Speed limits too high on most roads, NZTA estimates

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Speed limits too high on most roads, NZTA estimates

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#2252315 5-Jun-2019 19:32

1101:
What a load of codswallop
How is it, that race cars can do 2x,3x the speed limit on our very worst roads. Are the roads really so unsafe, it seems not.
Yes we use our very worst unsealed roads for racing. Stop saying its the roads.

Its the driver.

How serious are we about safety. Not just words. Actions
They enforce helmets for pushbikes & motorcycles, but car drivers somehow exempt. Head injuries can be ignored in cars it seems .

How is it that old, seriously unsafe cars and vans are still allowed on the road. Work Vans with abysmal crash protection. Old cars with abysmal
crash protection (I only just got rid of mine) . Vans that dont meet NZ regs but are still allowed into NZ .

Have Traffic Cops in giving out tickets in shopping centre car parks rather than being out on the road (yes, that happens)
Have so few roadside booze breath tests that it can be years before you get caught
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/111211439/number-of-police-drinkdrive-breath-tests-drops-by-more-than-a-million-in-five-years

Lets just go for the easy to do option , so that it looks like we're doing something.

Fully agree with this.

As it is silly to suggest lower speed limits, when people have to drive unsafe Van's as part of their job. Van's which if an overseas employer were to provide their staff, they would get sued for very big $$$. Yet are considered perfectly ok in NZ.

And what speed limit would the government choose anyway? As the handling and stopping abilities of even brand new cars varies wildly. Unless you make the speed limit 20Km/Hr, you would still be reliant on drivers being able to correctly judge what an appropriate speed for the road and conditions is.

If the old vehicle fleet was really such a major issue. The government could have easily fixed that by allowing the European diesel vehicles that were emissions cheating to be imported. As they were only cheating the NOx emissions. While they actually had really low carbon emissions. (as cheating on NOx emissions means less fuel used, therefore lower carbon emissions). We could have gotten a much newer and safer vehicle fleet, and helped the environment due to lower carbon emissions. But ideology is more important than actually fixing the problem.

I get that there are reasons why high NOx emissions can be a problem. But those problems apply mainly to countries that are part of large continental land masses. Not to islands in the middle of the ocean.

wsnz

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Ultimate Geek

#2252325 5-Jun-2019 19:55

Azzura:

Roads in NZ are pretty bad vs Canada and the US. If you took the 100kmh roads in NZ and put them in Canada.....most of them wouldn't be 100kmh. A lot of the NZ State highways would definitely not be 100kmh in Canada. Not even sure they would be considered highways. They're more like the secondary roads in New Brunswick at 70,80, maybe 90kmh.

Aside from the trans-Canada highway, our experience with roads thein Canada are that they are pretty similar to NZ. Many parts in peak tourism areas (e.g. Highway 93 with a 90Kph limit) are in worse condition than similar routes in NZ. The rest of North America (including Hawaii) also has its share of poor condition but highly utilised roads.

Technofreak

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#2252326 5-Jun-2019 19:55

Benoire:

In the absence of protection against on coming vehicles on our rural roads, reduction in speeds to the 70kph mark (agreed limits of human body in a vehicle in a head-on) seems appropriate, or do you believe that a road toll is an acceptable outcome for a modern transport network? Evidence by road safety specialists have indicated that campaigns have a 1-2% impact on driver behaviour; our putting it another way we have been trying to educate for 30y+ and if it was effective, why do we still have poor driver habits, poor overtaking etc. surley the education done to date would have made us all compliant?

The question has to asked, Why are the head on accidents occurring? Poor driver control? Inattention? Driving conditions? We need to address the root causes.

Accepting that accidents are OK if we reduce the speed to 70 kph is just plain silly. Here's another equally silly idea that would work: Why don't we drop the speed limit to zero? Then there would be no motor vehicle deaths or injuries.

I think we should all remember the speed limit is a limit, not at target. If we don't feel comfortable at the speed limit or the road/driving conditions are degraded meaning the posted limit is dangerous in those conditions then we should adjust our speed accordingly. We shouldn't need a lower limit to tell us to slow down. If we do slow below the limit, be courteous and let faster vehicles past.

I think there needs to be a focus on 4 things.

Better maintenance of our roads. The higher traffic volumes especially trucks is causing greater wear and tear on our roads. Traffic volumes have increased but I don't think the road maintenance has kept up.
There needs to be better driver training. How much of the training for new driver is focussed on driving to the conditions on the open road?

