The current "average speed" in the gorge

A staff member of Transit at the "roadshow" said that the current average speed through the 39 km's of the Waioeka Gorge was "around 85 kmh now" - this he stated was measured by 4 Transit and Opus staff using a Transit vehicle equipped with a Rally Halda instrument that gives a distance covered by time elapsed to give an average speed for a given stretch of road.

This is an incorrect measurement because:

• It was measured on two consecutive days only (as disclosed to me by the Transit employee).
  
  
• It was measured twice by each driver - but all 4 drivers are not resident in the area and are not frequent users of the road (as disclosed to me by the Transit employee).
  
  
• It was during a period of the day when road gangs were working on the road with imposed speed restrictions in place (as disclosed to me by the Transit employee).
  
  
• During several of the measurement runs the vehicle come up to a heavy vehicle and sometimes did not overtake as a regular traveller that knew the road better with a more powerful vehicle may have done.
  
  
• It was measured using a "standard" Transit vehicle so was measured by a heavy vehicle or by a car owned by a business person or an enthusiast driver such as a Gisborne would probably have as they are used to using their own vehicles on long cross country trips.