Rural Trader Blogs

Speedsters are killing rural kids

MPs were told this month that New Zealand children have the worst rates of death and injury from preventable causes in the developed world.

Starship Hospital's paediatric surgeon James Hamill told Parliament's health select committee a third of all child deaths are due to trauma.

Doctors are recommending 20km/h zones around schools to cut the death rate from 100% after a collision to 19%. It is therefore encouraging to see local councils making moves to lower speed limits in pedestrian areas and around schools.

Since 1987, 23 children have been killed, 47 seriously injured and 92 received minor injuries when crossing the road to or from a school bus in New Zealand.

Manakau City recently passed a bylaw introducing a 40km/h speed limit in school zones while children are going to and from school, which will come into effect in July.

Wellington City Council looks set to go one step further. It plans to reduce speeds to 30km/h in 21 areas across the city and extending the slow-down to roads outside Wellington's 85 schools.

But what about our rural areas where speed limits of up to 100km/h exist outside some schools? Communities wishing to reduce speed limits for schools on state highways must apply to the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) on a case by case basis, and not all requests are approved.

Rural Women New Zealand (RWNZ) is calling for a universal lowering of speed limits outside rural schools. At our recent national conference in Wellington, RWNZ members agreed to lobby ministers to introduce one speed past urban schools and one speed past all rural schools.

Meanwhile, RWNZ's campaign to raise driver awareness of the 20km/h limit when passing a stationary school bus in both directions is gaining traction, but still has a long way to go.

The New Zealand Parent Teacher Association is supporting RWNZ's call for flashing lights on the front and rear of school buses. This follows the death of an 11-year-old boy in Matamata last month after being hit by a vehicle when getting off a school bus.

Government has asked Transport Engineering Research New Zealand (TERNZ) to come up with initiatives to improve the safety of children crossing the road to and from a school bus.

Its trials have shown the 20km/h limit is rarely observed, and when drivers do slow it is not unusual for following motorists to overtake them at speed.

TERNZ has been trialling flashing lights and improved signage on buses, which have been effective in slowing traffic.

However, it is likely to be some time before New Zealand introduces compulsory flashing lights on school buses, as school bus contracts have just been let for seven years, with two three-year rollover periods.

In that period another dozen school children can be expected to die from injuries sustained after being hit by speeding vehicles after exiting the school bus. Many more will be seriously injured.

Apart from the enormous personal cost of such tragedies for families and communities, there is a social cost too. The Ministry of Transport's cost benefit analysis is used to prioritise road safety initiatives and estimates the average annual social cost of crashes involving children crossing the road to or from school buses at $5.2 million a year.

Given New Zealand drivers non-compliance with the 20km/h rule, on a cost benefit basis alone RWNZ says it is time to put funding into a nationwide driver awareness campaign, along the lines of the very effective seatbelt and intersections safety campaigns.

The good news is that we are beginning to see a groundswell of community initiatives and action from individual bus companies to install flashing lights and better signage on buses.

The Petrecevich bus company in Kaitaia is a leading example. It has installed bright bold signs in the rear windows of all its buses reminding drivers of the 20km/h rule, and is now trialling flashing lights on the fronts and backs of its buses.

The flashing lights have had instant results, says workshop manager Garth Petrecevich: "It made a difference straight away. People are slowing down to around 30-40km/h - it used to be 100km/h."

Drivers on the buses have a manual switch to activate the NZTA-approved lights and signs. The lights begin to flash as the bus slows down, when it is stopped, and as it pulls away again.

'The problem wasn't when we were stationary; most children are hit by vehicles coming towards the bus, so it is important to warn approaching vehicles that there are children nearby," says Petrecevich.