Christchurch was the first New Zealand Council to establish a Road Safety Coordinating Committee, and since then has developed many innovative road safety programmes that have been adopted by other regions.
These included stopping distance demonstrations outside schools that educated local residents about the need to slow down in their neighbourhoods, the Walk or Wheel Wednesday programme that encouraged safe and active travel to school at least once a week, and the Chaos at the School Gate Campaign that addressed parking issues around schools.
Road safety programmes are designed to respond to local needs, so in June 2011 an Earthquake Road Safety booklet was produced to help people keep themselves safe on earthquake impacted roads.
The installation of 40km/h variable speed limits outside selected schools reduce the speed limit to 40km/h at the time when children are arriving at or leaving from school. The Council also works with the Police in support of school patrols at 'zebra' and 'kea' pedestrian crossing points.
