Here are more important reasons why there SHOULD NOT BE an open road speed limit in the NT:

1.  Set a limit and people will drive to it – no matter what the conditions.  If the limit is 130, people will try to do 130.  With no limit, people will read the conditions and the capability of their vehicle, and drive to those conditions.  Therefore, speed limits should not be set unless the upper limit is OK for the whole stretch – If the limit is 110km/h, people do try to sit on 110 without thinking – no matter what the conditions.  Where the limit is open, people will drive to what they can do – safely.

2.  The road speed limits nationally need to be reviewed as 100 or 110 is simply not relevant in this age of technology and motor vehicle design. These limits were set when cars were primitive (by today’s standards) - over 40 years ago.  This needs to be reviewed, but the NT Road Safety Taskforce report seems to be authored by people who cannot move beyond this old line thinking.  Imposing these new speed limits will place the NT behind every other state in Australia.

3.  To set a speed limit for the lowest denominator means you would need to set it at 40kmh – to suit tractors and farm machinery that is not intended to travel fast.  Set a limit too fast, and some will try to drive at that limit and not think about what they are doing.  A better road safety strategy would be to leave it open and encourage (and promote through advertising) for drivers to make a judgement every time they drive, and drive to a speed that is safe and practical – and to suit their particular vehicle, their abilities, and the road conditions at the time.  Just setting ‘dumb’ limits that suit a person in an office a long way away, who cannot read the vehicle, the driver or the conditions at that time is plain nonsense. Conditions vary, and so should a driver’s speed to suit.

4.  The NT Road Safety Taskforce report is flawed.  Page 27 of the full report claims that:

• Over half of all fatal crashes in the NT are “run off road” or “overturned” crashes which imply loss of control and excessive speed.

How can this claim be substantiated? “Run off Road” or “Overturned” can occur at any speed, not just excessive speed.  If this is the basis of their claims, then we can assume the rest of the statistics supplied regarding crashes on the Lassiter Highway (Pg 26) and other claims are seriously flawed.

5.  This same report (Pg 26) claims accidents on Victoria’s rural and outer freeways tolls were reduced by a reduction in the speed limit.  This is completely irrelevant for NT roads – they are completely different to a very busy suburban freeway.  NT opern roads are long, straight and have far less traffic than - say the Melbourne Ring Road, where the 100 km/h limit appears to be too fast in places.

6.  The report ‘claims’ a reduction in fatalities on the Lassiter Highway (Page 26/27), but fails to provide any statistical evidence in the report.  Looking at the raw statistics (pg 85 and highlighted below from the report), there were 8 speed related fatalities on NT roads in 2000 and 6 in 2001, but 10 in 2002.  The 110 limit was set (on Lassiter Hwy) in Dec 2001, so there should have been a drop in the 2002 statistics.  Therefore to say there was a decrease due to the imposition of a speed limit on one piece of road is misleading nonsense – there was an overall increase in deaths on NT roads from 2000/2001 to 2002.

More importantly, there is NO EVIDENCE that driving above a certain speed, whether 110 or 130 km/h, was THE CAUSE of ANY of the deaths which have ever occured on NT open roads.  That's because there is NO EVIDENCE of what the speed of the vehicles involved in crashes on NT open roads actually was - IT JUST PLAINLY DOES NOT EXIST!!!

So for anyone to argue that by imposing a speed limit on NT open roads (e.g. the Lassiter Hwy) this has caused the road toll to be reduced is as statistically valid as saying that by increasing the price of beer in Darwin this has caused the road toll to be reduced!!  This may sound extreme, but to anyone with a basic understanding of statistical theory this is plainly obvious.  Unfortunately, most people have not studied statistics so when they hear arguments like this they find them hard to counter.  But think about it:  if there is no evidence that driving in excess of 110 km/h caused any particular crash, how could it possibly be that by imposing a speed limit of 110 this would reduce crashes?

Other numbers (Speed Related Serious injuries and increased in 2002 have also increased.  Again, if they are talking of single vehicle accidents, and attributing every one of these to speed, then their measurement method is flawed.  Single vehicle fatalities are not always caused by speed and, MORE IMPORTANTLY, there is NO EVIDENCE that these were caused by speeding in excess of 110 km/h or 130 km/h.

7.     110km/h – or indeed 130km/h is completely impractical – particularly when passing road trains etc.  If we are going to allow people to exceed the limit when passing – then why set the limit.  So if there is a limit and people travel above it, then what is the point of having a limit – unless of course it is to raise revenue by ‘pinging’ drivers exceeding this limit.

8.  Fatigue crashes will increase – people will still try to do ‘big kilometres’ per day (Darwin – Alice or reverse) – and may need to cover these distances.  There will be many more crashes at night – as more will have to drive into the night to reach destinations.  Driving at night is a lot more dangerous than during the day.  Driving at night requires much more concentration as there is reduced visibility and the possibility of large animals being on the road.  A driver who is fatigued is more susceptible to having an accident with another vehicle or an animal.  This means that fatigued drivers present a danger to other drivers and themselves.

9.  Cars and the engineering and safety devices in them these days are much different to when the 100/10 km/h limit was imposed on our southern states.  These days, vehicles are better engineered and safer than ever before.

10.  The NT Government's limited resources would be better spent on driver training and education, particularly in how to make their driving decisions – and to drive to the conditions to suit.  Making rules will not help anyone make any decisions, and will not reduce any road tolls. To make a marked improvement, expand the current DTAL program to encourage - say - older drivers 30 an above to complete.

KEEP PASSING THE MESSAGE - THE PEOPLE OF THE NT HAVE TO BE MADE AWARE OF THE LIES AND STATISTICAL FRAUD EMPLOYED BY THE NT GOVERNMENT TO JUSTIFY THE INTRODUCTION OF THESE UNWARRANTED SPEED LIMITS.  IT'S ONLY THROUGH EDUCATION AND COLLECTIVE ACTION THAT THESE BAD LAWS AND BAD POLICY CAN BE REVERSED!