The Government is failing to deliver against its own road safety measures according to its 2021 Road to Zero Monitoring Report released yesterday, National’s Transport Spokesperson Simeon Brown says.

“Instead of building high quality safe roads, Labour said it would invest in new median barriers, side barriers and intersection improvements on existing roads to increase road safety.

“But its own monitoring report shows that the Government has failed to deliver meaningfully against these measures, with only 50km of median barriers and 300km of side barriers installed across New Zealand’s almost 11,000km state highway network.

“The report also highlights that Police are only delivering half of the required three million breath tests, despite alcohol and drugs contributing to 47 per cent of all deaths on our roads.

“But the report fails to look at the quality of New Zealand’s roads, despite mounting concern about the quality of maintenance taking place on our roads and the increase in reporting of potholes peppering the state highway network.

“About the only thing the report says Labour has delivered is an advertising campaign for the Road to Zero strategy, which is costing road users $14.7m over three years – a campaign which includes five large red ‘zeros’ a cost of over $5,000 each.

“The Government has stopped investing in major state highway improvements, failed to deliver increased safety infrastructure and has only achieved a marketing campaign despite millions being spent.

“It’s more spending, but worse outcomes under this Government. Labour just can’t get things done.”

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