The AA is calling on authorities to listen to the response from the community on its speed reviews of SH5 and SH51 and prioritise work to fix and upgrade the roads as the best way to improve safety.

AA Hawkes Bay has just made its submission to the proposals to reduce speed limits on the two highways.  The AA supports the proposed speed limit changes at the Clive township and Waipatu/Hastings section, but wants to see improvements to the road in other areas under consultation.

AA Hawkes Bay District Council chairman Paul Michaelsen says that from talking to other groups and seeing many of the responses coming in to the proposal, it is clear that the AA’s views are shared by much of the local community.

“The AA’s Hawkes Bay Council does not consider that speed reduction should be used as the default tool to improve safety and believe that improved engineering and maintenance should be the priority on these routes,” says Paul.

“We called for an urgent programme of maintenance work on SH5 last year to improve the standard of the road and we continue to do so. The additional $2.5m for minor safety improvements is nowhere near enough for the length of this route and its importance as an essential regional transport link.

“The data shows that expenditure on road maintenance in Hawke’s Bay has been falling with far less resurfacing and very little if any pavement rehabilitation work done in recent years. This impacts on safety and our surveys of Hawke’s Bay AA Members show the deteriorating state of the region’s roads is a major concern.”

As well as improvements to SH5, the AA wants to see engineering improvements at the Waitangi Road, Awatoto Road and Ellison Street intersections along with the beach access points on SH51.

One of the AA Council’s key concerns with the proposed lower speed limits is that if there is widespread opposition to them in the community and the limits feel unreasonably slow for the roading environment, they are unlikely to be well obeyed. This would undermine the hoped for safety gains.

The claims that the average speed over this section is 81km/h and travel times would increase by less than a minute appears to be flawed. If the average speed is currently 81 km/h then that indicates people are driving to the conditions now and the change in travel speeds and likely reduction in crashes would both be small. Which then leaves the question of why change the speed limit?

Until the recent “Stay Alive on Five” campaign, there had been little road safety promotion, education or driver awareness done on SH5 and the AA considers there are more opportunities to educate users of the highway, highlight the need to drive to the conditions and promote safer behaviour of drivers.

“We all want better road safety. The AA believes a balanced approach that is well supported by the public will ultimately deliver the best results and we hope that Waka Kotahi are listening to the responses they are getting and have not already made up their mind about the outcome.”

For more information contact:

Paul Michaelsen
AA Hawke’s Bay District Chair
New Zealand Automobile Association
M. 027 747 2856