Hon Harry Duynhoven
Minister for Transport Safety

31 October 2008 Media Statement

Transport policy continues drive to reduce road toll

Labour’s Transport Policy will underpin the Government’s drive to continue reducing New Zealand’s road toll, says Transport Safety spokesperson Harry Duynhoven.

Commenting on the policy, released today, Mr Duynhoven said “Our goals for road safety form a cornerstone of our policy. Labour has set an ambitious target for reducing the number of road deaths and injuries. The road toll has been progressively tracking down under Labour’s watch and we will continue to do more.”

Labour will introduce a range of road safety measures aimed at reducing road deaths to no more than 200 a year, and serious injuries to no more than 1,500 a year, by 2040 – this is a significant goal.

Our road safety measures include:

• continued investment in road safety advertising campaigns such as those targeting speeding, drink driving, fatigue, intersection behaviour and safety belts;

• changes to the Graduated Driver Licensing System;

• investigating the introduction of a compulsory third party vehicle insurance regime; and

• considering banning the use of hand-held cellphones.

“We have also moved to progressively reduce the number of excessively noisy vehicles on the roads” said Mr Duynhoven.

Mr Duynhoven welcomes the AA’s recent call for all political parties to commit to road safety this election and believes that Labour’s transport policy and strong record illustrates the Party’s commitment to road safety in New Zealand.

“We’ve made considerable progress in reducing the road toll. Currently the road toll is heading for the late 300s, this is still not good enough, but vastly better than the 600-700 of the 1990s” said Mr Duynhoven.

ENDS

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