But I mention it in passing, because it’s relevant to another observation I made - why did Waka Kotahi set itself up to fail with the Road to Zero campaign?
There is nothing wrong with the intent of the campaign, but declaring ‘zero’ as your target is nuts.
It is doomed to fail, due to the variable that Waka Kotahi has zero control over - drivers.
Perhaps the PR geniuses behind Labour’s promise to build what seemed like a trillion houses in a year were the same people behind Road to Zero.
Because, just like the housing failure, it seems no one has done the math. It can’t be done, and turns Road to Zero into an aspirational PR campaign.
The Road to Zero strategy was introduced in 2019. The long-term goal is no deaths or serious injuries on our roads.
Short term, we’re aiming for a 40 per cent reduction by 2030.
Craig Cooper's driven a lot recently. And it's been a trial at times. Photo / NZME
This, somehow, is based on 2018′s benchmark of 378 road deaths.
Yep, an average of one person is killed every day, and sadly, we are on target to meet this in 2022.
In the years 2018 to 2020, alcohol or drugs were a factor in 44 per cent of fatal crashes. Again, Waka Kotahi has its hands full trying to change this behaviour.
We can and indeed should do better, but a zero target?
In wet road conditions last month, heading north on the Remutaka Ranges, an impatient driver passed me on double yellow lines, downhill.
What does Waka Kotahi propose to do with people like that?
Or people who drink/drug and drive and crash?
The Remutaka journey, is, in my experience, the poisonous snake of the North Island highway network.
Hard to handle, slippery, twisted like the bough of an old tree and ready to deliver a fatal bite when you least expect it.
Every time I’ve driven them, someone sits impatiently on my tail, as if I’m rattling along in a wooden cart towed by a Clydesdale.
The second time I did the return trip to the capital, I tried the Transmission Gully route.
Having driven it twice now, I wondered why I bothered. There is little incentive to use it.
Motorists - especially male drivers - are simple beasts. New motorway or highway? How much time do I save?
On the other hand, the highway that now runs from near Cambridge all the way through to Auckland, bar a Mercer diversion, is a time saver.
And has a 110km/h speed limit as well - the closest thing we have to a European autobahn.
As for the SH5 Napier-Taupo 80km/h limit - if Waka Kotahi wants people to adhere to it then it needs half a dozen speed cameras, because no one seems to drive at 80km/h.
Especially when you have to wait 25 minutes at road works, with no explanation for the unusually long delay, and then try to catch up lost time on your way home.
It’s one thing to aspire to get better, to be great even, but setting unachievable goals such as zero road deaths, or 80km/h limits on SH5, lack common sense.
Ironically that’s a human trait - the biggest challenge in the way of Waka Kotahi achieving its zero target.
* Craig Cooper is a former Hawke’s Bay Today editor. He writes a weekly column called Reverse Spin - his take on life in the Bay.
