Speech to Motor Trade Association Annual Conference

Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to make this opening address.

I would like to acknowledge Motor Trade Association CEO Stephen Matthews, President David O'Kane and all MTA members here for this conference.

The Motor Trade Association represents some 4,000 businesses within the automotive industry.

You play a vital role in informing the government of the views of your membership and, in turn, informing members about government decisions that affect you all. 

So it's great to be here to update you on some of the work we're doing.

Safer Journeys

I want to focus today on road safety, which is a key transport priority for the government, as well as for the MTA.

Compared to other OECD countries, New Zealanders have a relatively high rate of road deaths. Based on 2008 figures, we have 8.6 deaths per 100,000 population.

This compares with 6.9 deaths for Australia.

Our fatality rate is double that of the safest driving nations of Great Britain, Sweden and the Netherlands.

We had been improving until about 2002, since that time we've been stuck at around 400 deaths and 3000 serious injuries each year.

Now the news is not all bad - this is against a background of continued increases in kilometres travelled.

So we have been seeing an improvement but 400 deaths and 3,000 serious injuries per year is too many.

Last year we bucked the trend with a lower toll - 365 - but it's likely that that was the result of higher fuel prices and less vehicles on the road.

The government has been working on a new road safety strategy to take us through to 2020.

It's called Safer Journeys and it will set out the actions we need to take to reduce the number of deaths and injuries on our roads over the next decade.

The Safer Journeys discussion document was released for consultation in August. It set out some high priorities around the areas where we can make a real difference to the number of people killed and injured.

I want to thank the MTA for taking the time to make a very thoughtful and considered submission.

Young drivers

Your submission covered a range of issues but I want to hone in on just one of them today because it's hugely important.

That's the issue of young drivers.

This is an issue the government identified as a priority area right from the get-go. 

There are too many young people dying on our roads.

Young drivers - those in the 15-24 age bracket - are seriously over-represented in our crash statistics and in our road toll.

Young drivers make up 14.5 percent of New Zealand's population and 16 percent of all licensed drivers, but in 2008 they were involved in around 37 percent of all serious injury crashes.

Crashes where young drivers were at fault resulted in 122 deaths and 800 serious injuries last year alone.

And between 2000 and 2008 the number of people killed or seriously injured in a crash where a young driver was at fault has increased by about 17 percent.

You can't ignore those kinds of statistics.

I think we owe it to that generation, as well as to all other road users, to do something about this.

We'll never come up with a silver bullet, because let's be honest - people will always flout the rules.   

People still speed.  

People still drink and drive.

People even still text while driving.  Although there does seem to have been an immediate reduction in the level of cell phone usage in general and in texting since the new rule came into play at the start of the month.

But we can do some more things to curb the number of young people dying on our roads.

And we can learn from other countries.

For example - young Australians have a road fatality rate of 13 per 100,000 of population, while young New Zealanders have a fatality rate of 21 per 100,000 of population.

So what's happening there that's not happening here?

What's happening in Australia?

In Australia in all but one State [ACT] the driving age is 16.

A number of other initiatives have been implemented, including:

In Victoria a probationary licence system is being introduced with a requirement for a good driving record to advance to the next licence stage.

Queensland has introduced hazard perception testing into its graduated licensing testing.

A number of states also have implemented or are implementing between 100 - 120 hours of driving practice to advance to the next licence stage while fines and demerit points for licence breaches are also in place in several states.

Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland have vehicle restrictions for young drivers based on vehicle power.

What we are proposing in NZ

We're looking at similar types of things here.

There were a number of proposals in the safer Journeys discussion document to combat this issue, including:

• Raising the driving age to 16 or 17.


•  Extending the learner licence period to 12 months.


•  Strengthening the restricted licence test to encourage 120 hours of driving practice.


•  Raising awareness of young driver crash risk


•  Increasing the benefits of professional driver training


•  Increasing the benefit of school road safety education


•  Impounding vehicles of those who breach licence conditions


•  Introducing vehicle restrictions


•  Introducing third party insurance.

Of course we won't be introducing all of these, but there will certainly be action in this area and I‘ve told officials that I want that to happen quickly.

