Media Release

Latest News | Archives

Speech by Hon Harry Duynhoven
Meeting our Goals: Challenges in Road Safety
Monday, 6 September 2004

Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today. I am delighted to be the first Minister to address a Traffic Management Workshop since these meetings began 30 or so years ago.

When I was appointed Minister for Transport Safety in July this year, the Prime Minister commented that the importance of improving safety in transport and the amount of work to be done in this area necessitated the creation of a specialist portfolio. And there is certainly plenty to do.

My portfolio includes maritime, aviation and land transport safety. Maritime and aviation safety involve some major issues, especially in view of the international security situation, but the land transport area is probably the most testing, because road safety has such a high public profile.

Road Safety to 2010 Strategy

The Road Safety to 2010 Strategy aims to achieve no more than 300 deaths and 4,500 hospitalisations every year. In 2003 we got a wake up call when the annual road toll, which had been drifting gently downwards suddenly rose sharply, reaching 460. This year to date the rate is only a dozen or so fatalities behind last year’s horror toll. Any improvement is to be celebrated but people are still dying at a higher rate this year than in 2002. And it certainly highlights the challenge we face in achieving a road toll of 300 by 2010, just 6 years away. A review of the Strategy is due by June 2005 and work on that review is already under way. Clearly we have our work cut out.

So what are we going to do about it? I say “we” advisedly because this is a job which the Government cannot do on its own. It involves you - as professionals in the design and management of safer road environments - and it involves the community. For without community buy-in, neither we in the Government nor, with greatest respect, you in the engineering profession, can get anywhere. More on that later.

But first, let me give you an update on where we are at with one of the three E’s of road safety – enforcement. Then I’ll talk about a second road safety E - engineering which is where you come in. Finally, a word on the third E – education.

Enforcement – Land Transport Amendment Bill

In June this year the Government introduced into Parliament the Land Transport Amendment Bill, to widespread support, I might say, from most sides of the House. This Bill contains a wide range of transport measures – from a modernisation of the rules for the operation of heavy vehicles, to a clarification of the law to allow low powered electrically operated bicycles to be used legally on public roads.

From a road safety point of view, probably the most important measures relate to alcohol and speed limits. The Bill will reduce the trigger point at which a police officer must suspend a driver licence from 160 mg per 100 ml of blood (that is twice the legal limit) to 130 mg per 100 ml of blood.

Officials have calculated that this will result in an additional 4800 licence suspensions in the first year, about 80% more than the current rate of suspensions. The rate of suspensions is predicted to decline in following years as people adjust to the new limit and learn to comply with it. If a person has a previous drink drive conviction the trigger point is reduced further to 80 mg per 100 ml of blood.

The Bill will also reduce the trigger point for instant licence suspension for speeding – from 50 km/h over the limit, to 40 km/h in most cases. We expect this will result in another 3,500 or so licence suspensions in the first year, with fewer in subsequent years as people adjust. Also the Bill will make it easier for the Police to deal with traffic offenders who clock up large amounts of demerit points.

Another change will mean that driving offences involving injury or death will apply both on and off a road. This will enable Police to prosecute people who injure other people while “hooning about” in the car parks of businesses or on farm tracks. As you can see, these measures focus on the extreme end – the gross traffic offenders, even though some politicians have chosen to portray this as even preventing off-road events or car rallys.

When we were putting together this package for announcement in December last year we looked at other options. We considered measures that might impact more widely on the motoring population, such as demerit points on speed cameras, hidden speed cameras, and a tougher approach to speedsters. We also considered lowering the legal alcohol limit from 80 mg to 50 mg which would bring us into line with Australia and a number of other Western countries. We decided not to go down that route. Instead, we elected to go with measures targeting the serious and repeat offenders.

We had serious concerns about the level of support in the community for tougher measures being imposed on all drivers. Certainly vocal elements in the community made their views very clear. We are all familiar with the argument of revenue raising.

