The Speed of Nonsense: A Council’s Guide to Fixing What Ain’t Broken

Selwyn Council wants to change speed limits on 36 roads, claiming it’s for safety. But is this just another case of bureaucrats fixing what isn’t broken?

Opinion: Selwyn District – a semi-rural patch of Canterbury where life rolls along at 100 km/h (give or take a few over the limit). Enter the Council, armed with a plan to tinker with speed limits. It’s a truth universally acknowledged (at least in local government) that if something works, someone will surely try to change it. The humble speed limit, that banal number on a sign, has become the latest target. Thus we find ourselves invited to have our say on slowing down. A cynic might note that the Council just can’t resist fixing what isn’t broken. As one wag quipped, “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” In Selwyn’s case, no driver’s peace of mind is safe while the Council is in consultation.

What’s the story? The Selwyn District Council proposes to drop speed limits at 36 locations across the district, all in the name of safety and adapting to growth. On paper it sounds reasonable: new subdivisions popping up, schools on once-rural roads, more cars and cyclists about – so let’s slow everyone down a bit. It’s presented as common sense. “Safer Speeds for Selwyn,” they call it, because calling it “Lower Speeds” wouldn’t be rosy enough. Here one can hear George Orwell chuckling. Orwell warned that political language is designed “to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” By that measure, branding a speed reduction as “safer speeds” is a masterstroke of spin. Who could oppose safety? If you raise an eyebrow, you’re a heartless hoon who wants danger on the roads. The language all but forbids dissent: slow equals safe by definition. Checkmate.

Of course, the public is being “consulted.” The Council insists it wants to know what we think about each proposed change. There’s an online survey, interactive maps, the whole shebang. Democracy in action, right? But let’s not kid ourselves. Slavoj Žižek would call this ritual ideological cynicism: they know exactly what they’re doing, but still, they are doing it. The Council knows many folks will grumble about driving slower. They know plenty will ignore new limits if they think they can get away with it. They likely suspect that changing a sign, by itself, won’t magically alter human habits. They know all this, yet they proceed. Why? Because process must be followed; boxes must be ticked. The new Land Transport Rule (a national edict from 2024) demands public consultation and evidence for every speed change. So consult they will. But will they actually change course if the public overwhelmingly says “no”? History says not really. Feedback will be “considered,” but the Council also has a duty to meet higher safety objectives. In plain English: if we all say “leave the limit alone,” they’ll nod politely – and likely lower it anyway, citing crash data and expert advice. It’s democracy via fine print.

Speaking of expert advice, they’ve got spreadsheets and Cost Benefit Analyses to justify each change. Every road on the list comes with a report calculating how many seconds of travel time we’d lose versus how many crashes might be avoided. It’s technocratic heaven. In one column, lives saved; in another, minutes lost. A cold equation to govern the warmth of daily life. You can almost imagine a dry bureaucratic voiceover: “Reducing Jones Road from 100 to 80 km/h will cost each driver 45 extra seconds, but will save 0.03 lives per year.” Such precision! It’s rational, sure, but faintly absurd. We’re essentially pricing out time and safety as if on a spreadsheet, then expecting real humans to cheer at the balance. Try telling a farmer running late, “Please enjoy your slower drive, it’s saving 0.03 lives a year.” It’s the kind of logic that makes sense in a Wellington office, but in the cab of a Hilux? Cue the eye-roll.

Now cue Kafka, patron saint of red tape. The process here is truly Kafkaesque. We have our local Council, but above them looms Waka Kotahi NZTA (the national transport agency) which must approve any new limits. So even after Selwyn’s consultation and Council’s vote, the final sign-off comes from a distant Director of Land Transport sitting in some Wellington tower. It’s The Castle in real life: a remote authority validating local decisions, all to change a number on a sign in, say, Leeston or Darfield. Kafka wrote how every revolution “leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.” No revolution here, perhaps, but behind the talk of a road safety crusade we definitely get the slime of bureaucracy: endless forms, meetings, and multi-layered approval for something as simple as altering a speed sign. A straightforward question – how fast can we drive on this stretch – becomes an administrative epic.

Let’s talk about the locals – the people who actually drive these roads. Last time the Council floated a broad speed management plan, the backlash was deafening. Nearly 90% of respondents opposed dropping rural roads from 100 to 80. Basically, the district yelled, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Chastened, the Council now returns with just these 36 “targeted” changes. It’s a shrewd tactic: start with the easier sells (around schools, new housing areas) to get a foot in the door. Few will argue against a 30 km/h zone outside a primary school at pick-up time. But the populist suspicion lingers: today it’s 36 roads, tomorrow it could be dozens more – creeping change, one slice at a time. A commenter on social media summed it up: the consultation feels cursory and the decision seems preordained. Indeed, these “Have Your Say” exercises often feel perfunctory. The Council needs to show it’s listening, but one imagines its mind is largely made up, barring a tweak or two. When policy is driven by top-down safety mandates, local gripes become just one line in a report.

