Hello folks. As an American who spent the first 10 years of his working life in Traffic Engineering, may I share a very interesting item which applies to your situation?
The State of Indiana had no speed limit on state highways outside built-up areas until the mid-1950s. Then they instituted a 65 mile-per-hour speed limit. That came in shortly after I came of age and got my license to drive. Concurrently, ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES ON HIGHWAYS WENT UP.
I REPEAT - WHEN THE SPEED LIMIT WAS IMPOSED, FROM "REASONABLE AND PROPER" TO 65MPH, ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES ACTUALLY WENT UP!
That was due to the simple fact that most people were drivth ing what was REASONABLE AND PROPER and within what was within what was called by Traffic Engineers "the 85th percentile."
When the speed limit was imposed, SPEEDS INCREASED!
Yes, there were always those who loved to lead-foot it. You, in Australia are blessed with some of those lovely Holden vehicles which we in the USA have pilfered (such as the Holden Monaro and taken it for our Pontiac vehicles) for our go-fast types asnd drivers could blast along those roadways unfettered by speed limits. But those drivers were driving "white knuckled" and looked out for the "daisy pickers" and likely didn't do anything stupid. Thus, there weren't too many accidents involving extremely fast cars.
Enough said.
I hope you dear people get enough Traffic Engineering evidence to stop this tomfoolery stopped. The imposition of speed limits is doing what the "double nickle" (55mph) speed limit did here in the USA during the infamous gas crisis caused by Jimmuh Carter; Using another Traffic Engineer's term - IT CAUSES CONTEMPT FOR ALL TRAFFIC LAWS!
READ THAT LAST PHRASE AND WEEP!
That last part will carry over into the city such that when a driver sees a 30kmh sign in a school zone he or she won't act on it and will blast through at 50 or 60!
I'VE TAKEN THE RADAR STUDIES AND SEEN IT!
Like the old saying - BEEN THERE - DONE THAT!
Good Luck with your campaign, but I doubt you can beat the lardbottom bureaucrats. They're a horrible bunch once they get in place.
Thank you for your post Rick 186, most informative.
re "WHEN THE SPEED LIMIT WAS IMPOSED, FROM "REASONABLE AND PROPER" TO 65MPH, ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES ACTUALLY WENT UP! Do you have any hard evidence or numbers that we could post on our web site. This would help our arguements with all these so called 'safety experts'
Thank you
Have a look at this.... Has the world gone nuts!!!
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/201012/s3091882.htm
Plans to drop the speed limit on Tasmania's rural roads are progressing, with a proposal now out for public comment.
The Road Safety Advisory Council is proposing all Tasmania's sealed rural roads go from 100 to 90 kilometres an hour and to 80 kilometres an hour on all unsealed roads.
Chairman of the council, John Gledhill, says research by Monash University, modelling the impact of the change, shows casualty crashes can be reduced by 20 to 30 per cent.
"Quite clearly, the data says dropping the speed limit by only a very small amount will yield quite impressive results," he said.
"This will be a very rapid fix. Just by lowering speed, we can expect big improvements in road safety."