The AA wants a campaign to revitalise road maintenance across the country to start in Northland.

Consultation on the district’s Regional Land Transport Plan closes this week and more funding to better maintain Northland’s roads needs to be at the heart of it, says the AA.

“Well maintained roads are safer roads and Northland needs big improvements in both areas,” says AA Northland District Council chair Tracey Rissetto.

“Northland’s rate of road deaths is consistently 2-3 times higher than the New Zealand average.

“If Northland could just get down to the average rate of road deaths for New Zealand it would mean nearly 20 less people killed each year.”

Road maintenance impacts a vehicle’s grip with the road, its risk of skidding and the driver losing control. Even the best driver can lose control if the road they’re on doesn’t have good grip and research has shown the link between road maintenance and safety.

“There are many factors involved in Northland’s poor road safety record and it can’t be solved with just one change. The Regional Land Transport Plan will set the transport direction for the next decade and it needs to have a large-scale increase in road maintenance as an urgent priority or it will be a huge missed opportunity.”

Analysis by the AA has highlighted insufficient funding being available for road maintenance across the country from successive Governments but the situation is particularly dire in Northland.

65% of AA Members in Northland rated their roads as very poor or sub-standard in the AA’s annual District Concerns survey last month. This was twice as bad as the average rating across the country where 33% of AA Members rated their roads as very poor or sub-standard.

“The drivers on the roads in Northland know they can and should be better quality than they are,” says Tracey.

“Northland is not the only part of the country where road maintenance has been under-funded but we are one of the worst affected and the Regional Land Transport Plan needs to demand much more investment in this area from central Government.

“Roads need regular repairs and renewal to keep them at the standard they should be. There simply hasn’t been enough funding to do that for many years but the opportunity is there for decision makers to turn that around.”

The AA has calculated that an additional $930m is needed nationwide over the next three years to clear the backlog of essential maintenance work and reverse the decline in road quality.

More and more roads across the country are reaching tipping points where without an increase in maintenance now they will need much more extensive and costly work in the near future to get them back to an acceptable standard.

“More investment in road maintenance makes sense in terms of safety and economically. Our regional leaders need to be urging central Government now to lift the funding available for road maintenance.

“Motorists pay billions in fuel tax and road user charges each year and that amount has only been going up. In return they expect the roads they drive on will be maintained to a good standard but right now the funding isn’t enough to deliver that.”

“Much of Northland’s population live in rural communities and our roads are our lifelines for our economy, our education and our social connections.”

Northland’s sad safety statistics:

160 deaths and 810 serious injuries from road crashes in the last 5 years (2016-20)

For more information contact:

Tracey Rissetto
AA Northland District Council chair
New Zealand Automobile Association
M. 021 659 636