Alternative headline: National to spend $30m to sacrifice some of your lives so our trip is slightly faster.
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.
That’s a very long winded way of saying fixing the underlying issues is too hard, so we’re just going to slow everyone down.
Road to Zero is a 30 year plan with a multifaceted approach. There is progress on things like camera detection of phone use and people not wearing seatbelts, but technology and culture changes take time. Speed limits don’t take time, and help towards the goal.
Road to Zero is not some new idea someone at Waka Kōtahi thought up. It’s something in use in many countries around the world with it’s origins in the 90s.