I rather suspect with the urban drift of our population more and more drivers never get decent exposure on the open highway and secondary main roads. When they do drive on them they are not confident. I was shocked recently when someone told me they though a stretch of 100 kph road was really an 80 kph road. This piece of road is easily driven at 100 kph.

I'd go as far to say there should be a significant piece of highway driving included in the driving test.

I'd also suggest skid pan driver training wouldn't go amiss. In days gone by most rural kids got this in the farm paddock, and so did their townie mates who visited the farm.
Properly enforce the rules around texting and the use of hands free kits while driving, to reduce inattention accidents.
Have a concerted programme to improve driving courtesy. If we can be successful with the smoke free programme we can do it to improve driving standards as well.

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wsnz

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Ultimate Geek

#2252368 5-Jun-2019 20:05

Aredwood:

As it is silly to suggest lower speed limits, when people have to drive unsafe Van's as part of their job. Van's which if an overseas employer were to provide their staff, they would get sued for very big $$$. Yet are considered perfectly ok in NZ.

And what speed limit would the government choose anyway? As the handling and stopping abilities of even brand new cars varies wildly. Unless you make the speed limit 20Km/Hr, you would still be reliant on drivers being able to correctly judge what an appropriate speed for the road and conditions is.

Personally, I don't think the Government will agree entirely with the NZTA proposals, however they are likely to ask for implementation of some targeted speed reductions and "improvements" to the road network.

The NZTA's current ideology, which has been reinforced by the new priority given to them by the Government, is to reduce injury related accidents at the expense of efficiency and travel time. The way the NZTA implement this is currently through the use of wide centre lines, removal of passing lanes (which ostensibly promote speeding), the so called cheese-cutter barriers, lower speed limits and roundabouts which slow traffic etc. The latter especially, sees widespread public support, even though there are some very common misconceptions about why roundabouts are being implemented.

Technofreak

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#2252369 5-Jun-2019 20:05

gzt: This is almost non-news. Open road is predominantly rural area where no vehicle in existence can actually travel at that speed on most of that road in reality.

Really? Most of the rural roads I know of can be driven quite safely at 100 kph. Sure there are portions that require you to slow down, but I think your comment is a gross over exaggeration. I hope you pull over and let other drivers past when you travel on them.

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wsnz

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Ultimate Geek

#2252370 5-Jun-2019 20:07

Technofreak:

gzt: This is almost non-news. Open road is predominantly rural area where no vehicle in existence can actually travel at that speed on most of that road in reality.

Really? Most of the rural roads I know of can be driven quite safely at 100 kph. Sure there are portions that require you to slow down, but I think your comment is a gross over exaggeration. I hope you pull over and let other drivers past when you travel on them.

Yes, and of course the open road speed limit is an upper limit, not the set limit, so it's up to the individuals to decide if they can manage to achieve the posted limit safely.

Azzura

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#2252387 5-Jun-2019 20:48

wsnz:

Azzura:

Roads in NZ are pretty bad vs Canada and the US. If you took the 100kmh roads in NZ and put them in Canada.....most of them wouldn't be 100kmh. A lot of the NZ State highways would definitely not be 100kmh in Canada. Not even sure they would be considered highways. They're more like the secondary roads in New Brunswick at 70,80, maybe 90kmh.

Aside from the trans-Canada highway, our experience with roads thein Canada are that they are pretty similar to NZ. Many parts in peak tourism areas (e.g. Highway 93 with a 90Kph limit) are in worse condition than similar routes in NZ. The rest of North America (including Hawaii) also has its share of poor condition but highly utilised roads.

Well in NZ this part of 93 would be dotted line all the way for go ahead pass. But in Canada most of the NZ roads would not be safe for overtaking.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/%D0%90%D0%B9%D1%81%D1%84%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%B4.jpg

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Handle9

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#2252399 5-Jun-2019 21:22

Benoire:
1101:

What a load of codswallop
How is it, that race cars can do 2x,3x the speed limit on our very worst roads. Are the roads really so unsafe, it seems not.
Yes we use our very worst unsealed roads for racing. Stop saying its the roads.

What racing is done on our road network that isn't done by a top class race driver in specially conditioned vehicles? I can only think of WRC that meets that criteria? The very reason we have so many advisory curve speeds on the rural network is because the geometry doesn't meet actual real life design criteria for the normal person.

