School Speed Trial Nonsense

School Speed Trial Nonsense

Our Transport Minister, Steven Joyce launched the United Nations’ Decade of Action on Road Safety some days ago, announcing the Safer Journeys Action Plan 2011-2012. On reading through the Safer Journeys Action Plan I have found many commendable initiatives, but there is no mention of our most vulnerable road users: our school children. Children need to be encouraged to make their own way to school, but there is nothing in this action plan to give parents the confidence that their children will be treated with the utmost care on our roads. We need a National School Zone Speed Limit of 40km/h or less. That would put out a message that our Government cares about our children and it looks as if the solution is just around the corner.

Young drivers these days have often had no experience of road dangers and they are some of the ones being targeted with the Safer Journeys Inititiative. How can you expect youngsters to drive safely, when they have not had any opportunity to experience the dangers first hand? When we were young, we had to make our way, out and about on foot or on our bikes. These days though, children are driven everywhere as the roads are too dangerous. A National Speed Limit outside schools will give children the opportunity to at least come and go from school in relative safety and give drivers an indication of a safe speed near children.

Let us get back to the solution to this problem; it is in fact just around the corner from where I live in the Waimakariri District, just the other side of Christchurch in the District of Selwyn. After lengthy negotiations with NZTA the Selwyn District Council have announced that they are going to give School Speed Limits a trial, even in rural areas, which have on the whole been ignored in the past. Their signs are not like the traditional red ringed speed limit sign, but instead they are massive, green and what they call an ‘advisory sign’ of 40km/h and on the other side they will have signs of children playing. Speed measuring devices and Police enforcement will back these signs up, as well as extra road markings. If drivers get caught speeding, when children are present they will be charged with careless driving. Some of the signs will be outside schools on 100km/h roads, but what is most significant is that the onus is on the driver to drive responsibly and at a speed indicated, when children are present, so at last there will be a law that protects children on roads outside schools, but currently only in Selwyn. Similar signage to this in school zones has proved very successful in the USA.

Although I am delighted to see this trial taking place in the Selwyn, I think that it will only really work if it is introduced nationally. Could it be that the NZTA is keeping this at such a small scale with the hope that the trial fails? Yet no trial is needed: It’s a great idea, well done NZTA, but it needs to be introduced nationally and with trumpets sounding! If this initiative is backed up by speed cameras it will definitely be a success, which brings me back to the all powerful Steven Joyce. Having launched the United Nations’ Decade of Action on Road Safety he will be aware that the United Nations recommend school speed limits of 30km/h or less and certainly not 100km/h as is the speed limit outside many rural schools. To fully comply with this initiative he will have to roll out speed limits outside all schools. So this is his chance to make a difference and I appeal to him: “Dear Hon Mr Joyce, take this Selwyn based trial and introduce it Nationwide, so that you will at least be moving towards a safe speed outside schools or are you waiting for more children to be killed first?”

ENDS

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