Transport Minister Simeon Brown said despite the survey showing strong support for lower speeds around schools and high-risk areas, New Zealanders “overwhelmingly rejected Labour’s blanket and untargeted approach to reducing speed limits on state highways and local roads”.
But Green Party transport spokeswoman Julie Anne Genter, who was Associate Transport Minister when the speed review policy began, told the Herald it was “absurd to say people voted for this”, arguing election polls showed “cost of living and inflation were a major concern for voters, not speed management”.
“I doubt most voters knew Simeon Brown would be forcing councils to raise speeds to unsafe levels around schools and on dangerous roads,” Genter said.
NZTA contracts pollster and market research firm Verian to provide regular reports on the public’s attitude to road safety. It involves asking a weighted sample of about 1665 people a quarter what they think about various aspects of road safety.
The survey for January to March of this year found very high levels of support for lowering speeds around schools, with 27% strongly supporting lower speeds and 44% simply “supporting” lower speeds.
Just 2% strongly opposed lowering speeds around schools and 5% simply “opposed” them; 22% of people were neutral on the matter.
Twenty per cent of people wanted 20 km/h limits around urban schools, 45% wanted 30 km/h, 26% wanted 40 km/h and 7% wanted 50 km/h.
There was also strong support for lowering speed limits in high-risk areas to improve road safety, with 23% strongly supporting lower speeds in high-risk areas, and 39% simply supporting lower speeds in high-risk areas, giving overall support of 62%.
Opposition was relatively muted, with 5% strongly opposing and 10% opposing lower speedsl 20% of respondents were neutral.
There were even narrow margins of support for fairly controversial speed policies.
Half of people support 30km/h speed limits in urban centres – double the number that oppose it, although this number fell between 2022 and 2024.
Twenty per cent strongly supported those speeds, with 32% simply supporting them. Eight per cent strongly opposed those speeds with 23% simply opposing them and 23% being neutral.
Brown said the Government’s new approach to speed limits “economic impacts and the views of road users and local communities are taken into account, alongside safety”.
Transport Minister Simeon Brown. Photo / Mark Mitchell
He said the Government was “committed to keeping young New Zealanders safe as they arrive at or leave school, which is why we are requiring reduced variable speed limits outside schools during pick up and drop off times”.
“This aligns with Kiwis’ expectations for slower speed limits outside schools during pick up and drop off time”.
However, he added it made “no sense at all to make a shift worker heading to work at 4am crawl along at 30 km/h with a permanent speed limit reduction”.
“Instead, we are taking a targeted and balanced approach to ensure children are kept safe when arriving or leaving school, while not inconveniencing motorists travelling around during the remainder of the day”.
Genter was unconvinced.
“The evidence is clear that more people will die and be seriously injured as a result of these changes - and total travel time for most trips will not noticeably change.
“People will not notice saving 20 seconds on a 20-minute drive, they certainly will notice if a loved one is hospitalised or doesn’t come home,” she said.
She noted the coalition agreement explicitly said speed limits would be reversed “where it is safe to do so”.
She said the proposed “new speed rule forces councils to put speeds to unsafe levels, particularly around schools and on dangerous, undivided rural highways”.
There is some controversy over just how “blanket” the former Government’s safer speed policy actually was, with proponents of the policy noting in many circumstances, councils could keep higher speeds outside schools if they felt it justified.
The Herald asked the Ministry of Transport to clarify the rules at 1pm yesterday, but despite being the agency in charge of overseeing the transport system, it was unable to provide a response by deadline.
Several councillors said the minister had not provided evidence to support any of those claims. Instead, they cited a range of data they said showed his claims were wrong. They also said the new rule flew in the face of the Government’s commitment to allow local authorities to make local decisions.
Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.
