Launch of the Government's Road Safety Policy Statement

Minister King, Members of the National Road Safety Committee, Road Safety stakeholders, officials, members of the media, ladies and gentlemen.

Minister King launched the See you there… Safe As! programme of stakeholder and community engagement in June 2006, and I opened the first of the workshops, which was held here in Wellington on the 17th of July 2006. We have been following the progress of these discussions with interest.

It is now my pleasure to present you with the Road Safety Policy Statement. This has been put together to guide the further development of road safety, as we work to complete implementation of the Government’s Road Safety to 2010 strategy.

This Policy Statement promotes education as a key catalyst for safer people, safer roads and safer vehicles, and also refers to the Road Safety Education Strategic Framework. This framework is new and takes into account the need to broaden out the education activity beyond legislative and regulatory issues and supporting enforcement.

For example, we need to be re-doubling our efforts to educate people about the dangers of fatigue and driver distractions. We also want to ensure that we are educating the road safety professionals, as well as all road users, on the most effective ways to improve the safety of the network.

Another key element of this is the need to ensure the community is well aware of what constitutes safer vehicles and safer roads and is aware of how the community can influence the development of a safer network.

Both the Policy Statement and the Road Safety Education Strategic Framework are included in the pack of information we have provided for you. I encourage you to read through them for further detail. The Policy Statement addresses a number of important issues.

One that I know you will all be interested in relates to drugged driving. It is the Government’s intention to make driving while impaired by illegal drugs an offence. We will also require those suspected of being impaired by illegal drugs to undergo an impairment test.

But well before any legislation is introduced in respect of ‘driving while impaired by illegal drugs’ a considerable amount of effort has to be put into education, to ensure the public understands just what is going to happen.

Another major focus will be on improving the Graduated Driver Licensing System and the associated training and testing regimes to reduce the risks to young and novice drivers. This is a complex area and the details are still to be worked out, but I can assure you that this work will be done in close association with our key stakeholders. This is not something that the Government can achieve on its own. We need to work in partnership with those who are involved in this training and who understand the needs of young drivers.

An equally complex challenge is to develop a penalty regime more aligned with safety. One way of doing this is to place greater emphasis on demerit points. In particular you will note a uniquely New Zealand idea of diminishing demerit points which was proposed by one of the website members. On the face of it this looks to be a good idea, and officials have been asked to ensure this is considered as part of developing a new and more effective framework for penalties.

As you will see in the Policy Statement there is a proposal for continued improvements to be made to the speed management regime.

As part of this, we need to explore the potential synergy between efforts on speed management in respect of safety, and the efforts that could be made to enhance environmental sustainability. Slowing down to an appropriate speed to meet the conditions has its advantages – not only does it make the roads safer, but it also uses less fuel and contributes less to climate change.

An area that I am personally concerned about is driver distraction and fatigue. As the policy states, there needs to be increased awareness of these matters, and I am looking forward to seeing a comprehensive Driver Fatigue Strategy developed that will include raising awareness among the general public of this issue. For the record, today is New Zealand Drowsy Driving Awareness Day.

During the engagement programme, we heard a lot about the shortcomings of our roading network. The Policy Statement suggests a need to further improve safety of the road infrastructure and land use. All of these issues have been noted and the multi-agency team of engineers are busy working through this and will be reporting back to us next year.

Two other points that appear in the Policy Statement are improving the safety of the heavy vehicle fleet and, making improvements to light vehicle safety and motorcycle safety. Much of the latter relates to raising awareness – whether it is of the safety features in vehicles or increasing the awareness of drivers about the particular needs of cyclists and motorcyclists when sharing the road with them.

In terms of the heavy vehicle fleet, it is particularly important that we continue to work with the industry in our efforts to improve safety in respect of heavy vehicles.

That outlines the content of the statement. As you will see much of it builds on work already well underway. What we are doing now is working. Our road toll is at a record low and we want to keep it travelling in the right direction.

However, the task is increasingly complex and the big challenge we face is to make every road user a road safety expert. That’s a big call for our new Road Safety Education Strategic Framework but we are confident that if Government, stakeholders and the community can continue to work together the way we are doing now, it can be achieved.