Even though the air temperature was down around the minus-4 mark in Canterbury this morning, there would have been no shortage of muppets driving as if it’s the middle of summer. 

You know, the speed limit’s 50kph or 80kph or 100kph and that’s the speed I’m going to go.  

Don’t worry about the fact that there’ll be some other clowns driving around with their windscreens still frosted over. Or people driving east into that low winter sun, struggling to see what’s coming towards them. 

Only problem is —and this isn’t limited to days like today— is how confident we can be that we know what the speed limit actually is whenever we’re driving somewhere. 

Once upon a time, you’d be driving around town and you’d pretty much know it was 50 kph. And then, once you got onto the open road, it was 100. 

I know there were things like Limited Speed Zones, but I think we can agree that it was much clearer what speeds we were expected to be travelling at. 

These days, it can be a guessing game. I know the NZTA people would probably poo-poo that and say ‘it’s very clear what the speed expectations are’.  

But tell that to the person I know who was pinged for speeding just outside Motueka a couple of summers ago. 

It looked like a 100 kph zone. Felt like a 100 kph zone. But wrong! It was an 80 kph zone. Nevertheless, I’m not in favour of this one-size-fits-all approach the Government wants to take. 

I get that the Government wants to deal-to the confusion that there can be about what speed limits apply where, by reversing some of the changes brought-in under the previous administration. Essentially, back to what they were four years ago.  

This would include having “variable speed limits” around schools. So, instead of it being 30 kph outside schools all the time, the Government wants to make it 30 kph during school drop-off and pick-up times, and 50 kph the rest of the time.  

And, not surprisingly, there is push-back coming from local councils, who say they know best when it comes to setting speed limits in their areas. 

Auckland Council has already put it to a vote. 18 councillors don’t want the Government poking its nose-in and raising speed limits. And only three Auckland councillors do. A pretty overwhelming rejection. 

Meantime, here in Canterbury, the Christchurch City Council is starting to flex its muscles too, saying that bringing-in variable speed limits around schools would require it to spend about $7 million of ratepayer money on new signs that could show different speed limits at different times. 

Councillor Sara Templeton is in the news today saying that local communities have asked the council time-and-time-again to make streets safer and, if the Government thinks it can just go holus-bolus and put in a 50 kph speed limit everywhere, then it’s ignoring what the local people want.   

She says people who support lower speed limits are always accused of being “ideologically driven”, which she rejects. 

According to Councillor Templeton, it’s the people who want to increase speed limits who are the ones driven by ideology. Because —by her definition— ideology is “opinions with no evidence”. 

The question to consider in all of this, though, is who knows best when it comes to setting speed limits. Is it the Government in Wellington? Or is it the people on-the-ground locally? Your local councils. 

The people who get their ears chewed all the time about unsafe roads outside schools. Hoons causing trouble on Saturday nights. That sort of thing. 

So it’s a no-brainer, isn’t it? Well, for me, it is. 

What makes Wellington think it can set a blanket speed limit that will be appropriate everywhere? As Christchurch councillor Sara Templeton is saying today, “for a Government that talked about localism and councils taking responsibility for their communities at the last election, it seems to be mandating a lot of stuff from Wellington.” And I couldn’t agree with her more. 

I also couldn’t agree more with those 18 Auckland councillors who voted in favour of telling the Government to butt-out when it comes to setting speed limits.