Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Dr Jamie Hosking: Healthy Auckland Together spokesperson on the removal of 24-7 speed reductions around schools
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Change is coming to a road near U. Speed limit
- 0:02Speaker 1: reductions are often new rules are including the idea of
- 0:04Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty k's on major roads of national significance.
- 0:07Speaker 1: Doctor Jamie Hosking is with the Healthy Auckland Together group
- 0:10Speaker 1: and is with us very good morning to.
- 0:11Speaker 2: You go Mike.
- 0:13Speaker 1: So where are we at you? You seem to be
- 0:15Speaker 1: interested I think in the school side of the equation.
- 0:17Speaker 1: Does that change dramatically under this new proposal?
- 0:21Speaker 2: Yeah, it does mean big changes unfortunately, And yes, being
- 0:25Speaker 2: with Healthy Auckland Together, we're particularly interested in city streets
- 0:28Speaker 2: and some of the safe speed zones that we've gotten
- 0:32Speaker 2: in cities, and yes, including around schools. And what we've
- 0:36Speaker 2: got in a lot of schools at the moment is
- 0:39Speaker 2: these permanent thirty K zones, and we know they work
- 0:44Speaker 2: really well, but unfortunately the proposal is to change to
- 0:47Speaker 2: the variable zones and they only operate for thirty K
- 0:51Speaker 2: for thirty minutes at the beginning and the end of
- 0:53Speaker 2: each school day. Whereas we know that five out of
- 0:56Speaker 2: six deaths and serious injuries that occur in those zones
- 0:59Speaker 2: around schools actually happen outside those times when the variable
- 1:02Speaker 2: limits wouldn't be operating, So I don't think that's the
- 1:05Speaker 2: right thing to do.
- 1:06Speaker 1: Well, a couple of questions, how many deaths are there
- 1:08Speaker 1: around school zones and are those school pupils in those
- 1:10Speaker 1: school zones or just deaths outside of the school area.
- 1:15Speaker 2: Yeah, this certainly includes not just not just the kids
- 1:18Speaker 2: who are going to these schools, and so I think
- 1:21Speaker 2: these benefits that we see for the permanent zones outside
- 1:26Speaker 2: schools are for other people as well. But it is
- 1:29Speaker 2: for kids too, because kids are not just outside schools
- 1:33Speaker 2: when it comes to just the thirty minutes at the
- 1:36Speaker 2: beginning and the end of the school day. They might
- 1:38Speaker 2: be going there to use the playground later on, or
- 1:41Speaker 2: going there for sports events on the weekend, that kind
- 1:43Speaker 2: of thing.
- 1:44Speaker 1: Do you have a view on the one twenty potentially
- 1:46Speaker 1: into the roads of national significance or the initial one ten?
- 1:52Speaker 2: Look, our focus is really on city streets and the
- 1:57Speaker 2: things that we're concerned about our city streets is not
- 2:01Speaker 2: with the changes at that kind of speed, but it's
- 2:05Speaker 2: more on the changes where we've got some safe speed
- 2:08Speaker 2: zones in place, and we've got some thirty K zones
- 2:11Speaker 2: that have been put in and we know that if
- 2:13Speaker 2: we reverse those thirty k zones and we increase the
- 2:16Speaker 2: speed limits to fifty ks. That's going to lead to
- 2:19Speaker 2: more people dying and being seriously injured. It will increase
- 2:22Speaker 2: injuries on those streets by more than half.
- 2:24Speaker 1: All right, doctor I appreciate it very much. Doctor Jamie Hosking,
- 2:27Speaker 1: spokesperson for the Healthy Auckland Together group.
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