As a result, the road safety debate generated more heat than light and the Government felt that the time was not right for a broad brush enforcement approach. Measures that do not have wide community support can create more problems than they solve. The challenge for us is to communicate the need for change and so take the community with us.

Politics, as Winston Churchill once said, is the art of the possible.

Engineering – Safety Retrofitting and Safety Management Systems
Turning now to the second road safety E, engineering. Engineering has a critical part to play in delivering good safety outcomes. But its role is different to enforcement’s role. Enforcement is about modifying the behaviour of the driver – dealing to “the nut behind the wheel”! as has so often been quoted.

Engineering can deal with the problem from another angle. Engineering can adapt the roads to drivers – it can recognise that people will make mistakes and ensure that the road is as forgiving as possible. This is “engineering the road to the user”. And it’s not just for the benefit of the driver at fault but also for the innocent person who is at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Traditionally, safety engineering has taken something of a back seat because of its expense. But although engineering has a high capital cost, it offers permanent crash reductions, while enforcement on the other hand tends to lose its impact once the Police officer moves on – not to mention the difficulties with public acceptance I have already talked about.

We have not been afraid to spend money on safety engineering. In the December package last year an additional $47 million was made available for minor safety works – and “minor” now means up to $150,000. In addition, Transit is spending about $10 million per year on “safety retrofitting” – measures to reduce the severity of crashes where a driver loses control and the vehicle leaves the roadway. This is a good example of engineering the road to the user. We all agree that that people should drive well enough not to lose control but we must acknowledge that vehicles will leave the road and we should try to mitigate the consequences.

Safety retrofitting includes dealing with hazards such as trees, ditches and banks. Where possible the hazard itself is removed, where this cannot be done guard rail or cable barriers are used to deflect the vehicle from the hazard. Transit is currently investigating the use of roadside barriers on State Highway 1 on the Kaikoura coast. As you may remember there have been a couple of incidents in recent years when trucks carrying hazardous substances left the road and ended up in the sea, causing considerable concern at the potential environmental impact. Barriers in this location will have a dual safety and environmental role. Mind you I find it difficult to understand why so many so called 'professional' full-time drivers have so many single vehicle crashes.

Transit is also looking at ways of reducing the severity of head-on collisions. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist – or even a traffic engineer! – to realise that a narrow strip of paint is not much protection against a head- on collision. Visitors to New Zealand have been surprised at the number of busy roads such as those in the Waikato or north of Wellington which do not have any kind of median divider.

The challenge has been to devise a low cost alternative to the traditional dual carriageway, which although providing protection against the opposing traffic stream is very expensive to build, especially in New Zealand’s difficult topography. The so-called “Swedish 2 + 1” – a three lane road with a wire rope barrier dividing the traffic streams seems to offer a good compromise. Transit reports good results with this solution which it is implementing at high risk areas around the country. And it’s another example of engineering the road to the user.

I can’t over emphasise the importance of the work you do. You are in the front line. Maybe more than you realise. About 3 years ago a court in New South Wales caused an uproar when it ruled that a local authority has a duty to:
“take reasonable steps to ascertain the existence of latent dangers which might be reasonably expected to exist …. and take reasonable steps by the exercise of its powers within a reasonable time to address the risk”.

The case caused a commotion because until that time it was believed that councils were only liable when they had actively created a danger, and were not liable for something they had neglected to do. The average hard working traffic engineer may not have taken much notice of Court cases across the Tasman. But the Courts in New Zealand are starting to take a tougher line too.

In July this year a roading contractor and the road controlling authority for that road were found guilty of “criminal nuisance” for failing to post a sign warning of loose gravel on a road, causing a motor cyclist to crash. The contractor had to pay $7,000 reparation to the victim. That case was not brought by the Police or the LTSA. It was brought by the victim. It shows that the public is becoming more assertive in dealing with public bodies which it sees as falling down on the job. I think that is a straw in the wind and a strong signal to note.

