Just as the school holidays get under way, children around the country will be at higher risk on streets in their neighbourhoods as the Setting of Speed Limits Rule (the Rule) introduced by Minister Simeon Brown and implemented by current Minister of Transport Chris Bishop requires councils to revert to dangerous higher speed limits from 1 July, with variable speeds in place only at school gates at the start and end of the school day.

“Children across the country are at risk from higher speeds when they’re walking, biking or scooting around their neighbourhoods. If hit by a vehicle going 50km/h, children have an 80% higher likelihood of being killed or seriously injured than at 30km/h. We also know that 85% of crashes that injure or kill people on streets around schools happen outside of those short periods at the beginning and end of the school day”, says Caroline Perry, NZ Director of Brake, the road safety charity, and a spokesperson for the Save our Safe Streets campaign.

“The heightened risk is especially concerning in Auckland, where Auckland Transport has taken an unusually strict interpretation of the Rule that has seen over 1400 mainly quiet residential streets swept up in speed limit reversals. Not only has AT gone far further than other councils in applying the rule, they have rushed the work, resulting in confusing, incomplete, contradictory and dangerous signage,” says Ms Perry.

The Save our Safe Streets campaign is an alliance of leading road safety experts and transport advocates. In a briefing paper to Auckland Council's Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee, they have documented AT's flawed approach to the Rule. In particular they note that the rollout of reversals back to unsafe speeds – against the wishes of impacted communities – will result in harm to Aucklanders, wasteful expenditure, unnecessary disruption, higher costs and more extensive traffic management processes, environmental and economic damage, and a less efficient, more congested transport network.

Group member Pippa Coom says, “Instead of doing everything it could to defend its world-class road safety programme from ill-advised reversals, AT has capitulated effectively throwing Aucklanders under the bus at every opportunity. Moreover, the small handful of streets that have retained safe speeds were saved only due to tenacious intervention by residents and advocates – with neither public acknowledgement nor thanks from AT.”

“Throughout, AT has operated in secret. It has not been transparent or proactive in its dealings with Council and the public about its process around the Speed Limit Rule, nor has it communicated the impacts on communities. AT has had plenty of opportunities to limit the perverse and harmful outcomes of the Speed Limit Rule but chose not to, despite increasingly urgent requests from community leaders, advocates, and elected members,” says Ms Coom.

Councillor Julie Fairey expressed profound disappointment in the outcome for Auckland. “AT just were not interested in moving on this, despite being given plenty of opportunities and excuses they could use. Sadly, I think we won’t have a full realisation of the liability question until someone is hurt or killed. The advocacy efforts on this have been amazing, huge amounts of research and effort put in, all voluntary, and the stonewalling at senior levels of AT has been heartbreaking”. She has gone on to say, “I find it particularly cruel that many of the staff who have had to roll this out were those who understand the evidence, championed and implemented safer speeds.”

The higher speeds kick in on 1 July, during the school holidays, and the reality of central government overriding evidence and local preference is only just becoming clear to many communities. For example, a stretch of beach north of Auckland is rising from 50km/h to 70km/h against community wishes, while further south, a nonsensical 100km/h will be installed on a dangerous stretch of road through a Lake Taupō campground.

Ms Perry adds, “A few fortunate communities, such as Rakaia and Nelson, will be rightly celebrating their common-sense retention of safe speeds, but this only came after a hard-fought campaign resulted in public consultation on the proposed speed limit increases to these stretches of road.”

“It should be common-sense to always apply the evidence to keep children safe. Everyone benefits when children can move independently, when people are free to walk and cycle without fear of serious injury and death, and when streets are safer for all of us,” says Ms Perry.

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