Road test: Did the controversial new Napier-Taupō speed limit slow us down?

Te Haroto gets a welcome sign, but Tarawera wants one too. Photo / Doug Laing

Hawke's Bay Today reporter Doug Laing drove the Napier-Taupō highway 'before' and 'after' a controversial new 80km/h speed limit came into effect. Here is what he found.

The long and winding Napier-Taupō highway became longer before its time.

The contentious 76km stretch of a new safer-speed zone was already littered with 80km/h signs several hours before they legally came into force at midnight on Thursday.

Thus, a not-particularly-scientific test to gauge a "before" journey with a maximum speed of 100km/h on Thursday and a return "after" journey at the new 80km/h limit on Friday tended toward the side of "still in question".

At an educated guess, Waka Kotahi NZTA's creation of the 76km Safer Speed Area adds at least 10-15 minutes each way.

On Thursday evening, much of Hawke's Bay Today's "before" journey was spent in the tracks of a laden light truck, its driver dutifully sticking to 80km/h, four to five hours before it was required to.

For the record, the 76km driven by myself - as a private motorist I travel this road each way 15-16 times a year - took one hour and 14 minutes, an average of 1.03km a minute, or 61.62km an hour, using mathematics rather than science.

Just over 12 hours later, keeping below the new 80km/h limit, I began the return trip, the 76km sector taking 1hr 25mins – 0.9km a minute or 53.65km an hour.

Oncoming northbound traffic easily outnumbered that of the previous evening, one queue that had massed at roadworks having more trucks and cars than I'd seen on the road the entire trip 12 hours earlier.

The elapsed time of the journey takes into account a stop with Jim Andrew at the Tarawera Café, which he took over 13 years ago in its Tarawera Tavern days.

Outside on the highway a vanload of seasonal workers, on their way for a break in Taupō, turned across the highway 16 months ago and into the path of a truck and tanker, also heading towards Taupō. One of those in the van died, and 10 others, including its driver, were injured.

Tarawera Cafe proprietor Jim Andrew, who says 90km/h as an alternative, and 60km/h at Tarawera should be the go. Photo / Doug Laing

Jim and partner Marie Whaiapu have rushed to help at many crash scenes over the years, being as they are in possibly the most dangerous kilometres of the Thermal Explorer Highway, as it's called by agencies with tourism in mind.

In the section outside he'd like the speed limit to be even lower – 60km/h he suggests - and for most of the road 90km/h would have been acceptable enough as an alternative, as recognised by Hawke's Bay's Road Transport Committee.

"They've got it all wrong," he says, conjecturing that those who made the decision must have been in a 10-vehicle queue with little perspective on the general nature of the highway, which now has increased policing and a "Stay Alive on 5" campaign during which there has not been a single fatality.

While some will have seen enough of the signs, Jim Andrew would like one more, noting that further down the highway towards Napier there are large new "Welcome to Te Pohue" and "Welcome to Te Haroto" signs, with the 80km/h decree.

"All we've got is a Slow Down High Crash Area sign that was already there, and the dirty old small [Tarawera] sign down the road that's been there 20 to 30 years," he says. "We're the halfway mark, there's a café which has a post office, a car [and camper] park, and public toilets. I'm disappointed."

Truckie Craig Read has been driving the highway for over 40 years and back in the Bay – landing at Awatoto about 1pm, eight hours after waking in Hamilton to hit the road by 5.30am - he says he noticed the difference of a lower speed limit immediately.

It slowed him down, with less opportunity to get up speed to climb the hills, and as he was only able to pull over at designated passing spots, other motorists suffered, he says.

"A 10km lower speed – with 58 tonnes and 23 metres of truck - does make a big difference when it comes to a climb up," he says.

Depending on road conditions, he says the time added to the journey – including missing unloading booking times - could mean some journeys will have to be stretched over two driver shifts or days. With other additional costs also likely, companies may struggle with the viability of the journeys, a point noted by Napier Port executives worried about possibly losing a competitive edge.

"It will be harder to make a dollar," Read says.

Talking about dollars ... On Thursday night the price of 91-octane fuel at the last stop north, the BP Bay View, was 265.9 a litre, the next morning at Taupō's last stop, Z Energy, was 282.9 cents per litre.

Now that, really, is where there should be a limit.