The changes have been endorsed by transport researchers and street safety advocates as effective measures to help reduce the number of Kiwis killed and injured on the roads.

That's all there is to it.

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[–] sylverstream@lemmy.nz 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (29 children)

Have you read the entire article? I'm absolutely not a National fan but they're not saying that they will reverse all changes, only there were it's safe to do so. Essentially what the current plan is, perhaps at less places.

Also, they want to focus on other things than speed, eg on alcohol testing.

National will encourage police to increase the use of breath testing and we will fix roadside drug testing legislation so police can effectively test drivers for drugs.

I'm from The Netherlands where we have an absurd focus on speed, and speed testing. It has got nothing to do with safety where they are testing, it's just another tax.

I've got my license 25 years or so and have only been tested for alcohol once. Never in my ten years in New Zealand. That's crazy. One in five fatal crashes is caused by alcohol.

[–] Xcf456@lemmy.nz 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think it's generous to take what they say at face value. They often slap on this sort of handwaving away of the predictable negative outcomes of whatever they're proposing to roll back. It's not actually backed up with anything - it's just designed to let them have it both ways.

Kinda like their tax cuts they say won't be inflationary, and their foreign buyer ban relaxation that they say somehow won't lead to house prices going up.

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemmy.nz 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

the predictable negative outcomes of whatever they're proposing to roll back.

The evidence that lower speed limits actually helps is pretty tenuous, and there's also the lost time and productivity to consider.

[–] Xcf456@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It seems to depend on where you count your costs and benefits, and who is included in that.

Research seems to say that lower speeds are beneficial to society overall in a range of ways, National only seem to be counting car drivers and their right to continue taking up most of our public road space at the expense of everyone else.

https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/news/2022/lower-speed-limits-dont-just-save-lives-they-make-nz-towns-and-cities-better-places-to-live.html

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemmy.nz 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

OK, but this is talking about urban speed limits, whereas National's focus is mostly on open road limits.

[–] Xcf456@lemmy.nz 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

No it isn't, they've said they're rolling back both

[–] Ilovethebomb@lemmy.nz 1 points 2 years ago

They've said they're rolling them back unless it wouldn't be safe to do so, and most of their press talks about open road limits.

It sounds like most of the urban limits will stay.

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