Speeding
Speed is the single biggest road safety issue in NZ today. The faster you drive the more likely you are to crash and suffer injuries.
No matter how skilled a driver you are, speeding puts you and other road users at risk.
If you exceed the speed limit you risk licence suspension or a fine. Fines range from $30 to $630 for more severe infringements.
- How to avoid being in a speed-related crash
- Find out how speed affects road safety
- What Auckland Transport does to prevent speeding
Reduce your risk of being in a speed-related crash
- Treat the speed limit as the most you can travel at on a road in perfect conditions.
- If the conditions change (rain, poor visibility, winding roads, heavy traffic), alter your speed.
- Judge the safe speed for the conditions.
- Look out for potential hazards on the road. The faster you travel on a road, the more likely you are to miss these. If you're speeding, you'll travel further before you react and brake.
- Drive defensively. Expect the unexpected and do not get distracted.
- Up-skill yourself with a defensive driving course.
- The greatest risk period for young novice drivers is in the first 6 months of solo driving. Parents play a crucial role during this time.
Find out more about teaching young drivers.
How speed affects road safety
As your speed increases:
- The distance you need for stopping increases.
- You'll be going too fast if you meet an unexpected change in road conditions.
- Other road users may misjudge how fast you're travelling.
How AT prevents speeding on roads
AT uses traffic-calming measures to:
- Slow down traffic.
- Improve the living conditions for residents.
- Improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists
- Provide a safer road environment around schools.
Traffic-calming measures can include:
- Narrower traffic lanes - extending the sidewalk, adding bollards or planters, or adding a bike lane or parking.
- Curb extensions - narrow the width of the roadway at pedestrian crossings.
- Chokers - curb extensions that narrow the roadway to a single lane at points.
- Chicanes - create a horizontal deflection causing vehicles to slow as they would for a curve.
- Allow parking on one or both sides of a street.
- Speed bumps.
- Speed humps.
- Speed tables - long flat-topped speed humps that slow cars more gradually than humps.
- Speed cushions - a series of three small speed humps that slow cars down but allow emergency vehicles to straddle them so as not to slow response time.
- Raised pedestrian crossings and raised intersection.
- Pedestrian refuges or small islands in the middle of the street.
- Median diverters - prevent left turns or through movements into a residential area.
- Changing the surface material or texture (for example, the selective use of brick or cobblestone).
- More give way signs.
- Converting one-way streets into two-way streets.
- Converting an intersection into a cul-de-sac or dead end.
- Boom barriers - restricts through traffic to authorised vehicles only.
- Closing of streets to create pedestrian zones.
Find out more about traffic-calming devices in the AT Code of Practice (Chapter 8).