I know your members through the MTA submission strongly support the high priority the government is giving to the safety of young drivers - particularly the proposed initiatives to impound vehicles of drivers who breach licence conditions, introducing driving restrictions for young drivers based on vehicle power and level of modification and the introduction of compulsory third party insurance.

While it is still early days, over time we'll be implementing a package of actions that evidence and the public tell us is the best mix to improve road safety.

I would like to particularly acknowledge the efforts the MTA is already making in this area through the education of younger drivers.

Your work with Greg Murphy especially through the ‘Eliminate the Risks' school campaign has been a great initiative to raise teenagers' awareness of the care that needs to be taken when driving.

Roading infrastructure - safety benefits

So road safety is a very big focus for this government.

But let's be clear - it's not all about just changing the rules.

I want to stress again that the quality of our roads is one of the biggest determinate in keeping the road toll down.

From 1997 to 2006, roading improvements helped reduce road deaths by 11 percent on rural roads and 16 percent on urban roads.

We know that separating traffic with widened roads and median barriers, for example, makes a huge difference. 

In the five years prior to work being completed on Alpurt A - the Albany four lane extension - there was an average of 3 fatal and almost 7 serious crashes along that strip of road each year. 

With the four laning of the road and addition of median barriers this has reduced to less than one fatal crash and four serious injuries each year since the work was done. 

So this will be another key consideration in the development of the road safety strategy, and also in the development of roading infrastructure.

Infrastructure

Our work on the roading network is driven by three determinants:

• Safety, which I've already covered.


• Congestion; and


• Productivity and growth.

In recent years a serious infrastructure deficit has arisen in this country.  We need to turn that around.  This isn't optional - it's vital.

The regional and national benefits of well-performing transport corridors has a flow-on effect that is key to making us a competitive country on the global stage.

So we're giving high priority to projects that reflect the country's transport realities while stimulating economic growth.

The first step was to revise the government policy statement on transport funding to put economic growth at the fore and to better reflect the realities of how New Zealanders get around and how we transport our goods.

We have allocated around $10.7 billion over 10 years for investment in the state highway network, which we believe is an appropriate level given its importance.

We saw the tangible outcomes of his late last month with the release of the first three-year National Land Transport Plan.

It delivers a programme of targeted investment in infrastructure and services that will benefit all New Zealanders by providing long-term benefits for both the transport network and the nation's social and economic development.

The NLTP has prioritised routes that need work to reduce congestion, improve journey time reliability and improve key freight and tourism routes.

In particular, priority had been given to advancing Roads of National Significance and the local roads critical to supporting them, as well as key freight and tourist routes.

The seven initial Roads of National Significance are centred on New Zealand's five largest population centres that have large traffic volumes, and are of national strategic importance for the economy. 

All need work to reduce congestion, improve safety and support economic growth.

These seven projects are focussed on:

• Increasing productivity


• Reducing journey time


• Enhancing safety

For example, the Tauranga Eastern Link will bring travel time savings of 12 minutes in each direction.  That's per vehicle.

A saving of 24 minutes on a return journey for trucks will mean, in some cases, allowing an extra return journey to be made a day.

This time saving will mean significant productivity gains and allow the port to increase exports.

The new road will also bring significant safety gains on State highway 2 between Tauranga and Paengaroa, which is ranked second worst in the country per kilometre for fatal and serious injury crashes by the KiwiRap programme.

Similar gains will be made as a result of work on State Highway One between Wellington Airport and Levin.  This is one of the most challenging stretches of road and the transport agency is working hard on a long term strategic plan for that corridor now.

Closing remarks

After a year in office - and for me a year as Transport Minister - I feel we're starting to make some real gains.

We've reprioritised the transport spend to ensure productivity is the focus.

In terms of safety we've introduced the cell phone rule, passed new drugged driving legislation, signalled a change to the snow tyre rule which will come into force in April, and passed the Enforcement Powers Act to crack down on illegal street racing activity. 

And we're about to make other important changes with safety in mind - and actions relating to young drivers will be a big part of that.

Thank you again for your time today.  

I'm happy to take any questions.