Northern Expressway - increase limit to 130kmh?

[Mants]

Nothing to do with the NEXY, but some speed limits in Adelaide are ridiculous. One that really annoys me Chief Street in Brompton, it's restricted to 40km/h despite being a wide free flowing road.

I can understand the back streets, but Chief Street should be 50. Plenty of other similar scenarios around Adelaide and across the country.

same can be said of hawker street in brompton being 40, which i find even more ridiculous.

my top three would have to be days road in regency park, a main arterial road with a speed limit of 50, burbridge road between the airport and tapleys hill road with a limit of 60, despite the fact that on one side is a drain, and on the other side is a cyclone fence. and worst of all, goodwood road with a limit of 50 between the train overpass and the city.

[Ho Really]

[...]
burbridge road between the airport and tapleys hill road with a limit of 60, despite the fact that on one side is a drain, and on the other side is a cyclone fence.
[...]

You mean Sir Donald Bradman Drive. I think the reason why it was dropped to 60kph is because now there's traffic coming from the new commercial area. If my memory serves me correct there weren't side roads except for the ones (or just one which had a gate) used for Airport emergencies. Also, wasn't the speed limit there up to 80kph like Tapleys Hill Road or was it 70kph before being reduced.

Cheers

[crawf]

If they could somehow have a mobile phone blocking device running from the beginning of the Expressway on commencement of the 130km/h then returning to mobile phone reception at the end of the expressway, then drivers would have to do one thing only...and that's drive.

Disagree. What about people who have car problems or an accident and need to call the RAA or family/friends, passengers wanting to make a call or text etc

Mobile phones have become such a blessing when you're stuck. What actually needs to happen is less dicks on our roads.

[SRW]

and worst of all, goodwood road with a limit of 50 between the train overpass and the city.

That's a pedestrian-heavy commercial area, and one that I used to go to often. The change to 50 should have happened a long time ago.

[rev]

You are never going to be able to stop people doing the wrong thing, and implementing draconian like measures like blocking cell phone coverage to stop people using them while driving is wrong. We are not a dictatorship.
You also will not be able to control the "blockage" of signals to a stretch of road, it will affect surrounding areas too most likely.

What can be done is better driver training and education, and those who are caught doing the wrong thing, face hefty penalties.
Obviously the penalties in place now aren't hefty enough other wise people wouldn't be using their phones while driving would they?
If you are going to lose your license, your car for a few months, and hit with a massive fine that will equate to a couple months wages, are you going to risk it? You'd be a bloody wanker if you did.
The government isn't serious about this stuff that's why it keeps happening.

All governments(of any political party) are interested in is raising revenue.
Fines are raised just enough to raise more revenue, but not enough to be a serious deterrent to people. Then when people get used to them, they raise them some more and we get some spin bs about safety etc.

[Mants]

and worst of all, goodwood road with a limit of 50 between the train overpass and the city.

That's a pedestrian-heavy commercial area, and one that I used to go to often. The change to 50 should have happened a long time ago.

pedestrians may use goodwood road, but i don't feel as though that warranted a reduced speed limit. if pedestrians are cautious and aware of traffic, then there shouldn't be an issue. it's not like people are going to be deterred from shopping along the strip because of the speed limit. if they want to increase the safety of goodwood road, perhaps they should install traffic lights at the intersection of mitchell street...that would actually achieve something.

[Amused]

The Government really should up the speed limit on the Northern Expressway to 130.

Great way to increase fatalities by around 20%. Loads of research has shown this correlation in both ways (increased speeds led to increased fatalities & decreased speeds led to decrease in fatalities).

However, if anyone wants to discuss this further I suggest they make a topic in the Pub, and link to it.

Correlation does not equal causation. I know it's a stupid analogy but I could prove that consumption of eggs is correlated with increased road fatality.
As an emergency worker, I have attended countless motor vehicle accidents and in none of them has speed been the major contributing factor. Inattention, preoccupation, drugs, alcohol and wanker driving (fish tailing, circle work, etc), fatigue have all played much bigger roles in the cause and outcome of an event than speed. Granted, speed does increase the severity of an incident as you would expect, but lowering speed limits or refusing to raise them is simply a knee jerk reaction to the inevitability of people finding inventive ways to kill themselves.

