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Where's the EVIDENCE?!!!

2/8/2007 6:38:11 PM

gcamilos

2 posts

Where's the EVIDENCE?!!!

After I heard about the new speed limit laws I was interested to see what the basis was for removing the unlimited speed on NT highways. I downloaded a copy of the NT Road Safety Taskforce Report (the report) and had a close look at it. I soon concluded that it did not appear to provide any evidence that driving in excess of a particular speed was the cause of crashes on NT highways.

So earlier this afternoon I rang the NT road safety hotline number (1800 720 144) and I spoke to a bloke about the figures in Table 9 on page 85 of the report (Table 9 is headed "Speed - Fatalities and Serious Injuries - Limited and Unlimited Speed Limits"). After a number of questions he admitted that there is no information available to state what the speed was in any of the accidents referred to in the report as having caused "speed related" fatalities and/or injuries. This is confirmed by the comments in the paragraph headed "Speed" on page 8 of the report, which admits that NT Police crash investigators do not have that information.

When I asked the bloke how, in that case, anyone could say what the speed limit should be on NT highways, he said that the report has also had regard to evidence from other jurisdictions. However, when I questioned him further about this, he had to accept that that evidence was necessarily obtained from different standards of roads in different circumstances and under different weather conditions than exist in the NT. Also, this information still did not give precise figures of the speed of the cars involved in those crashes.

So the bottom line appears to me to be as follows:

1. No evidence exists of what the speed was of any of the vehicles involved in the crashes in the NT which have been labelled in Table 9 of the NT Road Safety Report as "speed related".

2. The only "evidence" which could support the proposition that driving in excess of a particular speed caused a crash is from other jurisdictions in other States or overseas, where different roads and different conditions prevail. Even then, no evidence has been provided of what that excessive speed might have been in those crashes.

3. The so called "speed related" crashes in the NT could well have been caused by, say, driving at 80 km/h on an unlimited speed limit road and losing control of the vehicle for any number of reasons (e.g. negotiating a tight bend at 80 km/h when the safe speed for that bend was 60 km/h, or going off the road due to driver fatigue, inatention or intoxication, etc.).

In reality, given that NO EVIDENCE exists to indicate that driving at speeds in excess of 110 or 130 km/h has caused ANY crashes on NT highways, it is entirely illogical and illconceived to impose a highway speed limit of 110 or 130 km/h on NT highways and thereby:

1. causing additional cost to the transport industry due to increased travelling times to cross long distances on highways which traverse unpopulated remote areas (time is money!);

2. causing additional cost to the Australian car manufacturing industry, which will no longer be able to test its new models at high speeds in Australian conditions. This means that GMH, Ford and Mitsubishi will have to take their new models overseas to countries with unlimited speed limits (e.g. Germany) for such testing. This additional cost will have to be passed on to Australian consumers;

3. diverting $ millions in scarce Government resources to pay for a NT Police highway patrol branch, whose main aim will be to book people for speeding at 115 km/h or more in a 110 km/h zone, or 135 km/h or more in a 130 km/h zone, when there is NO EVIDENCE that driving at 115 km/h or even at 135 km/h on a straight piece of unlimited speed limit highway has ever caused a single crash. Instead, those $ millions could be spent on helping the NT Police and other NT Government agencies to deal with much more prevalent and pressing social issues in the NT, such as child sexual abuse and substance abuse in remove indigenous communities, indigenous housing, health and employment, as well as drug dealing, violence, theft and other crimes being committed in the NT.

Credible accurate evidence of the actual speeds that cause crashes on NT highways is required before a particular speed limit can be reasonably imposed on them. Otherwise, if such a decision is only based on the proposition that driving faster can be more dangerous that driving slower, then we might as well change the speed limit to say 5 km/h and thereby really reduce the risk of crashes occurring!

At least some evidence of speed from a statistically significant sample of crashes on NT highways is required before the decision to impose a particular speed limit can be properly made. However, in the case of the NT Road Safety Taskforce Report, there is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER of the speeds involved in the so called "speed related" crashes in the NT. This is not and could never be an acceptable basis for making public policy and imposing it on NT citizens through criminal laws creating offences.

I applaud KeepNTlimitfree.org for standing up to the NT Government on this issue and attempting to protect the rights and interests of Territorians - the NT needs good Government based on logic and evidence, not on knee-jerk reactions aimed largely at appeasing minority pressure groups and at creating the appearance that the Government is concerned about road safety.

Regards,

Greg C

2/10/2007 11:26:24 AM

Porsche

6 posts

Re: Where's the EVIDENCE?!!!

Clare Martin has either deliberately lied to us or has been misinformed.

Now we have the real truth let us see what she does now. The right thing to do is to reverse this law.

If she doesn't then we will know for sure that she is a liar and should go back to school and learn how to tell the truth.

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