Summit identifies actions to improve road safety

New Zealanders have identified actions needed to achieve a lasting change that would benefit road safety in the country.

During the local government’s Road Safety Summit last week, communities and regions across New Zealand expressed the specific transportation challenges they are facing. These include:

• Central government should set clear national and regional road safety targets to reduce deaths and injuries;
• There is strong support for investigating a “Vision Zero” approach, to make safety a bottom line in transport investment;
• Greater funding assistance is needed for safety projects generally;
• A need for simpler processes to implement low-cost safety improvements and enable targeted changes to speeds limits; and
• A need to improve the safety of cycling and walking, particularly for children.

“I was very encouraged by the overwhelming support among mayors and councillors for more action to be taken to prevent deaths and serious injuries on our roads,” Associate Transport Minister Julie Anne Genter said. “The fact that we had so many mayors and councillors participating shows that rising road deaths and injuries is a pressing issue in many New Zealand communities.”

The Minister said she had already asked her officials to start investigating how these and other ideas that were recorded can be progressed.

“Some of the ideas should be able to be implemented fairly quickly as part of this year’s work programme, while others will be considered as part of the development of a new road safety strategy,” she noted.

Kiwis can expect the release of a report in the coming weeks outlining how ideas and priorities identified at the summit will be progressed by central government, the Minister added.