National road policing manager and acting superintendent Gini Welch has announced that any motorist going over the speed limit at any time of the year could now be pulled over and potentially be fined. Until recently most New Zealanders have operated under the assumption that police could exercise discretion for drivers who drove up to 10kph over the posted speed limit, or up to 4kph during public holiday periods. The adoption of a zero tolerance attitude to speed has been met with a lot of criticism and, in my humble opinion, with good reason.

What is a zero tolerance approach?
Anyone who exceeds the posted speed limit, even by 1kph, can expect to be stopped. It will then be at the officer‘s discretion whether they dish out a stern warning or a fine. It seems overzealous for the police not to take a more lenient approach when enforcing speeding on passing lanes when slow or inconsiderate drivers can be incredibly frustrating and irritating, but this new policy means that even being only slightly over the speed limit when overtaking another driver won‘t necessarily be an excuse.

Why change now?
The government‘s latest Road Safety Strategy aims to slash the death toll by 40% by 2030, which is a worthy objective. The police are defending their no tolerance stance to speeding by relying on a report from the World Health Organisation, in which a review of speed studies in various countries showed that a decrease of 1kph in mean traffic speed typically resulted in a 3% decrease in the incidence of injury crashes, or a decrease of 4 to 5% for fatal crashes. What is interesting to note is that this report dates back to 2004, so I am curious to know whether the conclusions in this report would still be applicable 16 years later. The Vision Zero policy in Sweden has resulted in a dramatic decrease in that country‘s road toll, which is now amongst the lowest in the world, so perhaps this has been influential in New Zealand deciding to adopt a zero tolerance policy. However, unlike New Zealand, the Swedish roading network has up to 20 times more four-lane highways and expressways. They also have a top speed limit of 120kph, so is this really comparing apples with apples? Sweden also uses a combination of strategies that includes speed advisory signs, which simply show motorists what speed they‘re doing without issuing a ticket.

Will zero tolerance actually solve the problem?
My scepticism stems from the fact that this policy seems shortsighted as it may target the wrong drivers, those who are not the greatest risk to themselves and other road users. It appears to be a case of using a sledgehammer to kill a fly. There is a real risk that it will subject police officers enforcing the policy to a lot of negativity, as it is likely to create a perception that the police are more interested in revenue gathering than promoting road safety. It also seems more than coincidental that this new policy was implemented shortly after Auckland came out of alert level 3, during which time the amount of traffic was dramatically reduced, creating fewer opportunities to catch and punish drivers for their offending. Data gathered between 2014 and 2018 by the NZ Transport Agency shows that speeding alone contributes to 15% of crashes. While it is in everyone‘s best interests to reduce the road toll, it seems questionable whether fining drivers for being only fractionally over the speed limit will actually reduce accidents or change driver behaviour.

It is possible that this new policy will lead to an increase in drivers purchasing radar detection equipment or simply spending more time monitoring their speedometers, which could arguably be more dangerous to other road users. It is widely accepted that no speedometer is 100% accurate and therefore the buffer that has been accepted up until now seems fair. My current vehicle does not have cruise control and therefore it is very challenging to maintain a steady speed, because the moment you accelerate, it‘s very easy to be over the speed limit in a matter of seconds. However, even with cruise control, tests have shown that when driving down steep hills a vehicle can creep over the speed limit without the driver being aware. I sincerely hope that my predictions about the new policy do not turn out to be true. In the meantime, I will be analysing the data closely for evidence of its effectiveness.