Speed Limits

Someone driving dangerously on your street?

If you observe reckless or dangerous driving such as excessive speeds, burnouts or racing, please call the Police on 111 while it is happening, or 105 after the event. You can also report 105 incidences online.

Report online

Safe system approach to road safety

To make Rotorua’s roads and streets safe for everyone, we are guided by the safe system approach. The safe system is based on the principle that our life and health should not be compromised by our need to travel; and it is not acceptable for a road user to be killed or seriously injured if they make a mistake.

New Zealand is one of the least safe nations when it comes to the risk of being killed on the road. More people die on New Zealand roads, per head of population, than in nearly any other OECD country. Deaths and serious injuries on our roads cost New Zealand at least ten billion dollars a year.

Rotorua Lakes Council is dedicated to achieving a safe system that reduces the number of fatal and serious injury crashes. Safe roads and roadsides, safe vehicles, safe drivers, and safe speeds are critical to reducing the harm on our roads.

The road toll is not just a number. Every death is someone’s grandmother, grandfather, mother, father, husband, wife, brother, sister, or child.

Changing how we think about road safety

Moving to a safe system way of thinking:

Historical	Safe system
Roads and streets are designed for cars	Roads and streets are places designed for people
Cars and roads are the main focus of road safety	Safety of people on foot, bikes, scooters, in cars, on buses, in trucks, are all a focus.
We will get you there as quickly as possible	We will get you there safely, as efficiently as possible
Blaming people and victims	We have a shared responsibility to improve road safety
Expect perfect human behaviour	People make mistakes, people are vulnerable

Safe speeds

Speed impacts on the likelihood of a crash as well whether someone is seriously injured or killed. The faster you drive, the more likely you are to crash and suffer injuries.

Speed management is about achieving safe and appropriate speeds that reflect road function, design, safety and use. We need people and goods to move reliably and safely around our transport network and we need to see a reduction in deaths and serious injuries.

No matter how skilled a driver you are, speeding puts you and other road users at risk.

Safe speed limits give people the best chance of survival without serious injury if they are involved in a crash. Regardless of the cause of a crash, the speed at which it occurs is often the difference between someone being unharmed, seriously injured or killed.

Through our road safety surveys and requests for traffic calming measures, our community has told us that vehicle speed is an issue.

How we get traffic to slow down

Raised crossings, speed humps, chicanes and line marking are just some of the traffic calming devices that will encourage motorists to drive slowly and carefully. There are guidelines for where and when different types of traffic calming can be used.

We receive many requests for traffic calming on Rotorua streets. We prioritise streets for traffic calming measures by taking a risk assessment. The formula considers:

Traffic speed and volume data
Crashes where speed was a contributing factor
High foot traffic (roads with schools, rest homes, marae, shopping centres, sports fields and reserves).

The benefits of lower speeds

There are many social and financial benefits of reducing speed limits, including:

Reduced harm on our streets and roads with fewer people being killed or injured
Reduced social and economic costs of road injuries and deaths
Streets safer for people, especially children, to walk and cycle.

More people walking, cycling and taking the bus means:

Less congestion, with reduced air and noise pollution
Reduced carbon emissions. This will help us to meet national emissions targets to mitigate climate change
Young people can move about independently and parents are more confident about children doing so
Improved health and wellbeing of residents.

Please note due to a shift in Government priorities there is no funding available from Central Government for traffic calming interventions. Rotorua Lakes Council have allocated no funding for local street improvements in the Long-term Plan until 2027.

Speed management planning

The Ministry of Transport released the new Land Transport Setting of Speed Limits 2024 in October 2024. Road to Zero has been replaced with New Zealand’s road safety objectives, a document that sets out the National/ACT/NZ First Coalition government’s road safety priorities.

Rotorua Lakes Council is now considering how it will manage speed changes in the future.

Open the Land Transport Setting of Speed Limits 2024 - nzta.govt.nz

How this change is affecting speed limits in Rotorua

How do I get a speed limit changed?

Central Government has changed its strategy for speed management and the new Land Transport Setting of Speed Limits rule was released in October 2024. RLC is waiting until the new Road Safety Strategy has been released before deciding how it will develop a Speed Management Plan in the future.

What is the speed limit past schools?

Currently most schools are 50kph. With the exception of a few schools that have variable speed limit signs, these flash with a lower speed at school start and end times. When these signs are flashing the speed shown is the legal speed limit. Rotorua Lakes Council is working towards changing all variable speed limits past schools to 30kph by June 2026.

Are speeds being lowered on any other streets or roads in Rotorua?

Rotorua Lakes Council put a Draft Speed Management Plan out for consultation in July 2023. This plan proposed some streets to have lowered speeds. Since this time, Central Government has changed its strategy for speed management and the new Land Transport Setting of Speed Limits rule was released in October 2024. Council is waiting until the new Road Safety Strategy has been released before deciding how it will develop a Speed Management Plan in the future.

Alert

Speed Limits

Someone driving dangerously on your street?

Safe system approach to road safety