More recently a coroner gave a formal “notice of adverse comment” to a road controlling authority and its contractor for failing to properly manage the risk of ice on its roads, which led to a motorist losing control on a patch of ice and dying in the crash that followed. Once upon a time people were inclined to directly blame “the nut behind the wheel”. No longer. The signs are clear – increasingly you will be held accountable for what you do – or what you don’t do.

In the United Kingdom, highway authorities have lived with this for some years, and are used to finding themselves in Court. To defend themselves successfully they found that it was essential to show that they had robust practices and processes for identifying and managing risk. And the best way to convince the Court that their practices and processes were robust was to document them. Some of you will know Paul Forman of the Transport Research Laboratory in the UK who has done a lot of work in this area. In New Zealand we call these documented risk management systems – “safety management systems”.

And while the New Zealand legal system is not quite the same as that of the UK, coroners here have commented favourably on councils which are working toward the development of safety management systems.

Earlier I talked about engineering the road to the user. Safety management systems, by identifying potential risks in the roading system and managing them, are a good way of engineering the road to the user. And they provide a framework for safety interventions and so help promote a consistent approach to safety problems rather than an ad hoc one.

The LTSA has been working with local authorities on the development of safety management systems for nearly two years. In the development phase, the LTSA has provided the services of a consultant to the local authority free of charge to assist it to develop the documentation. Last year the LTSA produced a “Guideline for the Development of Safety Management Systems”. In addition LTSA engineering staff have been available to provide advice and mentoring to local authorities on an as-needs basis. Of the 74 city and district councils, 45 have now completed their safety management systems and a further 15 are under development this year.

The next stage for these councils will be the implementation phase. This will involve the LTSA working alongside the councils in a process of “continuous improvement monitoring”. This will not be a “top down” exercise. It will be a learning process for both the LTSA and the councils. The LTSA hopes that the implementation process will stimulate innovation and the development of new solutions to safety management problems. The implementation process will also help ensure that the documentation continues to direct the practices and processes actually in use on the network - because a fine set of manuals gathering dust on a shelf is not of much use to anyone.

Education – Up to Scratch; Used Car Safety

And now education. I mentioned that the rising road toll was a wake up call. We got another wakeup call in March this year when TV3’s Great Kiwi Drivers’ Challenge put Kiwis to the test. It revealed a patchy understanding of the road code, road rules and road safety risks. Clearly, we have to work much harder at getting this information across to people and the Government’s “Up to Scratch” programme launched on 7 April is a start at doing that. Early indications are very positive. The scratch quizzes are motivating people who have not thought about the rules of the road for years to get hold of a copy of the Road Code and study it.

We are facing a different kind of educational problem with speed management. As mentioned, there are frequent claims that speed enforcement is all about revenue gathering – which of course it is not. Despite a decrease in the mean traffic speeds, increasing numbers of infringement notices are being issued – sometimes to the same people, although I'm told this year is seeing a reduction of the number. These people are quite simply refusing to comply with the speed management regime. That tells us that we are failing to take this part of the community with us. Maybe there is a need to change the way we address speed in our education and advertising.

There is certainly a role here for the road safety coordinators, who play a vital role involving the community in road safety issues, to see why there is resistance to speed management and help us develop solutions.

But it is interesting to see that, while there may be reluctance to hear the road safety message on speed, public interest in vehicle safety has never been so high. Safety has become an important selling point for new vehicles and even modestly priced cars bristle with features available only on luxury or high performance models 10 years ago.

The interest in safety is not confined to people with enough money to buy a new car. In August the LTSA released the Buyer's Guide to Used Car Safety Ratings and was overwhelmed by the public response. Their website had 15,000 hits the day after it was released and the helpline got three times the usual number of calls.

So it is clear that a wide section of the public is concerned about road safety. We just need to connect with them.

