REVERSING SPEED RESTRICTION
The new Government has done a number of wrong moves or backward steps but not in announcing a return of a number of reduced speed restrictions to their former limits and to speed up the process of making some sections of motorways 110km zones.
This has much to do with open highways reduced under the Labour-Greens Govt from 100km to 80km and inner cities and towns from 50km down to 40km and 30 km.
One of the most obvious is State Highway 2 between Featheston and Carterton which is virtually a straight road in a rural area and suddenly without much consideration has been restricted to 80km.
But closer to home what I would like to see is Alexander Road in Upper Hutt returned to 80km instead of the new speed restriction of 50km. This road incorporates a golf course on one side and a military encampment on the other and further along has fully high fenced-in urban housing and has several round-abouts which each automatically reduces speed to as low as 30km-40km when approaching and during the rounding.
I hope that the Government can knock some sense into the UHCC who engineered this new restricted speed in Alexander Road which is easy pickings for the cops to make some money but otherwise not doing much good and has had a very low accident rating.
Driven On The Akatarawa Rd Lately?
If so, its good to know you are still alive and reading this.
We have a function to go to over Christmas up that way and having heard a few hairy stories about the road, I went up there on Thursday to check it out. The road's ok, narrow and winding, but not much worse than a Wellington hill suburb. What was pretty scary was the behavior of other drivers. Three vehicles heading the other way at speed would have crashed into me if I hadn't been pulled off the road. I had pulled in to check the address when a truck came flying past, taking up all of the narrow road at speed. There is no way the driver would have been able to stop had they come around the corner immediately in front of me. The other two drivers came hurtling past as I had turned in to turn around and come back down the hill. They were also driving at speed and taking up most of the road. Coming back down I passed another car coming up and estimate that the safe speed to pass another car was about 30-35 kms.p.h. So, now we're thinking, do we go to the function or not.? Feels a bit like we're taking our life in our hands going up there. Drivers appear to be overconfident, and they are courting serious injury.
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