On The Road with John Williamson - Enforced Speed Limit Increases

John Williamson believes it is sad that speed limits have been politicised. Photo / Jenny Ling

John Williamson is chairman of Roadsafe Northland and Northland Road Safety Trust, a former national councillor for NZ Automobile Association and former Whangārei District Council member.

OPINION

Local Government has had a broadside from the Prime Minister in the past few weeks – and deservedly so. When government departments are required to take 6-7% out of their costs, then it is reasonable that local government should have the same imperative. Instead of that, we have Whangārei District Council increasing rates by 17.2% this year and expecting that to be 55% increase over the next three years. That’s just not acceptable when you compare it to Auckland’s increase that this year only matches inflation. The Prime Ministerial telling off at the annual Local Government conference is timely and relevant.

I have had a few years as an elected representative and the whole notion of councillors going through annual budgets, line by line, is just nonsense. There is very little real councillor interrogation of the annual plans. There are few asking, “why do we do this?” or “why are our staff costs so high, compared to the private sector?” The staff create the plan, and the saying that “turkeys don’t invite themselves to Christmas” is quite relevant. Councillors on a three-year term, generally lack both the knowledge or inclination to drive 7% out of their cost structure. The idea of better, cheaper, faster does not seem to impact locally. So good on the Prime Minister and Local Government Minister in calling the sector to account.

That said, however, there is some validity to the situation that central government asks local government to do more and more without financial recognition for that. This is evident around a number of council functions. Some of the new requests are on a user-pays fee basis, and government sets the fee - while others are simply passed down the line.

Two of the latter are evident in the Government’s announcements about the requirement for ratepayer polls in respect of Māori wards and the requirement to reverse all speed limit changes made on local roads since 2020. Both these requirements create unbudgeted costs and will impact rates. There’s a saying “Don’t look back unless you want to go that way”, and both these requirements are exactly that, based on political expediency.

The Māori ward directive misses an important question. “Do Councils with Māori wards have better representation and make better decisions on behalf of their ratepayers?”. Councils need to explore that question as they approach a ratepayer poll. The notion of one-person, one-vote democracy is just a red herring. No one is entitled to more than one vote for their councillor, whether that be a territory or race-based vote.

It’s the requirement to reverse all speed limit changes that really flies in the face of public opinion. It’s pretty sad that speed limits should be politicised in this way. All the modifications on Northland’s local roads and state highways have been heavily consulted over a long period of time. There are some changes that, with experience, need to be tweaked and which could be considered as micromanaging speed limits. But public opinion is largely supportive of the changes.

NZTA contracts market research firm Veria to regularly sample public opinion about road safety.

In the first quarter of this year, 71% either strongly supported or supported, lower speed limits around schools. In respect to high-risk areas, 62% either strongly supported or supported, lower speed limits. 15% were opposed and 20% were neutral to the changes.

The thing is that the road itself should tell you the safe driving speed and the new posted speed limits are largely reflective of that, and the consultation process. There is little impact on time and productivity of the lower limits, but there are plenty of benefits of less severe crashes, environment friendliness and public well-being, that affirm the sense of the changes. But, for local councils, these reversals just add costs of changes in signs, road markings and public education, with no identifiable upside.

Politicising speed limits is just dumb politics.