The Ashburton District Council is dedicated to fostering the Land Transport New Zealand’s commitment of enhancing road safety within our communities.

Towards that goal the council employs road safety co-ordinator, Ngaire Tinning, whose job it is to plan and prepare road safety projects and establish, develop and maintain a road safety culture within the district.

Twenty years ago, there was no such thing as a road safety co-ordinator in New Zealand. While the people in our cities, our towns and our rural communities were vaguely aware of an ever increasing road toll, there were few road safety advocates in Government, committed to changing our attitudes on the road, to changing our penchant for killing ourselves and others with our vehicles.

Ashburton featured significantly in changing those attitudes, in pushing the road safety movement nationally. In 1980, Ashburton man Ralph Benny was the chairman of the New Zealand Road Safety Association which lobbied the Government of the day into raising the profile of road safety and to making a commitment towards bringing the road toll down.

In working towards this goal the Government has introduced a strategic document for road safety in New Zealand called The National Road Safety Plan. It is the fundamental document, endorsed by Cabinet, which sets out New Zealand’s road safety vision, targets, safety goals and priority areas for the activities of both governmental and community organisations with a role in road safety.

It is a document which is aimed at bringing down the road toll, a document which the Ashburton District Council is committed to following.
Although the amount of traffic on our roads has increased by up to 40% in many areas over the last 10 years, the number of people killed in crashes has actually decreased by a similar percentage.
Communities like Ashburton are becoming aware of the road safety issues in their districts and are working together to make their roads safer.

In Ashburton, that work focuses on intersections, which not surprisingly feature prominently in our crash statistics, as there are so many intersections within the district’s roading network. Failure to give way and poor observation are the most common factors in urban and rural intersection crashes, although speed (travelling too fast for the conditions) and alcohol also play a significant part in intersection crashes in this area.

For further information about road safety in the district and the projects which are underway, contact Ngaire Tinning at the council on (03) 307-7700.