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Thursday, November 24, 2022

Mike Hosking: Road to Zero another in a long list of government failures


Hard to believe, but in Waka Kotahi's annual report, the famed Julie Anne Genter piece of genius, Road to Zero has failed.

It's failed before, of course. This is just the update confirming it's failed again this year as well.

Only one of six measures was met for the year.

We're three years into the thought bubble, and when it comes to road deaths we have gone basically nowhere. Breath testing is well short, probably because the police have been busy with ram raids and gangs. Highway upgrades are short, mainly because they haven't built any. Mobile camera hours are short, because they broke down.

It's comedic.

Remember this is Waka Kotahi, the agency of a thousand spin doctors in the PR department all earning well into six figures. That appears the only thing that does work, hiring a lot of people to pedal crap.

The road toll story is not new. We all know why we kill each other. It's a combination of poor roads and idiots.

The stuff that would physically work, like the median barriers, the stuff that stops one car hitting another hasn’t been done. It wasn’t done last year, and isn't being done this year.

You can breath test people all you want. They have. Breath testing was around well before Waka Kotahi. But the idiots don't learn.

The advertising doesn’t work. Last time we talked about this, just last week, we got down to lowering the speed all over the country. That is really the only thing you can do when your entire programme is failing.



80 kilometres an hour won't work any more than 75, 63, or 39. Because if it's not booze, drugs, or idiocy, it's speed. And speed is generally a result of ignoring the law.

This is the crux of the issue. The regular Joe, like you and me, is massively inconvenienced for the fool who is paying no attention anyway.

So, another year, another failure.

The road safety strategy, so profusely trumpeted by Julie Anne Genter in a previous government, picked up and run with by this current lot, like so much of the rest of what they babble on about, is all talk and no result.

The headline reads "Government road strategy fails."

What a surprise.

Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings.

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