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- By MP for Port Waikato Andrew Bayly
Recently I have received numerous emails from constituents concerned about the growing number of fixed and average-speed cameras on roads around Waiuku and Glenbrook.
Their message reflects a frustration I hear regularly across Franklin: why does it seem that every year brings more enforcement, yet the same roads still suffer from poor surfaces, dangerous intersections and inadequate passing opportunities? It’s a question that deserves an honest answer.
I was vehemently opposed to Auckland Transport’s blanket speed limit reductions in recent years.
More than 200 roads across Franklin had their speed limits cut under the previous government’s approach.
In many cases, residents felt that common sense had been replaced by a one-size-fits-all policy that prioritised lower numbers on road signs over fixing the actual causes of crashes.
My position then, and now, is straightforward: road safety starts with the road itself.
If a road has poor visibility, dangerous intersections, inadequate shoulders, poor drainage or a deteriorating surface, simply reducing the speed limit does not solve the underlying problem.
Likewise, installing more cameras does not make a road safer.
That is why I have repeatedly advocated that the focus should be on engineering solutions and targeted investment at known blackspots, not blanket restrictions imposed across entire regions.
Although the coalition government’s new Land Transport Rule came into force on October 30, 2024, and required many speed limits reduced since 2020 to be reviewed or reversed, councils and road controlling authorities must undertake formal consultation with communities, analysis and administrative processes before any changes can be implemented.
These processes have proven costly and time-consuming, contributing to delays in restoring some speed limits that communities expected would be reversed sooner.
What frustrates many people in Franklin is the sense that enforcement has become the default response to improving road safety while the underlying problems remain.
Every new camera is announced as a safety measure, yet motorists see little evidence of equivalent investment in the roads they use every day, instead having to continue to contend with infrastructure that has not kept pace with population growth.
If you share these frustrations, make your views known.
Write to the Minister of Transport and let him know where you believe resources should be prioritised.
The more residents speak up, the harder it becomes for bureaucracies to ignore the message that Franklin wants safer roads through better engineering, better maintenance and sensible speed limits, not simply more cameras.
For electorate issues, contact me at andrew@baylymp.co.nz
