this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2023
29 points (82.2% liked)

Aotearoa / New Zealand

1648 readers
22 users here now

Kia ora and welcome to !newzealand, a place to share and discuss anything about Aotearoa in general

Rules:

FAQ ~ NZ Community List ~ Join Matrix chatroom

 

Banner image by Bernard Spragg

Got an idea for next month's banner?

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
29
National to spend at least $30m to reverse speed limit changes if elected (www.1news.co.nz)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
76 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In The Netherlands, speed traps are done by a separate unit, they're not police officers. It's also fully automated and a separate speed tracked process within the legal system, anything below 30 km/h is fully automated & car owners are automatically invoiced and assumed in the wrong if caught in a speed trap. You have to go through many loops to appeal. It's a massive cash grab system and seen as just another tax as it's used to pay for completely unrelated things, like free school books.

While most people adhere to the limits, many people still exceed the limits as it's mostly safe to do so.

The low road toll there is mainly contributed to the very safe roads, and e.g. no crossings and traffic lights at 100km/hour roads, like here in NZ.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

One problem NZ has is that things are far away from each other, and it's mountainous.

That means we spend a lot more time driving long distance than people in The Netherlands, and this driving is largely on long, windy, poor quality roads. The roads are poor quality because we need so many of them compared to the population.

We have less than 20 people per km^2, vs The Netherland's 500+.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Yep true, think my comparison is not entirely fair. Also, in NL the taxes are a lot higher; e.g. road tax / month for a petrol car is what we pay here per YEAR, diesel cars are even more expensive. Plus, there's an additional tax on new vehicles.