The absurdity of it all is rich fodder for satire. Picture a Council meeting: an engineer extols the new speed plan – “It will make our roads safer!” A grizzled councillor asks, “But will people obey it?” The engineer sighs, “We’ll put up signs, maybe a speed camera someday.” Another councillor mutters, “We tried big changes before and people hated it.” “Yes,” the engineer admits, “so now we’re doing smaller changes – people will swallow those.” It’s a scene straight out of Yes Minister, with euphemisms masking reality. And the reality is: a law that isn’t enforced is basically a suggestion. If history teaches us anything, Kiwis treat suggestions on how to drive about as well as cats treat closed doors.

Let’s be honest about human behaviour. Change a 100 sign to 80 on a quiet rural road, and guess what – many will still do 100. They did yesterday, they will tomorrow, unless a cop or camera forces otherwise. Drop an urban 50 to 30 where drivers feel 50 was fine, and most will split the difference and do 40. We’ve all seen it. People gauge speed by road feel, not just by the number on a pole. This isn’t an endorsement of speeding; it’s reality. The Council knows this; it even acknowledged that without police enforcement or traffic calming, compliance is shaky. Yet here we are, forging ahead on hope. Žižek might note the little social hypocrisy at play: the authorities act as if posting a new rule will suffice, while we drivers pretend we’ll follow it. Both know that’s not quite true, but we go through the motions.

None of this denies that safety matters. We all know a slower crash is less deadly, and nobody wants anyone’s kid hurt on the road. The question is how to achieve safer roads. Dropping a speed limit is the cheapest tool in the box – just a new sign and a press release. It also conveniently shifts responsibility onto drivers: we’ve done our part, now you behave. Fixing the road itself (better design, more lights, pedestrian crossings) is expensive. Educating or licensing drivers better is hard. So we get the quick fix. It’s hard not to see it as safety on the cheap. Paternalism creeps in too: “We know what’s best for you, just slow down and trust us.” That can rub independent-minded folks the wrong way, especially when the danger was arguably created by poor planning (e.g. approving subdivisions on rural lanes without upgrades). Many feel like the Council’s saying, “We made a mess (traffic, congestion, risky mix of trucks and kids), now you all pay for it with time out of your day.”

And so the Kafkaesque cloud hangs overhead. In Kafka’s The Trial, Josef K. is suddenly an accused man, charged by a distant authority for unknown crimes. Here, a driver can become a law-breaker overnight without changing a thing – only the signs changed. One day you’re fine at 100, next day you’re 20 km/h over. It’s not that we can’t adjust – we can, and they do announce these changes – but there’s still a whiff of that helpless Kafka feeling when rules shift above and around you, steered by faceless processes. If you’ve ever gotten a ticket for going what used to be a normal speed, you know the mix of irritation and futility: “I’m punished for something that wasn’t wrong last month.” The system’s answer is basically, “Tough luck, it’s wrong now.”

So what do we do? The consultation is open until 6 August, and you can indeed go submit your piece. By all means, do – even if it’s just to vent or suggest a better idea. But be realistic: this train is leaving the station. The Council will tally our opinions, perhaps make a token concession on one or two roads that drew the most ire, and then press ahead with the plan. By late this year, expect new speed limit signs across Selwyn. Some will cheer (finally, a slow zone by the school!), others will sigh (great, now it takes even longer to get to town). The local paper will report, “Council adopts safer speeds,” and that will be that.

In the end, this saga is a microcosm of modern bureaucracy: well-intentioned, mildly absurd, and a bit patronizing. The Council truly does want to reduce crashes and save lives – a noble goal – but the way it’s going about it feels like classic bureaucratic overreach, complete with glossy slogans and consultations that might not change much. It brings to mind that French proverb: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” – the more things change, the more they stay the same. We’ll get new speed rules, but human nature and road realities will remain what they were.

And so we return to the title. Why meddle with a bunch of speed limits that people are largely fine with? Perhaps simply because that’s what councils do. If it works, someone will try to change it. Institutions justify themselves by making changes – sometimes for better, sometimes not. Only time (and the accident statistics) will tell if this particular shake-up was visionary or futile. Until then, keep your seatbelt on and your sense of humour handy. You’ll need both when you find yourself trundling along at the newly minted 80 km/h, wondering if Selwyn is actually safer now or if we’ve just added another chapter to the annals of bureaucratic absurdity.