Waka Kotahi's Road to Zero Paved With Bullshit

Waka Kotahi are an opaque bureaucracy that use “consultation” in a way that would make George Orwell the writer of 1984, rub his eyes. Their recent “consultation” over speed limits of State Highway 2, brought back memories of an Uber driver I once represented. This driver had made the mistake of buying some pushbikes off Trade Me and Facebook Marketplace, that subsequently turned out to be stolen. He was a hardworking young man, and the sole income provider for his young family (a wife and three young children). He did this through working as a driver and buying bikes and other things cheap, repairing and on selling them. Anyway Police initially charged him with receiving stolen property. Eventually the matter was resolved, and he was not convicted. In the  meanwhile Waka Kotahi for reasons they maintained of ‘public safety’ moved to suspend the passenger endorsement on his licence. He could of course, ‘consult’ with them over their decision.

I wrote to the agency asking how could the purchasing in good faith of bicycles, had anything to do with ‘public safety’, especially when he was not convicted and as it turned out, never would be. In short  their  concern was a nonsense. Further, the result of a suspension  would be economic ruin for this vulnerable family. The response I got back, betrayed the level of discretion and compassion of a Dalek. I was told that the ‘fact’ of being charged was enough, and that met their criteria. Having “consulted” they suspended him. I obtained an injunction and had the suspension quashed. Prior to my proceeding with a review, Waka Kotahi sensing defeat, reversed their ‘final’ decision.

 

Waka Kotahi’s bizarre logic can be seen again over their moves to lower the speed limits on State Highway 2 in the Wairarapa. In  late July 2021 Waka Kotahi announced a period  of ‘public consultation’ over proposed speed restrictions in specified zones on the state highway between Featherston and Masterton. The reason promulgated was that in 9 years there have been 488 crashes in which 4 people had died. No further information was provided. The inference being that crashes are bad and people dying is even worse, so therefore the entire population, will henceforth travel at the rate of motorised snails. We are left in the dark as to rate of accident versus the number of commuter trips. Further we are not told about the particular breakdown of what each of the 488 crashes relates to by type of accident. For example a  reversing accident, would have little to do with speed on an open road and would have more to do with visibility and or driver error. Similarly, a driver could suffer a medical event and lose consciousness. Speed limits has little to do with those crashes. 

Waka Kotahi has now issued its decision, again devoid of analysis or perspective (DomPost 13/02/23). To understand the causes of accidents in the specified zones between Featherston to Masterton that occurred over the nine year period it is important to consider the following. As it stands over nine years (Jan 2010 - Dec 2019) to have four fatalities out of 488 crashes is a fatality rate of 0.82%. If there is an average of say 6100 trips per day between Featherston and Masterton, over nine years that amounts to 20,038,500 commuter trips. Which means over that nine year timeframe only 0.002% of trips result in crashes. What does Waka Kotahi’s definition of “crashes” capture, and how does the crash rate compare to other highways? 

 

Obviously, artificially slowing vehicles means less crashes, but it also means less pressure to spend money improving and repairing roads. Anyone driving between Masterton and Carterton over the past two years would have seen the phalanxes of road cones and signs slowing traffic. Driving conditions might actually be safer if Waka Kotahi were to spend a greater portion of their road cone budget on actual road repairs. Many people believe that they are being forced to travel at ridiculously slow speeds just so bureaucrats can  achieve this “Road to Zero” policy goal on the cheap.

 

No doubt the earnest folk at Waka Kotahi mean well, but In the absence of any serious analysis, will the people comply with the changes, or will frustration, propel, more dangerous, driving, behaviour, and yet more crashes?