New Zealand Transport Strategy/Transport Sector Review

Earlier I mentioned a road safety measure which also delivered environmental benefits. That is the kind of integrated approach we want to see more of under the new transport regime.

As you know, the Land Transport Management Act passed last year promotes the New Zealand Transport Strategy which is a broader vision of transport than the old narrow “safety and efficiency” vision of the past. The New Zealand Transport Strategy focuses on five objectives –

1. economic development
2. safety and personal security
3. access and mobility
4. public health, and
5. environmental sustainability.

This wider vision requires a new approach from the government machinery established under the “safety and efficiency” banner. The transport sector review found that the existing structures were delivering well against their old brief but could produce better outcomes for the economy, the community, and the travelling public if restructured to focus on the objectives of the New Zealand Transport Strategy.

In particular the review identified opportunities to improve the level of collaboration across agencies in terms of policy development, planning, funding, and the delivery of solutions to New Zealand’s transport needs.
In the light of these findings from the review, the Government has decided to form a new agency, Land Transport New Zealand, comprising the operational responsibilities of the Land Transport Safety Authority and Transfund New Zealand. The policy functions of these two bodies (involving about 45 staff) will be transferred to the Ministry of Transport.

The Safety Administration Programme, which funds traffic enforcement and a range of other activities and amounts to $275 million this year, will be merged into the National Land Transport Programme which funds public transport and road construction and maintenance.

The establishment of Land Transport New Zealand will enable a strong multi-objective focus to be taken, closer and more effective linkages to local government, enhanced regional presence and resourcing, and a more integrated approach to land transport planning and delivery. As a result, local government and local communities alike can expect better understanding of their transport needs, and improved responsiveness to them.

I expect there to be real synergies resulting from the merger. As an example, Transfund as the provider of financial assistance has always had an interest in the quality of the roading network both from a structural point of view and a safety point of view. For this reason Transfund carries out a range of audits including safety audits. Under its safety brief the LTSA has also been interested in the safe design of roads and safe management of traffic. And the LTSA also reviews roading infrastructure. Clearly there is an overlap here. The merger of the two agencies will allow the expertise that has resided in each agency to be pooled and a more holistic approach to be developed. I also want to note the wide variety of work continuing as usual from the LTSAS and the Ministry of Transport despite the pressures of the reorganisation and to thank the staff for their steadfastness in a time of uncertainty.

The changes will also introduce an increase in the scope of the Civil Aviation Authority and of the Maritime Safety Authority to take into account the objectives of the New Zealand Transport Strategy in their work. There will also be no change to the primary safety responsibilities of those authorities.

I am confident that the new structures will overcome past fragmentation and enable the sector to take a broader and more collaborative approach to transport planning and management.

The Transport Legislation Bill, which will bring the new structures into existence, was introduced into Parliament in August and it is expected that they will be in place by the end of the year.

Conclusion

We cannot simply do more and more of the same in the expectation that this will continue to bring the toll down. In the life of any intervention, once a certain point has been reached it becomes increasingly difficult to save every additional life and prevent every additional serious injury – the immutable law of diminishing returns.

This does not mean that we stop doing things we are doing now - rather it means that, in addition, we have to do new things and do some things differently to try and obtain the safety gains that resist more tenaciously the further we move down the statistical curve.

I believe that, with the structural reforms I have mentioned, a fresh new approach to road safety is possible. The review of the Road Safety to 2010 strategy will be an opportunity to think outside the square and trial innovative solutions. And the solutions we need will have to tackle the problem from all angles -

• We will need solutions to modify driver behaviour.
• And solutions to engineer the road to the driver.

The challenge is not impossible. Given the huge response to the LTSA’s Buyer's Guide to Used Car Safety Ratings it is clear that New Zealanders do care about road safety and will embrace new initiatives.

There is a lot of talent and experience amongst New Zealand’s road safety professionals – your challenge is to come up with the ideas; it is my challenge as Minister for Transport Safety to implement them. Thank you very much.

Ends
Back to News and Views