One experience which sticks and is relevant today, is about six months into my appointment, the government decided to limit the mileage that farm advisers could travel. No particular reason was given and none were apparent.
The Middle East oil crisis hadn’t yet hit and there was plenty of work around. My allocation was 300km/month which didn’t go far, and we were more or less grounded.
The response from the wider team was creative. We could get support with travel from fertiliser reps, stock agents and vets could help. We could ask farmers to pick us up or we could responsibly hitchhike. Or you could write more or use the phone. Bikes or public transport weren’t an option on Wairoa’s unsealed roads.
Overall, the silly exercise lasted about six months, and I suppose it proved that, if funding is severely reduced and you are committed to the cause, you’ll find ways to be able to continue to be effective and productive. You might need to re establish priorities and to ensure that you can demonstrate measurable outcomes, so that you can justify your existence.
That’s the message from the National Land Transport Program of 2024-27, in summarising that the national funding for road safety promotion activity was to be reduced from $44M in 2021-24 to $20M for 2024-27. That’s a huge 55% reduction in an inflationary environment, and 75% less than was requested for the same period.
The message from the NZTA board is pretty clear and is specified as: “Given all this, it’s essential that investment in road safety promotion is directed to initiatives and activities that are targeted, grounded in best practices and robust, which are based on clear evidence and are delivering measurable outcomes”.
Also accompanying the explanatory material is the statement that: ”Council road safety advertising, (including billboards, radio, television, digital and other print media), will no longer be eligible for NLTF funding.
“Road safety advertising will be delivered by the NZ Transport Agency through a nationally co-ordinated programme.”
What is pretty consistent across the board of current government spending cuts, is the advertising industry is taking a big hit. What is also implied though, is that much of the locally created road safety promotion advertising is largely ineffective and wasted, and that responsibility for media promotion will rest with NZTA, who will no doubt be accountable for its effectiveness.
There’s nothing particularly new in that. I once heard a businessman comment that “I know half my advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don’t know which half.”
The imperative imposed by the new National Land Transport Fund announcement, is that road safety promotion activity must be based on evidence and focused on measurable outcomes.
We at Northland Road Safety Trust, interpret that as being in the driver’s licence space to ensure that: “Every driver on the road is a legal driver” and that “If you make a mistake with drugs, alcohol or dangerous driving, we will help you get back on the road as a legal driver”.
The need to have a legal drivers licence is pretty clear from recent announcements about benefit sanctions and being work ready. The need to be legal on the road is also clear with the Transport Minister’s recent announcements about police targets for drink and drugged driver testing.
To be required to provide evidence based measurable outcomes should not be a surprise to anyone who has the privilege to spend public money.
