Waitaki MP Miles Anderson met AA North Otago district council chairman Andrew Steel, vice-chairman Martin McFelin, Waimate district councillor Lisa Small and Waitaki district councillor Guy Percival last month.
The group asked for Mr Anderson’s help in changing the speed limit from 100kmh back to 80kmh.
The government announced the decision to increase road speeds on January 29. This change is part of the National and Act coalition agreement to reverse the previous reductions implemented by the Labour government.
NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) announced in April that it would change the speed limit of the 2.8km section of State Highway 1 across the Waitaki-South Canterbury border from 80kmh to 100kmh after a consultation process earlier this year.
The speed limit was increased to 100kmh last week.
Mr Steel said the group came away from the meeting feeling very positive.
"We know the difference in speed makes a difference to if there is going to be an accident and how severe that accident is going to be."
The group also shared a letter from Glenavy School in support of the lower limit.
Mr Steel said there was some confusion about how the submissions would be weighted against one another.
"Each member of the school should have made a submission and that would’ve been 50 or 100 or however many people submitted, but one submission from the school was one submission," he said.
"If 10 truck drivers went through and said ‘well we don’t want to slow down to 80kmh’ that would far outweigh the one vote from the school."
The heightened risk of a crash occurring against the time saved when travelling through that stretch of road was not worth it, he said.
"You’re talking about 15 seconds’ difference between 80 and 100kmh — that’s the extra time on your journey."
There were also "flow-on consequences" if a crash occurred, Mr Steel said.
"The guy that’s voted with his pen and said ‘yeah we want to make it go up to 100kmh’ and he’s going to lose 15 seconds, he might lose an hour and a-half.
"Like so many pieces of State Highway 1, there is no alternate detour. You either sit and wait for eight hours while [the] serious crash [unit] do their job or you go through Kurow," Mr Steel said.
Mr Anderson agreed the old speed limits were safer.
He said there had been some "near misses" beside the rest stop on the north side of the bridge.
"At the other end of the bridge, school buses ... drop kids off near the main road there, so we believe it’s a safer option to have that lower speed limit."
Mr Anderson said he penned a letter to NZTA acting chief of staff James Caygill and was waiting for a response.
"First things first. We’ll wait to get a response from NZTA and see where we go from there.
"I’m hopeful that the speed limits will be reviewed."