The other thing we fail to take into account is the increasing complexity of factory installed safety devices in motor vehicles. Airbags, seatbelt pre-tensioning, ABS brakes, cruise control, collision detection and assisted braking, Flashing hard breaking lights, blind spot detection, birdseye camera displays, reflected HUD, FLIR, and don't get me started on parking assistance. Granted not all of this technology is available in economically accessible vehicles at this point but within ten years will no doubt be mostly standard across the board. Our cars are fast becoming some of the safest in history and we need to recognise that between this and well prepared roads (wide, consistent and with the wired collision rails someone else mentioned, it has never been safer to do higher speeds on select public roads. The Northern Expressway is a perfect example of one that will accept a higher speed limit with minimal side effect, I would imagine.

[monotonehell]

Correlation does not equal causation. I know it's a stupid analogy but I could prove that consumption of eggs is correlated with increased road fatality.
As an emergency worker, I have attended countless motor vehicle accidents and in none of them has speed been the major contributing factor. Inattention, preoccupation, drugs, alcohol and wanker driving (fish tailing, circle work, etc), fatigue have all played much bigger roles in the cause and outcome of an event than speed. Granted, speed does increase the severity of an incident as you would expect, but lowering speed limits or refusing to raise them is simply a knee jerk reaction to the inevitability of people finding inventive ways to kill themselves.

You're correct that correlation is a furphy, and a lot of people claiming things often use lame correlation to "proove" their assumptions.

But that's not what these studies are claiming. They are not saying that speed causes more acidents. They are saying that accidents happen (due to all the things mentioned above) and that in an accident increased speed leads to more trauma, therefore more fatalities.

If someone is hit in the head with a cricket bat slowly they will suffer less than if they are hit at full force.

[rev]

[...]
burbridge road between the airport and tapleys hill road with a limit of 60, despite the fact that on one side is a drain, and on the other side is a cyclone fence.
[...]

You mean Sir Donald Bradman Drive. I think the reason why it was dropped to 60kph is because now there's traffic coming from the new commercial area. If my memory serves me correct there weren't side roads except for the ones (or just one which had a gate) used for Airport emergencies. Also, wasn't the speed limit there up to 80kph like Tapleys Hill Road or was it 70kph before being reduced.

Cheers

Used to be 70kph.
Doubt it, since Tapleys Hill Road around the corner has remained at 80kph with Harbor Town.
And in both cases, you can only enter onto the road via an intersection with traffic lights.
Merging onto Tapleys hill from Sir Don. you go from 60 to 80. It's a simple process but so many seem to make a mess of it and you end up with banked up traffic waiting to merge. Then people get frustrated and peel out, then the idiot in front peels out at the same time. Again comes down to driver training/education.

[Ho Really]

Used to be 70kph.

Thanks rev. Was a long time since I drove down there after they reduced the speed limit and couldn't remember if there was only a 10kph difference between Burbridge Road (then) and Tapleys Hill Road.

[...]

Again comes down to driver training/education.

Unfortunately there are still a lot of people that will get it wrong even after training. We're human.

Cheers

[Amused]

Correlation does not equal causation. I know it's a stupid analogy but I could prove that consumption of eggs is correlated with increased road fatality.
As an emergency worker, I have attended countless motor vehicle accidents and in none of them has speed been the major contributing factor. Inattention, preoccupation, drugs, alcohol and wanker driving (fish tailing, circle work, etc), fatigue have all played much bigger roles in the cause and outcome of an event than speed. Granted, speed does increase the severity of an incident as you would expect, but lowering speed limits or refusing to raise them is simply a knee jerk reaction to the inevitability of people finding inventive ways to kill themselves.

You're correct that correlation is a furphy, and a lot of people claiming things often use lame correlation to "proove" their assumptions.

But that's not what these studies are claiming. They are not saying that speed causes more acidents. They are saying that accidents happen (due to all the things mentioned above) and that in an accident increased speed leads to more trauma, therefore more fatalities.

If someone is hit in the head with a cricket bat slowly they will suffer less than if they are hit at full force.

