A new star rating system devised by the Government and the AA has today rated the Hamilton to Raglan State Highway 23 at two star. Two star is the lowest rating given to any highway in the country indicating a lower road safety situation. An excellent road would be rated at five stars. The study that the star rating was based on found that in the 40.1 kilometre length of SH 23 there were 19 serious injury crashes between 2002 and 2006 and 4 fatal crashes. This means that the crashes per kilometre average out at 0.12 per year. The collective risk is rated at Medium to High. In terms of personal injury there were 6.3 incidents per 100 million vehicle kilometres putting the personal risk at Medium .
The AA says that Kiwi drivers have a new tool for understanding the relative safety of New Zealand’s roads with this release today of new star ratings for our state highways as part of the KiwiRAP programme.
KiwiRAP is a partnership between the Automobile Association and New Zealand government agencies: the Ministry of Transport, NZ Transport Agency, ACC and the New Zealand Police. It is part of the International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP), which also includes Europe (EuroRAP), Australia (AusRAP) and the United States (usRAP).
In January 2008, KiwiRAP published a set of risk maps which rated sections of New Zealand’s state highways based on crash history. The star ratings announced today are the next stage in the KiwiRAP programme, providing an assessment of the relative levels of safety built into our state highways – one star roads have the lowest safety rating and five star roads the highest.
KiwiRAP provides star ratings for 89 percent of New Zealand’s state highway network, covering 10,002kms of rural highways with speed limits of 80km/h or more. KiwiRAP spokesman Mike Noon says providing this information to motorists is important because the road environment is a factor in the number of crashes which occur on our roads and the seriousness of injuries people sustain in crashes.
“The KiwiRAP programme can help improve drivers’ knowledge about the relative safety of the roads they use, as well as help identify roads that will benefit from safety improvements.
“If we can increase public awareness that different parts of the state highway network have different levels of safety, drivers will have a better understanding of how roadside hazards like trees, ditches, poles and narrow shoulders can increase risk. Armed with that knowledge we can all adjust our driving to the conditions and take extra care on higher risk roads.
“While New Zealand should aspire for our busiest roads to be at least four-star, our geography means that this can be difficult to achieve and will not be practical or affordable for all our state highways,” says Mr Noon.
NZ Transport Agency Group Manager Strategy & Performance Ernst Zollner says
KiwiRAP is an important informational tool for New Zealand motorists.
“The KiwiRAP star ratings are a big step forward for New Zealand, putting a new focus on safer roads and roadsides. KiwiRAP supports the government’s new Safer Journeys road safety strategy which has adopted a ‘safe system’ approach to reducing crashes, aiming for safe roads, safe vehicles, safe speeds and safe road use.”