It is well past time New Zealand recognised our open roads are not all safe enough to justify a 100km/h speed limit.
The Transport Agency's announcement this week that it is looking at possibly cutting the speed on some rural roads to as low as 60km/h or 80km/h recognises all roads are not created equal.
Any motorist on a back road across the Waikato or Northland knows the risks of travelling at the legal speed while facing oncoming vehicles and shoulders of gravel and drainage ditches.
If the agency wins approval to introduce low-speed open roads, targeted at the condition of the road in question, motorists will welcome the clarity - if there are not too many designations and they are applied consistently nationwide.
The flip side to lower rural limits is talk of increasing the legal speed on motorways and perhaps the Waikato Expressway to 110km/h, a speed many cars would nudge regularly already when traffic permits. These roads, mostly fitted with barriers between oncoming streams of vehicles and engineered for speed, should qualify for the higher limit.