I get what you're saying. But noone needed to do studies to suggest that speed is proportional (not directly of course but relative to) to injury severity/mortality. If I throw a 5c piece of lead at someone, they'd turn around and curse me. If I shot it at them out of a gun then unsurprisingly, their chance of injury/mortality is increased. F = M x A. Simple equation really.

BUT, unless one can argue that one's car spontaneously exploded when exceeding the speed limit, the fact remains that speed does not cause accidents. If it did, we wouldn't have aircraft. Why is it that we accept the risk that if an airplane crashes at speed, that everyone onboard is going to be unceremoniously strewn across the country, yet when it comes to motor vehicles we get all up in arms about velocity? There is a reason that aircraft are some of the most complicated pieces of machinery known to mankind, because each collision is thoroughly investigated to establish cause and future avoidance. Why does a commercial aircraft tell you both how much fuel is being used and how quickly the engines are using it? Because a plane nearly crashed after fuel lines were ruptured and it was impossible to tell in flight without knowing at what speed fuel was being used vs what speed it is being lost. Why do commercial wheel wells have heat and smoke detectors? Because a commercial aircraft had a catastrophic failure after a hot tire caught fire on take off but there was no way to tell until the plane burned apart mid flight.

The point I am trying to make is that there is far far more than just speed that we as a community can focus on in order to minimise MVA severity. Cars are becoming better, idiot behaviour is being policed, roads are being made to a higher quality. The safer we make cars, attitudes and roads, the faster vehicles can tolerate to travel.

I ask, what happens in the near future when systems are perfected to keep vehicles within the driving lane automatically? Are we still going to keep lowering speed limits just because of quite often ludicrous driver error? Slowed roads = slowed GDP. There is a bigger picture than just people wanting to hoon about.

[Maximus]

Determination of an appropriate speed limit is all about risk and reward. Yes, higher speed equals higher impact, but if we take that equation to its logical end, the speed limit everywhere would be 1km/h. Or we wouldn't even drive at all. We all know that there is some risk of a crash when we get in a car, but we choose to accept that risk for the reward that car travel offers. The problem is that everyone perceives the risk/reward curve differently, which is why we disagree about speed limits. Rule-makers use the best available evidence to set the risk/reward level (i.e. the speed limit) at what they deem to be an appropriate level, but they can't please everyone. It is, by its nature, a subjective decision.

[Maximus]

I wonder if this lady would like to join me in driving from Canberra to Adelaide this weekend at 80km/h the entire way....

Regional road slowdown key to saving lives: expert
By Bevan Shields Dec. 10, 2012, 8:30 a.m.

Speed limits should be slashed to 80 kilometres per hour on all country highways if the nation is serious about saving lives, a leading road safety campaigner says.

One third of Australia’s population lives outside metropolitan cities but about two thirds of all road fatalities occur on rural and regional roads.

Lori Mooren, a respected road-safety expert once in charge of NSW road-toll policy, said speed limits were still far too high. She has called for a fresh national conversation about how fast we should be able to travel.

Dropping the limit on country roads must be on the table, she said, recommending a maximum limit of 80km/h for the majority of Australia’s rural and regional road network, a 40km/h limit for suburban streets and a 30km/h restriction in the heart of capital cities.

continues...

[Will]

I wonder if this lady would like to join me in driving from Canberra to Adelaide this weekend at 80km/h the entire way....

Regional road slowdown key to saving lives: expert
By Bevan Shields Dec. 10, 2012, 8:30 a.m.

Speed limits should be slashed to 80 kilometres per hour on all country highways if the nation is serious about saving lives, a leading road safety campaigner says.

One third of Australia’s population lives outside metropolitan cities but about two thirds of all road fatalities occur on rural and regional roads.

Lori Mooren, a respected road-safety expert once in charge of NSW road-toll policy, said speed limits were still far too high. She has called for a fresh national conversation about how fast we should be able to travel.

Dropping the limit on country roads must be on the table, she said, recommending a maximum limit of 80km/h for the majority of Australia’s rural and regional road network, a 40km/h limit for suburban streets and a 30km/h restriction in the heart of capital cities.

continues...

This proposal is utterly absurd. It is obvious that this woman has never driven or lived in the country. Such a strategy would only serve to further isolate those living in rural and remote communities.

[crawf]

Oh dear god.