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Speaker 1: Speed limits have started going back up again. Thirty eight

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Speaker 1: sections of the State highway network will return to their

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Speaker 1: previously higher speed limits by July. The first State Highway

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Speaker 1: two between Featherston and Marterton is the first place to

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Speaker 1: see the increase that happened last night, and of course

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Speaker 1: all the politicians were there in front of the cameras

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Speaker 1: going haven't we done well? Glenn Coury is a certified

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Speaker 1: safe system assessor and level crossing safety impact accessor at

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Speaker 1: a company called via Strata and joins me Now hall

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Speaker 1: a Glenn, good morning. Andrew didn't even know jobs like

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Speaker 1: yours existed.

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Speaker 2: Ah, there's lots of safety jobs out there.

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Speaker 1: How did you get all the skills?

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Speaker 2: There's lots of training courses both here in Australia that

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Speaker 2: do things like that.

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Speaker 1: Are you for or against increasing speed limits for.

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Speaker 2: Most of these? Very much against. I see it as

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Speaker 2: a populous move really and in quite evidence free. You know,

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Speaker 2: there might be some sections that they're looking at where

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Speaker 2: there might be a case, but a lot of these

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Speaker 2: have already seen very good for reductions and deaths and

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Speaker 2: serious injuries already.

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Speaker 1: So you reckon that they all need to be judged

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Speaker 1: on their own individual, you know, status, and how good

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Speaker 1: or bad the roads are.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And I think they've sort of gone with

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Speaker 2: people going it's flowing me down, terrible and all the

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Speaker 2: rest of it, rather than actually looking at the evidence

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Speaker 2: about what's actually happened on some of these roads.

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Speaker 1: Okay, do you have any in all your training, will

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Speaker 1: you got your skills? Do you have any proof that

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Speaker 1: raising the speed limits will increase productivity?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? That one seems a bit of a misnomer as well,

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Speaker 2: because for a start, tracks going to go higher than

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Speaker 2: the ninety. In fact, even at eighty K tends to

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Speaker 2: be their optimal speed, so that's probably not going to

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Speaker 2: help them. Some of the roads are talking about. They're

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Speaker 2: looking at urban ones for example, and like Wellington near

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Speaker 2: the Terrace Tunnel's going to be a seventy k road. Well,

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Speaker 2: the problem is that rush hour on Wellington you're lucky

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Speaker 2: if you even don fifty at the moment.

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Speaker 1: That's true, but that's rush hour. But you know, when

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Speaker 1: you're at three o'clock in the morning and you've been

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Speaker 1: told to go, you know, seventy when you could quite

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Speaker 1: easily do one hundred, that hacks people off.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but that if anything you're going to be able

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Speaker 2: to go faster in other parts of the road or

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Speaker 2: other parts of the network, And so it's a bit

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Speaker 2: of a misnoment. At one section, you've saved, yes, thirty seconds,

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Speaker 2: what are you going to do for thirty seconds?

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Speaker 1: Make a cup of coffee? Obviously? Now once okay, Well,

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Speaker 1: here's the thing. The opponents, there's fear mongering there saying

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Speaker 1: all these speed limits go up, there's going to be

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Speaker 1: a big jump in the road toll. Do you believe that?

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Speaker 2: Well, it's what we've seen with the oppisode. I guess

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Speaker 2: when they've come down. So some of the sections are

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Speaker 2: looking at say State Highway five and maybe the topor

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Speaker 2: for example, since it came in three years ago, we've

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Speaker 2: seen about a more than forty percent drop in deaths

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Speaker 2: and serious injuries there. The one from Nelson to blend

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Speaker 2: them that that's been about a seventy percent drop. So

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Speaker 2: it's really looking back the other way, we could expect

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Speaker 2: to see those gains go away.

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Speaker 1: The last speed limits that were reduced by the Labor government,

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Speaker 1: I think there was a list of about three hundred

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Speaker 1: of them, and most of them were outside of schools,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of the schools were in rural areas

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Speaker 1: where they were basically on state highways where cars are

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Speaker 1: going fast and the schools wanted the cars to go

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Speaker 1: slower around the schools. There are a number of communities

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Speaker 1: that have these concerns. Should they have the ability to ask,

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Speaker 1: if not demand, a speed limit that's appropriate for their

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Speaker 1: community if they want to.

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Speaker 2: I think it's very important. And I see that a

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Speaker 2: lot of areas in the Tasman District, for example, have

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Speaker 2: been crying out for lower speeds on rural roads or

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Speaker 2: near schools and been a little bit frustrated that it

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Speaker 2: hasn't been happening. So I'm a little disported that we're

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Speaker 2: down to only getting consultation on state highways when a

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Speaker 2: lot of other local roads also should be looking at,

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Speaker 2: well what do the people actually want?

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Speaker 1: All right, Glen Uria, I thank you so much for

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Speaker 1: astually ask you one last question, how much do you

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Speaker 1: reckon this is all going to cost us?

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Speaker 2: Well that's the other thing. Yeah, you go all the

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Speaker 2: work of putting signs up and now they're potentially going

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Speaker 2: to have to put new signs up and it could

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Speaker 2: be rather piecemeal as well, you know, chop and change.

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Speaker 2: So that's adding up in terms of signs. Never mind,

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Speaker 2: as I say, the cost potentially to people's lives.

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Speaker 1: And coury, I thank you so much. He's from a

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Speaker 1: company called via Strata and he looks at safety on

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Speaker 1: roads and it is six minutes to six and a

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Speaker 1: text through just says that's rubbish. Trucks can easily do

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Speaker 1: one hundred. Yeah, they can do one hundred, but often

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Speaker 1: they're not supposed to. There's ninety limits all over the place.

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Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live

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