Government Speeds through Transport Bill

Government Speeds through Transport Bill

The House went into urgency last week following fears that thousands of speeding tickets issued through local councils were invalid. 

The Land Transport (Speed Limits Validations and Other Matters) Bill — which sought to amend a technicality in the law that had rendered many speed limits invalid — passed under urgency last week.

The prior law under the Transport Act meant councils were responsible for setting speed limits on any roads without a 100km/hr limit. However, the law required the limits to be restated every five years, a technicality that many councils either overlooked or forgot about. As a result, any speed tickets that were issued on roads with expired speeds were legally invalid.

The newly passed bill retrospectively dissolves the requirement for councils to review speed limits.

This article first appeared in Issue 17, 2015.
Posted 12:17pm Sunday 26th July 2015 by Henry Napier.