Drivers continually assess the road and make decisions about how to drive.
Drivers use manya lot of cues to help them read the roads and assess the right speed for the road and the conditions.
Conditions mean more than weather. They also include the shape of the road, time of day, traffic, other road users, and road-side hazards.
Drivers need to choose the right speed for the road they are driving on. Our speed limits do not always reflect the risk on the road, and sometimes they are not right. When crashes happen, there are many causes – people make mistakes, the road might be tricky, the weather might be bad. The vast majority of severe casualties are not from extreme high risk behaviours, but from generally law-abiding people making a simple error.
Safe speeds are one part of the safe system approach which aims to prevent death and serious injury by reducing the impact of those errors.
It also recognises that regardless of what causes a crash, speed always plays a part. Travelling the right speed for the road can help minimise the impact of a crash – speed is the difference between a correctable mistake and a fatal error.
Some facts:
- In 2014, speed was a contributing factor in 78 fatal crashes, 357 serious injury crashes and 995 minor injury crashes. These crashes resulted in 84 deaths, 455 serious injuries and 1,468 minor injuries.
- From 2012 to 2014, speed was a factor in 29 percent of fatal crashes, 19 percent of serious injury crashes and 14 percent of minor injury crashes.
- Between 2012 and 2014, speed was a contributing factor in 31 percent of urban fatal crashes and 28 percent of open road fatal crashes.
- Driving 5km/h above the speed limit in a 60km/h zone has the same level of casualty risk as driving at the New Zealand drink-driving limit (blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 50 mg/100 ml).
- A pedestrian hit at 30km/h has a 90 percent chance of surviving. A pedestrian hit at 50km/h has a 30 percent chance. The risks for vulnerable pedestrians, such as the elderly or children, are higher again.