Woodhouse Michael: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoodhouse Michael: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 01 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19067. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (Associate Minister of Transport):As the Associate Minister of Transport I think it is really important for us to understand that the building of infrastructure certainly has an issue from an economic development and a movement of people perspective. I think it is also very important to understand that good roads mean better road safety. The delegation I have as Associate Minister of Transport is for road safety and it is with that in mind that I want to talk about some of the announcements that have been made both through the Budget and in particular a most recent announcement by the Government that it intends to improve the regional roading network with extra funds from the Future Investment Fund.When we came to office it is fair to say that after some reductions in the 1980s and 1990s the road toll effectively flat-lined. It was stubbornly stuck at around 400 per annum. It is true that road vehicle kilometres travelled increased in that period but we were making no significant inroads into the road toll. I do not think there is a family in this country that has not been affected by the trauma of serious injury or death on our roads. So it was very pleasing to see that when the Safer Journeys Action Plan was introduced and the 2-year safety strategy under the previous transport Minister Steven Joyce was implemented the effect was nearly immediate.Last year I am pleased to report we had the lowest road toll in this country since 1950. If one uses the measure of vehicle kilometres travelled it would have been one-sixth of the road toll of 63 years ago. So we are making progress but I think it is important to reflect on what happens next. The 2-year action plan has an engineering aspect to it recognising that human beings as we are will make mistakes on the road and the important thing through Budget 2014 is to ensure that the engineering of those roads is as good as we can afford and that drivers purchase vehicles that are as safe as we can afford.I think we have a bit of a mind-set issue in this country around road safety in that we tend to tolerate or accept that there is going to be a level of death or injury on our roads and the idea is to try to minimise that. I want to challenge that view. I think that we can through good roading engineering good technology with our cars and intelligent transport systems—which are not just things of the future but are available today in our lifetime—set a goal of zero for car-to-car road collisions. There are already technologies available that will prevent drift from one lane to another and there is adaptive cruise control that will slow a car down automatically if the car in front is slowing down. I am about to make some announcements around electronic stability control or ESC to ensure that over the next few years it becomes mandatory for all cars to have it.The Minister of Transport Gerry Brownlee has taken a test drive in California in a virtual driverless car. He of course released the intelligent transport systems map which sets out what those technologies could be both now and in the future. I think there is a very very real likelihood that in the not too distant future we will be able to say that on our roads in New Zealand the goal is zero for car-to-car collisions.It is a different thing when one introduces the issue of cycle motorcycle and truck safety into the discussion but I am also pleased to report that the Ministry of Transport is looking at and investing in—thanks to Budget 2014—significant investments in safe walking safe cycling and strategies in combination with ACC to improve motorcycle safety. There has been plenty of work going on including in the technology area to improve truck safety. Of course the introduction of very large trucks has reduced the number of truck journeys taken and made our economic performance more productive. I think there are very good strategies at work but I am disappointed to note that in the first 6 months of this year we have backslid slightly on our road toll. I hope we are able to make that up before the end of this year.The mistakes we are making on our roads are the same: distraction fatigue not wearing seatbelts speed drugs and alcohol. We know what causes death and injury on our roads and we need to continue to redouble our efforts. I think the engineering cycle safety and road transport safety elements of this Budget go a significant way toward achieving that goal.