If we can be thankful for anything today, it’s the fact that Waka Kotahi isn’t in charge of aviation.
If it was - and a plane fell out of the sky - it wouldn’t do anything about the plane, it would just make it compulsory for plane passengers to put on lifejackets before they take off from the airport.
Because that is exactly what it’s doing with its latest announcement that it wants speed limits reduced on our state highways.
I’ll refer to the statement it put out yesterday saying it wants lower speed limits because “speed limits were first set before we knew what was safe and appropriate for our roads”.
Which is why I’m saying that if they were in charge of things in the sky, they wouldn’t try to make the planes safer - they’d just make us wear lifejackets.
Because claiming that current speed limits were set before we knew what was safe, is code for saying the speed limits were set when our roads in this country were in a much better condition and it was safer for us to drive faster.
To claim anything otherwise is nonsense. Over the past decade, we have allowed our roads to become so rundown and unsafe that it seems the only answer is to make us all drive slower.
For Waka Kotahi to claim that this is just a correction, that when we set the speed limits we didn’t really know what the safest speeds were for our roads in New Zealand, is a load of nonsense.
Just like this expectation that making us all drive slower will somehow turn us all into safer drivers. It won’t.
Because the speed limit can be whatever you want it to be, but it won’t stop idiots overtaking on corners; it won’t stop people failing to indicate or indicating and just going straight ahead anyway; or doing risky u-turns, especially on the highways.
Lowering the speed limits won’t stop idiots texting while they go through intersections. It won’t stop them wearing earpods while driving or riding. And it certainly won’t make people any less likely to drive drunk or stoned.
What Waka Kotahi is doing is letting the Government and councils away with under-investing in roading and road maintenance to the point - where it seems - the only option is to drive slower.
I think if you really want to get an idea of how bad a road is, in terms of its condition, you just need to tow a trailer around for a bit.
I was doing that yesterday. Our daughter bought a bed and so we hooked up a trailer and, as we were heading down the road, that trailer was bouncing all over the place. And when I actually paid attention to the state of the road, I could see why.
That was in town. As you will know, the roads on our highways are not much better in many areas. They are in a shocking condition and, if Waka Kotahi was really serious about getting anywhere close to zero road deaths; it wouldn’t be tinkering with speed limits.
It would be calling out councils and the Government and telling them that they are the problem, not us, and they need to spend the money that desperately needs to be spent to get our roads up to scratch.
The conditions of our roads and the brainless way some people behave when they’re driving are the problem. Reducing speed limits is a cop-out.