Message on speed limit needs to be made clear

Mark Dawson. Daffidils 29 August 2013 Wanganui Chronicle Photograph by Stuart Munro WGM 30Aug13 -

DRIVING to Bulls from Wanganui at the weekend, I noticed a road sign - a picture of a police officer and a statement that the speed limit on the state highway was 100km/h.

But, like almost all Kiwi motorists, I was aware that the police allow a discretionary 10km/h tolerance which put the speed limit up to 110km/h.

Unless it is the stipulated Christmas-New Year holiday season or a statutory holiday when the tolerance is likely to be only 4km/h. And if you are driving past a school, you might find the limit has shifted from 50km/h to 40km/h.

I am, apparently, not the only one who finds these mixed messages a little unclear.

Asking for a review of summer speed limits yesterday, Police Minister Michael Woodhouse commented: "I have received considerable public feedback that the speed tolerance message was confusing."

His call for a review comes in the wake of a worrying rise in the holiday road toll, with 20 deaths over the Christmas-New Year period contrasting with seven deaths last year and six the year before.

Am I alone in questioning this notion of police tolerance? When is a speed limit not a speed limit? When you are in New Zealand.

I haven't driven enough overseas to know how many other countries take this discretionary approach but here's an idea - make the state highway speed limit 100km/h and stick to it. At least that gets rid of the confusion.

I am all for police discretion - in fact, it is one of their most valuable tools, one they use in numerous incidents every day, invariably for the greater good.

And if the highway patrol turns a blind eye to someone doing 102km/h, so be it. But anyone driving over the limit should risk a fine and no amount of moaning about police revenue-gathering will alter the fact they were breaking the law.