a blanket speed limit of 50km/hr for local roads, with no room for local authorities to use their own knowledge or judgement, or to take into account community needs.

We know safe speeds work. An evaluation of the first two years of Auckland safe speeds programme showed a 38.8 percent reduction in fatalities, an 18.4 percent reduction in all injuries (both minor and serious) and an overall 11.8 percent reduction in deaths and serious injuries, compared to the expected numbers if no changes had been made.

In 2017, the Ministry of Transport quantified the social cost of road crashes in the Auckland region at $1.1 billion, and the cost to people who lose a loved one is, of course, incalculable. We all deserve to be able to go where we need to go and come home safely to our loved ones, and that includes those of us who don’t or can’t drive for every trip. Students walking to school deserve safe streets; so do teenagers biking to see their friends, parents walking to the local park, commuters walking to the bus or train, retired people on a day out – safe speeds support our communities.

It’s hard to believe now, but seatbelts once faced vehement opposition: in 1984, a US survey found that 65 percent of respondents opposed seatbelt laws. In time, the evidence won out, and we are all safer for it. Seatbelts, air bags and other safety features protect us when we travel in cars. When we’re not in cars, we rely on a safe street environment to prevent and mitigate crashes. Snatching away safe speed limits is as unthinkable as taking away our seatbelts.*

• Christine Robertson’s views are her own and not that of the Albdert-Eden Local Board

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2024-07-05T17:43:25Z dg43tfdfdgfd