20:53:04 Wednesday 27 August 2025

4km/h speed tolerance in place

Police are enforcing a 4km/h speed tolerance as Operation Crossroads gets underway in the Bay of Plenty, with the aim of reducing the Easter road toll.

The operation will run until April 9, as officers focus on awareness about road safety issues such as drink/driving, speeding, fatigue, distractions and seatbelt compliance.


As part of this campaign, Police will be lowering their customary speed tolerance to 4km as well as carrying out high visibility enforcement.

Acting Superintendent Rob Morgan hopes this works to focus the attention of drivers during these busy periods.

'We know if we can keep speeds down, we will save lives.”

Rob says excessive speed accounts for 34 per cent of deaths and is also a contributory factor for more than 13-20 per cent of serious injuries on New Zealand roads.

5 comments

Same Old...

Posted on 06-04-2012 10:12 | By philthrottle

Good on Inspector Rob for caring and trying to make a difference. However the success of his campaign will depend more on the weather and luck than the 4km/h tolerance. If it rains heavily at the wrong time there will be more accidents - why - because we are all using relatively cheap and nasty tyres with insufficient tread depth. A campaign to remove the worst 10% of cars and the worst 10% of drivers from the road will give much better results than the 4km/h tolerance. The tolerance only works temporarily, while it is news, and once people get used to it they will become complacent and lazy again.


speedometer error

Posted on 06-04-2012 15:06 | By hapukafin

The police should test and confirm each car caught speedo for error and true speed before issuing speeding ticket.I drove from Hamilton to Tauranga this morning and tried to stay within the 4km tolerence,it meant more time watching the speedo and less on the road,i know this affected my fine standard of accident free driving.


Reply to Hapukafin

Posted on 06-04-2012 18:35 | By The_Courier

Agree with you about constantly looking at the speedo, spending more time looking down than on the roads. It is very easy to go over the limit that's for sure! Definatly need a new rule, and yes the 4kph over does work but the majority of the people i have spoken to that drive the roads alot are in the same boat as me by spending more time looking down........ Also 'We know if we can keep speeds down, we will save lives.” This maybe true for the excessive speeding up and over 120kph, but the ones that cause crashes are the ones crossing over the centreline and passing on blind corners!!! Seen 4 people this week pass before blind corners it's becoming a joke.


Autobahn

Posted on 06-04-2012 18:36 | By john2000

Strange how the German Autobahn system has lower fatalities per 100,000 people than New Zealand, even with a 150kph limit on some stretches. Perhaps the European skill level is a lot higher than here!


LOL

Posted on 06-04-2012 18:38 | By tl;dr

lol


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