Top cop says no change on speed - but history proves otherwise

Friday, 4 September 2020

A police move to ticketing everyone driving over 100kmh is being touted as no change in policy by top brass, but history proves otherwise.

Stuff recently revealed a zero tolerance approach police are taking, with national road policing manager Acting Superintendent Gini Welch quashing any debate of a speed buffer in which discretion over whether to dish out tickets was exercised.

“We don’t have a threshold … we don’t have anything other than the speed limit,” she said.

Police say all drivers breaking the speed limit can expect a ticket and that they never exercised a buffer in which motorists could expect discretion over enforcement.

But, in what appears to be an about-face during a media interview on Monday the assistant commissioner of road policing Sandra Venables denied there had been any changes, saying there had never been a buffer.

* Zero-tolerance speed regime a hard sell

* No choosing mistakes, only speed, says top cop

* Zero tolerance on speeding drivers all year round as cops get tough on motorists

This is despite widely reported comments by police highlighting their 10kmh discretionary speed buffer, usually in the context of warning motorists ahead of well-flagged moves to a temporary zero tolerance stance over a long weekend.

References to a buffer or speed tolerance over the posted limit by police staff abound in Stuff stories over the years.

Police have made numerous references to a buffer over the years.

In a 2003 interview with Waikato’s traffic manager Inspector Leo Tooman, he said his staff would enforce the 10kmh tolerance rule, but “If a guy's doing 111kmh he will get a ticket'.
In a 2004 story with national road safety manager Superintendent Steve Fitzgerald he said “at this stage there were no plans to reduce the informal 10kmh tolerance to 5kmh (over the limit) for anything other than trucks”.
In 2012 there was a story about police pulling the handbrake on suggestions they were ‘seriously considering’ slashing the 10kmh tolerance for drivers. Acting Superintendent Rob Morgan said a permanent drop in the tolerance was on the cards after a reduction to 4kmh for the rest of this month.
A 2013 story had Waikato road policing manager Inspector Marcus Lynam talking about a lower 4kmh speed tolerance in an effort to reduce the holiday road toll. 'When speaking to the drivers they're aware of the campaign and there hasn't been any negative comment so far.”
In a report from 2014 after a Safer Summer campaign run by police, they said they would strictly enforce a 4kmh reduced speed threshold between December 1, 2013, and January 31, 2014. “New Zealand Police has long publicised the threshold applied to speed enforcement. The usual speed enforcement threshold applied…is 10kmh over the limit for light motor vehicles, apart from school zones, which is 4kmh.”

Police are taking a zero-tolerance approach to speeding, as they try to reduce fatalities on NZ roads.

Marlborough Highway Patrol team leader sergeant Barrie Greenall said in 2016 over Easter weekend the speed tolerance would be reduced to 4 kmh. 'If you are 5kmh over the limit, you could be fined.'
A 2016 story with New Plymouth road policing supervisor Sergeant George White said a “Safer Speeds” operation would see police stopping drivers who exceeded the posted speed limit by 10 per cent. “Police will still issue tickets in line with the national policy of 10km an hour but it's hoped the new measure will prevent drivers from reaching that threshold.” On long weekends police would continue to enforce the national 4kmh tolerance, he said. “That's not to say a person won't get a ticket for exceeding the speed limit by even one kilometre an hour. It's important that people realise it's dependent on the circumstances.”
In 2017 a story involving New Plymouth Senior Sergeant Bruce Irvine he said “he had not heard officially, but expected the lower speed tolerance of 4-5kmh above the speed limit would be in place over the weekend”.

Now police say they are targeting that bracket of 1 to 10kmh above the posted speed limit as research showed that by targeting the average mean speed, it would reduce crashes.

“If you reduce the average mean speed, that reduces crashes and the severity of those crashes,” Welch said.

“Reducing speed reduces the severity of crashes – it’s an undeniable truth.”

While speed is one factor in crashes AA driving school general manager Roger Venn said he hoped police weren’t too focussed on only one aspect of crashes.

“The speed limit is the speed limit, it’s not a target, and I encourage drivers to drive to the conditions.”

He said while drivers should be constantly aware of their speed, he didn’t want them to focus solely on it.

“We don’t want drivers fixated on their speed and not fixated on where they are going.”

Venn encouraged drivers to assess their own driving and look at doing a refresher course.

“Most people haven’t had any training since the day they passed their test.”

The New Zealand Police website states people are liable to get a speeding ticket if they drive more than 4 kilometres over the limit in some circumstances.

These circumstances were listed as in school zones and during holiday periods if detected by a speed camera.

However, it does reiterate officers still had discretion about how they dealt with incidents.

Their website now also includes information about how “most illegal speeding is in the 1-10kmh band above the limit. Speeds in this band are associated with the most crashes”.

Police were asked for an interview to clarity the situation on speed and any tolerance, or lack thereof.

They were also asked to clarify about when they began to target the 1-10kmh band above the posted speed limit.

A spokeswoman thanked Stuff for the opportunity, but said police had nothing further to add.