Despite the blip over the holiday period just ended where 18 were killed instead of the 12 last year, in 2011 just 284 people were killed on New Zealand's roads, 91 fewer than in 2010. This is the lowest for nearly 60 years, and when you consider that the number of vehicles on the roads has increased by at least 10 times since then, it is a big reduction in proportionate terms.
Undoubtedly the biggest factor in this is that it is no longer acceptable to drink and drive; those who do are likely to reported to the police as they should be.
Other factors will be overall safer cars and redesign of bad roads. In the regard to the latter, one thing that needs to happen is eliminate passing lanes on short sections of road on the flat - these simply cause some motorists (and truckers) to treat them as "drag strips" and when the speeders reach the end - well, two into one doesn't always go smoothly. This was the cause of a double fatality not far from us last week when a speeding car reached the end of the two lanes on a very wet day - the driver and his passenger paid the ultimate price for thoughtlessness.
To their credit the NZTA has announced that the passing lanes on this section of SH1 between Otaihanga and Waikanae will be closed permanently soon. The only place passing lanes serve a useful purpose is going up hills when trucks slow to a crawl and cars can get past them.
2 comments:
It would be good if they built a road around waikanae and otaki and get on with building transmission gully also these small towns clog the traffic up which causes people to get fustrated and thats how these crashs happen most of the time
People should factor accurate driving times into their schedules to begin with.
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