Speed rules

All over Auckland, on more than 1500 local streets, new signs have been appearing.

- Russell Brown

In most cases, the signs announce a new speed limit: where the limit was 30km/h, it is to be raised to 50km/h. The exercise is not a cheap one: Auckland Transport has budgeted $8.8 million of ratepayers' money, but it would not be a surprise to see the bill creep over $10 million.

It's all a consequence of the Land Transport Rule Setting of Speed Limits 2024, known as the Speed Rule 2024. This regulatory stinkbomb - 57 pages that fairly groan with unreason and ambiguity - was left behind by former minister of transport Simeon Brown, for whom cars going as fast as possible everywhere was a kind of holy mission, a cultural statement, a cleansing of wokeness. It was finalised in January, the month he left to become Health Minister.