Porkies from NZTA

The Herald reports:

Locals on the Napier-Taupō Rd are plotting a challenge to prevent national highways agency Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency from changing the speed limits on State Highway 5.

Waka Kotahi announced last month that the speed-limit on about 90km of State Highway 5 will be lowered from 100km/h to 80km/h from February 18.

NZTA seem obsessed with doing this. In April they claimed that as the mean speed is 81 km/hr the reduction will only increase travel times by 60 seconds. I noted:

This is appalling use of maths, and NZTA should be ashamed.

The NZTA claims would only be valid if motorists didn’t just drive at an average of 81 km/hr on the road but drove at that exact speed for the entire journey. That at no time did they ever ever drive faster than 81 km/hr.

That is of course nonsense.

Now they have gone from junk maths to junk truth.

She said the agency did consider whether different sections should have different speed limits, but said there was no part of the 82km stretch where 100km/h was safe and appropriate.

That is a farcical claim, that anyone who has driven that road will know is false.