Penny Hales

“Let them Eat Cake” – a term attributed to Marie Antionette when she suggested to the poor of France that if they could not find or pay for bread, they should eat cake.

The arrogance of that statement resonates with me around the council committee decision, in the face of the huge amount of feedback received against the change to the road speeds on the Thornton Road, to keep to their original decision.

Why bother? What a waste of time (not just for the council but for the ratepayers who thought they were feeding into some decision-making) and money (or perhaps no one spent their time at council actually reading all the feedback?)

Consultation is important, but it should not just occur but be seen to have purpose.
I often drive on Thornton Road and three weeks ago on a Thursday I was travelling back from Whakatāne to the turn off at West Bank Road when a car overtook the car behind me and my car on the approach to Blueberry corner on double yellow lines.

This maneouvre was repeated before the yellow lines finished, with the driver being fully on the wrong side of the road both times.

That is the problem – not the roads or the speed but the particular way people drive. How will lowering speed limits make a difference to those drivers?

It is possible that it may make more people travel faster and more dangerously, rather than having to follow traffic at a slower speed.

What does the council intend to do about that?

As I have said, I drive that road often and will drive to the conditions.
When you are travelling around the bends on that road, you drive to the speed necessary, so you are not required to brake but can manage all the corners at a speed that is safe.

If I felt that the lowering of the speed limits from Thornton to Whakatāne was going to make a difference to the very slow traffic build up at the hub and Landing/Domain roads during the morning and afternoon commuter periods, then perhaps it may be a solution, but recent changes to road speeds would tell us that this does not make a difference.

The change of speed limits is not going to alter the behaviour of people who leave either West Bank, East Bank or Thornton Beach Road without checking the roads for traffic coming along the highway in either direction.

We have recently had evidence of a serious accident at one of these intersections.
Reduced speeds can make drivers more intolerant and take silly risks and the council is talking about lowering the speed limit to 80kmh from the corner of SH30 and Thornton Road until Blueberry Corner, then the speed limit can go up to 100kmh, when there are significant bends in the road after Blueberry Corner,  towards Thornton and not many from Blueberry Corner to the main intersection.

Then we are going to reduce speed after about 5kms to 70kmh for a small distance (not sure how much) but beyond the turnoffs to East Bank, West Bank and Thornton Beach Road.

I would be interested to see what has caused the accidents on Thornton Road – was it always speed, or was it alcohol, poor driving or inattention.
What are the statistics around this and if it was speed, were there other contributing factors.

So, should I get baking so that we can produce the cake for the people to eat?