It argued a reduction in the default speed limit from 100km/h to 80km/h on unsignposted roads would save hundreds of lives, billions of dollars and avoid thousands of injuries.
“The risk of being killed on a regional or remote road is 11 times higher compared to a road in a major city,” said the regulatory impact study.
It attracted opposition from farmers, truckers and rural residents who said it would […] rob them of valuable time with their families
FFS.
Their family at home or the one in hell?
I’ll be honest, I’m more interested in speed limits and road design within cities than I am in rural areas. But this is still a major loss for evidence-based policy. We’re not talking lowering the speed limit on major highways, just on minor, often poorly maintained, rural roads.
The first comment I see when I look at the comments on the article is particularly upsetting:
Meanwhile truck crashes kill an average of one person each week in NSW and seriously injure 5 others. What is most iniquitous about this situation is that the majority of those killed and injured in truck crashes are other road users. For example, of the people killed in fatal truck crashes in 2021, approximately 50 per cent were occupants in a light vehicle, 25 per cent were occupants in the heavy truck and 25 per cent were other road users (pedestrians, motorcyclists or pedal cyclists). Many would regard this situation as unethical. Others would say that such disregard for human suffering is a mortal sin given that a far safer alternative – the railways – already exists but has been largely abandoned in favor of heavily subsidized road freight.
Australian data shows that a high proportion of heavy vehicles exceed speed limits on both open and urban roads. It is estimated that if all heavy vehicles complied with speed limits, there would be a 29% reduction in truck crashes. Australian Design Rule (ADR) 65 — Maximum Road Speed Limiting for Heavy Goods Vehicles and Heavy Omnibuses - specifies the devices or systems used to limit the maximum road speed of heavy vehicles. Unfortunately, there is evidence that speed limiters are frequently disabled. Speed controllers, much more effective at controlling truck speeds, are readily available devices that prevent trucks from exceeding a maximum speed under all road conditions, downhill included.
The problem is not just the roads.
Why we use trucks for freight as much we do is beyond me. Any route that sees more than 2 road trains per day should be served by rail. And maybe we could improve our passenger rail while we’re at it.
Rail is bloody expensive to build and to maintain. Not to mention that you still need trucks to deliver from train station to the destination. Trucks makes much more sense.
Why we use trucks for freight as much we do is beyond me.
Tony Abbott had Lindsay Fox “toys” on his prime ministerial book shelves as an examplw.
Why ? becase we keep.voting for politcans who have little interst in rail or oublic tranzport in general.
Even when we do something belated, like the Inland.Rail project, it doesn’t go to the port in Brisbane, nor carries in to port of Gladstone but ends in teucking depot in Brisbane.
As many people were killed by traffic murders on the day of the Boncli shootings as by gun.
Kinda like every time they wanted to introduce a speed limit on the Autobahn. Not a lower speed limit, just a speed limit in general.
You can’t do that to all the drongos driving their leased performance cars I guess…
Shouldn’t have taken them years to figure out it was a poor idea but I guess that’s what you get when there’s such a vested interest in demonising speed. I’m quite happy it got kiboshed - it’s a rare case of government actually listening to the people.
It didn’t take them years to figure it out. It took them years of collecting the evidence proving that it’s a good idea. Then 11 days of listening to reactionary morons telling them not to do it was all it took to kill it.
