Skip to main content

New Zealand speed limits will be increased if National wins next election

'Blanket approach' to speed reduction under Labour government will end, opposition says
By Adam Hill September 28, 2023 Read time: 1 min
New Zealand highways: speeding up again? (© Rafael Ben Ari | Dreamstime.com)

New Zealand's opposition National party has said it will roll back some of the ruling Labour party's reforms on road speed limits.

The speed reductions were designed to improve road safety.

The country holds a general election on 14 October - and if National wins, it says that it will look at increasing speed limits on new highways to 110km/h, while returning many state highways to 100km/h (up from 80km/h) and local roads to 50km/h (up from 30km/h).

The party's transport spokesman Simeon Brown said: "Where it's safe to do so, we will reinstate the previous speed limit."

He also said changes were required to the way highway workzones were operated, with "unecessary" use of road cones and temporary speed limit restrictions to be looked at "while also maintaining the health and safety of our road workers".

National has criticised what it calls Labour's "blanket approach" to speed limits and wants to speed up traffic.

"This inflexible approach is unnecessarily slowing Kiwis down and harming economic activity by increasing travel times," insisted National leader Christopher Luxon. 

A win for his party would lead to "a more balanced approach", he added.

Related Content

  • Beam lights up first Sydney suburban e-scooter trial
    January 25, 2024
    Geofencing controls where scooters are ridden and how fast they can travel in Kogarah
  • Intertraffic Mexico 2022: better & safer road infrastructure urgently needed
    October 10, 2022
    Road safety organisation Anasevi highlights key issues for Intertraffic Mexico event
  • New Mersey crossing ends Halton’s congestion misery
    December 5, 2017
    Plagued by intolerable congestion but denied government funding for its solution, tiny Halton Borough Council relentlessly pursued its vision and achieved what many believed impossible. Halton may be a small local authority in north west England, but it had a big traffic problem. However, as the road, or more particularly the bridge, involved was not deemed a strategic route, central government would not commission or even fund a solution - a problem that many other local authorities will recognise.
  • Øresund bridges the front line for border crossing traffic
    September 15, 2016
    Timothy Compston considers the challenges faced by the operators of the Øresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden, the largest structure of its kind across Europe. In light of the concerns about the ongoing security threat and the unprecedented flow of migrants, many of the countries that make up the Schengen Area in Europe have re-introduced border controls. For its part, Sweden has rolled out ID checks for train, bus and ferry passengers from Denmark placing the landmark Øresund Bridge very much on the fr