Green light for 30km/h speed limit in Wellington.

**Swoop** · 27th April 2006, 11:47

27.04.06 11.00am

The speed limit in a number of downtown Wellington streets could be reduced to 30km/h as early as next week.

Wellington City Councillors yesterday voted for the new speed limit along Lambton Quay and Willis Street, a busy shopping and office area used by about 30,000 pedestrians daily, The Dominion Post reported.

The initiative stemmed from a coroner's report into the 2004 death of a woman who was killed when she stepped in front of a bus in Willis St.

Mayor Kerry Prendergast said an informal agreement between council and bus operator Stagecoach to reduce bus speeds to 30km/h had not worked.

The limit will apply to lower Willis St, Lambton Quay and parts of Willeston St, Mercer St, Customhouse Quay and Bunny St.

- NZPA

Good one stagecoach...

Watch your speed if riding in wellytown everyone.

**Blairos** · 27th April 2006, 11:50

Another example of a ridiculous act by a City Council - it probably wont stop people getting hit by buses in that part of town either...

**Blairos** · 27th April 2006, 11:52

Another thread on this going here as well

**Squeak the Rat** · 27th April 2006, 11:54

If they have any more accidents and then apply the same logic, we'll see the speed limit down to 10kph.

When you have people moving about with free will either in foot or in a vehicle you are going to have accidents. Accidents are part of being human. This hangover is making me turn green

**skelstar** · 27th April 2006, 11:58

I have no problem with this. Those buses go pretty quick down those streets...esp when they pull into the bus-stops, it can kinda catch you by surprise even if youre still on the sidewalk.

**sAsLEX** · 27th April 2006, 12:18

Originally Posted by Swoop

The initiative stemmed from a coroner's report into the 2004 death of a woman who was killed when she stepped in front of a bus in Willis St.

Wonder if the report mentiond Darwin much?

Originally Posted by skelstar

I have no problem with this. Those buses go pretty quick down those streets...esp when they pull into the bus-stops, it can kinda catch you by surprise even if youre still on the sidewalk.

Well judging by the fact that buses ignore all present road rules what makes these people think they will follow this one?

Hell they go up and down Symonds Street which has huge foot traffic accross it, and not being racist but alot of asian students dont seem to have very good road craft and I have seen a few hit and many many near misses where their friends have had to pull them back from a bus etc, and these buses go well above 50/60/70 up and down this road.

**wendigo** · 27th April 2006, 12:39

I wouldn't mind so much if instead of just hammering the motorist, they'd also do something educative to stop the fucktards who're getting themselves killed, killed.

For example, 'The Green Cross Code' anyone here know what I'm talking about? Stop, look, listen? These where things that were on the telly all the time when I was growing up in Ireland. For those of those of you who don't know what they are, they were a series of adds aimed at young children to teach them how to cross the road, and to raise the general awareness vis a vis road safety.

I've been here 4 years now & apart from a rather limp wristed "the roads are no playground", I've seen nothing that comes close.

Which leads us to this:

Originally Posted by Swoop

The initiative stemmed from a coroner's report into the 2004 death of a woman who was killed when she stepped in front of a bus in Willis St.

WTF???? How did she NOT see it? Its not as if its a packet of peanuts. Kind of difficult to miss. It must have hid behind a lampost then jumped out on top of her...

**poorbastard** · 27th April 2006, 12:51

I actually think this is a good idea for those streets. Often you wouldn't want to be doing much more then 30km down those streets anyway. And those busses do fly down those streets thinking they own the road so maybe this might make them think about what they are doing more.

**madboy** · 27th April 2006, 13:04

Don't worry about the speed limit, screw the buses for careless driving. Careless use doesn't require the driver to be exceeding the speed limit, merely driving in a manner that is careless for the conditions. I think doing 50k in a heavy vehicle with no chance of stopping or avoiding any sort of unexpected hazard, only 3m away from a few thousand pedestrians is careless.

See how long it takes the bus drivers to modify their attitudes when they're getting fined, and demerit points are stacking up leading to them losing their licenses.

But, oh wait, the traffic cops are all on the 6-lane nil pedestrian median barriered urban motorway parked under overpasses busting those f***ing lunatics doing 115k in the middle of the day! [Yes Aucklanders, we can speed in cages on our motorways during the day - haha!]