For urban areas speed limits should be related to the most vulnerable user at the point of no protection, i.e. pedestrian crossings, intersections etc. which ~30kph; rural roads can be higher but even then a car on car conflict at 71kph+ has a high risk of DSI... Driver education WILL not eradicate the issue of errant and reckless behaviour, only separation or speed will. The purpose behind the speed reductions is the reduction in kinetic energy absorbed by bodies in a crash and remember that the person that initiated the crash may not be the one who suffers the consequences, it could be an innocent party who was driving well and in line with the right behaviour.

Don't go coming in here with your logic and science. All speed related threads on geekzone rely on "common sense" and the strong certainty that "other people" are the problem.

Batman

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#2252518 5-Jun-2019 21:45

the wheels on the bus go round and round .... (referring to how this must be the umpteenth reincarnation of the same thread!)

but ok, yes let's discuss :)

Azzura

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Ultimate Geek

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#2252741 6-Jun-2019 07:55

https://www.euronews.com/2018/02/20/how-sweden-became-the-eu-s-road-safety-champion

“People will always make mistakes. You can’t count on that never happening,” Krafft said, “But just like at a nuclear power plant, human errors on the roads need not have devastating consequences and so we focus on building systems that counteract such consequences.”

mudguard

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#2252757 6-Jun-2019 08:52

1101:

What a load of codswallop
How is it, that race cars can do 2x,3x the speed limit on our very worst roads. Are the roads really so unsafe, it seems not.
Yes we use our very worst unsealed roads for racing. Stop saying its the roads.

Do you also use one lane and have oncoming traffic? I drive all over NZ for work, about 30,000km in my own car, the rest in rentals, and cover Kaitaia to Invercargill. Speed limits dropping on many roads would be a pretty easy answer I think. I might average 75kmh on a trip with a decent road, but it quickly drops on most of the roads in NZ. SH7 into SH69/SH6 (Greymouth to Nelson)is a lovely road, but in the wet, with truck spray there are very few passing opportunities. If you go directly up SH6, another lovely road, in parts it's quite windy with numerous blind corners, but prone at times of the year to ghastly weather and plenty of 80kmh 'freedom campers'.

I honestly don't think it would bother me. I see 10 times the number of police on the roads during a long weekend than I do in a 1500km work round trip.

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#2252769 6-Jun-2019 09:25

Greg Murphy has chipped in saying its not the speed but training and testing.

clevedon

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#2252770 6-Jun-2019 09:28

mudguard:

1101:

What a load of codswallop
How is it, that race cars can do 2x,3x the speed limit on our very worst roads. Are the roads really so unsafe, it seems not.
Yes we use our very worst unsealed roads for racing. Stop saying its the roads.

Do you also use one lane and have oncoming traffic? I drive all over NZ for work, about 30,000km in my own car, the rest in rentals, and cover Kaitaia to Invercargill. Speed limits dropping on many roads would be a pretty easy answer I think. I might average 75kmh on a trip with a decent road, but it quickly drops on most of the roads in NZ. SH7 into SH69/SH6 (Greymouth to Nelson)is a lovely road, but in the wet, with truck spray there are very few passing opportunities. If you go directly up SH6, another lovely road, in parts it's quite windy with numerous blind corners, but prone at times of the year to ghastly weather and plenty of 80kmh 'freedom campers'.

I honestly don't think it would bother me. I see 10 times the number of police on the roads during a long weekend than I do in a 1500km work round trip.

So it's not the roads - just drive to the conditions no matter where you are.

Benoire

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#2252772 6-Jun-2019 09:30

Batman: Greg Murphy has chipped in saying its not the speed but training and testing.

I completely disagree that its not speed; is good training and testing going to improve the kinetic energy absorption of the human being? No, I suspect not. What good training and testing will do is eliminate some of the outliers but it will not improve the general driving standard enough to make a difference... And then if it did, and there where say 10% poor drivers left , is that still acceptable that those 10% could cause a consequence on someone else due to their reckless behaviour?

Remember the speed issue debate isn't about stopping accidents, that will never happen... its about reducing the number of deaths and serious injuries, which is why 30kph for areas where people on foot use and 70kph where its only vehicles are the numbers being banded around... They're the 'safe' levels of energy absorption that we can tolerate without suffering death or serious injury.

Batman

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#2252787 6-Jun-2019 09:34

I'm just saying what Greg said...

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