Jane Nees BOP Regional Councillor www.janenees.co.nz

Our local councils meet regularly with representatives from the New Zealand Transport Agency, Police and ACC to discuss road safety in the western Bay.

They form the Western Bay Joint Road Safety Committee and they monitor a Road Safety Action Plan, which pulls together a range of activities and actions aimed at making our roads safer places to be.

Some interesting statistical information reported at a recent meeting of this Joint Committee included:

• So far this calendar year, the number of fatalities on our Western Bay roads is lower than it has been for the last six years. There have been three local road deaths to date.
• Of concern is the fact that of the 14 fatalities on our roads last year, six of the deaths were of people over 70 years of age.
• There are a number of educational programmes targeted at young drivers, and statistics indicate that they are having a positive effect. While 17 per cent of alcohol related prosecutions so far this year relate to 15-19 year olds, this number has dropped year on year for the past four years from a high of 27 per cent.

It was also interesting to hear of a number of innovations and trials that are being introduced nationally to improve road safety. For example:

• Vodafone has a new DriveSafe freeTXT service, which when activated will send a text message to anyone that texts you that you are driving and will get back to them later on.
• NZTA is piloting a fully customisable travel information service that will provide information to motorists about road and driving conditions, incidents and scheduled road works on state highways via email.
• Tauriko is one place locally where a wide centreline trial is underway. This trial involves installing two lines in the centre of the road at varying widths to provide greater separation for opposing traffic and reduce the likelihood of cross centreline crashes.

A tight funding environment means that funding for road safety is constrained, but it is good to know that every dollar is being made to go further and that improved safety outcomes are continually being sought.

If you have any views on this or any other issue, please contact me on neesj@xtra.co.nz or ring me on 07 579-5150. Or you can check out my website at www.janenees.co.nz