Matt Bullen

As much as I hate facts getting in the way of a good story, I'd like to offer N Gladstone of last Wednesday's letters a little something to consider.

I won't assume your gender, pronouns or age, but as a 55-year-old, I am a little too young to remember “The good old days”. However, I do know that the worst year for New Zealand road deaths was 1973.

This was the height of one of the “other fake predictions made by various world leaders” when we knew oil was going to run out in the next decade or so.

The New Zealand response was to reduce our open road speed limit from 60mph to 50mph (equivalent of 80Kmh). This is also, sadly, the year that 843 Kiwi's lost their lives on our roads.

So just to recap, the worst year for deaths on our roads, was when the limit was 80 kmh.

Since then, our roading network has improved, vehicles have become much safer, and even though there are many times more vehicles and people travelling daily on our roads, the road toll has steadily reduced.

Some of our new roads are rated at 110 kmh now, and our road toll keeps going down.

Since January 2020, the Labour government started dropping our limit on the open road to 80 kmh and 60 or 70 in some areas. In 2020, 307 people died in crashes. In 2021, 300 people lost their lives.

The year 2022 saw the death of 349 Kiwi's and in 2023, 341. Last year was our best in a while at 290 deaths.

Lowering the speed limit creates frustration which leads to reckless decisions.

I would put it to you that freely flowing traffic, moving at a decent speed is safer than a train of five or six cars following each other and an impatient driver trying to pass them all.

This is a common sight on our roads at present. Three weeks ago, I drove to Wanganui, two weekends ago to Wellington and this week I am going to New Plymouth; yes, I travel quite a bit, and the stupid, dangerous and impatient behaviour is worse now than I've ever seen it.

Good on National and the coalition Government for getting the country moving again.

I am also an auto technician with 38 years in the trade; your car much prefers to be getting along at 100 kmh than it does dawdling around at 60, 70 or 80.

Matt Bullen