Kate Hawkesby: Road to Zero looks to be a Highway to Nowhere

Road to Zero looks to be the highway to nowhere we all thought it would be. Another measure the Government has not delivered on, another piece of ideology that’s proven completely unworkable in the real world. We learn now, that three years into the Road to Zero campaign, we have exactly the same number of road deaths as when we started – in fact we are heading backwards in terms of how bad the road toll is. So what has it achieved? Nothing. It’s mental health beds and child poverty and housing and healthcare all over again. A lot of talk, not a lot of action. It’s sadly what we have come to expect as the norm from this Government. Road to Zero included increasing breath testing to prevent alcohol related road deaths. Have they achieved this so far? Nope. They “fell short of the target by almost half, with 1.6 million tests against a target of three million,” it’s been reported in Waka Kotahi’s annual report. Waka Kotahi said this was "well below desired levels," no kidding. What a surprise. So let’s look at the promised road safety upgrades. Again, no sale Steve. ‘Last year it was far off its targets for highway safety upgrades..’ and it’s still behind now. ‘Waka Kotahi's annual report said only 165 km of road had reduced speed limits imposed, compared to a target of 500 kilometres. And what about mobile cameras? Well the report says, ‘it was short on mobile camera hours due to camera breakdowns’.. you can’t make this stuff up. Remember yesterday when I said living in NZ right now feels like living on the set of Fawlty Towers? Yep. Infrastructure? The campaign was ‘one project short of meeting its target for infrastructure safety projects’. OK, so what about the success rate of safety ad campaigns? Again, short of its target here ‘due to its narrow focus on traditional advertising channels.’ State highway and local road improvements.. what about those? They again fell short of targets – but more excuses – this time due to ‘ongoing Covid-19 impacts’.. whatever that means.. and ‘increased time taken to obtain consents and approvals.’ How does that not surprise us either? So what has the Road to Zero campaign got right so far? Not much apart from just rarking a lot of people up, making a lot of promises, and three years on, making a lot of excuses. Not only can this Government not meet any targets or deliver on anything, they seem permanently bewildered as to why none of it happens. Then the excuses start rolling in. So they’re good on word salads, promises, ideology and talking themselves up, but when the rubber hits the road.. excuse the pun, nada. The AA’s disappointed, ‘really disappointed’ they said, even Waka Kotahi’s said if they can’t start turning this stuff around it’s going to be ‘hugely disappointing’. I tell you what is hugely disappointing; everyone who voted for this Government believing their drivel that they’d achieve any of the stuff they alleged they could. Road to Zero is just the latest epic fail in a long line of failures  proving to us once again, that this Government just does not have a clue.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.