Open Speed Limits for NT?

[BundyBeej]

Fuck that Monash boffin in the teeth with a drag-line bucket.

[Old Major]

Rural limits are high compared to where? The Vatican?

They are high compared to places in Europe that have a 90 km/h speed limit. The difference is here it is easy to drive at or well above the 100km/h speed limit but over there with narrow and windy roads you would need to drive like a rally driver to sit on the speed limit.

[Aloysious]

I have driven between adelaide and Darwin more times than I care to remember. Mostly in a fully laden prado with a packed box trailer. Some instances with wind not in our favour we would slow right down to an economical speed eg 80-90kmhr. Would get insanely bored and fidgety/distracted from not having to concentrate as much. Other times once we could do 100-120 even 130 I would be both hands on the wheel paying very close fucking attention to driving.

There is no doubt in my mind the faster I drove the more I paid attention. Plodding along at 80 is fucking dangerous.

[poid]

It's nothing to do with cronyism or state anything, it's pure capitalism.

no, its pure fraud.The only reason they get away with it is because their 'studies' suit the current social agenda.

[Gammaboy]

.

[Jack Nicholson]

I know a lot of people argue that the roads in Germany are not comparable to roads in Australia. But here you go, the comparison is there again;

Scrapping the speed restrictions would see the Northern Territory return to having discretionary limits, similar to high-speed sections of German autobahns. The road fatality rate per 10,000 vehicles is lower in Germany than Australia (0.8 versus 1.0 per 10,000, according to 2009 figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics), despite vast sections of 130km/h and open speed highways.

Let's have a look at what German law actually states for those unrestricted sections of Autobahn;

Der Fahrzeugführer darf nur so schnell fahren, dass er sein Fahrzeug ständig beherrscht. Er hat seine Geschwindigkeit insbesondere den Straßen-, Verkehrs-, Sicht- und Wetterverhältnissen sowie seinen persönlichen Fähigkeiten und den Eigenschaften von Fahrzeug und Ladung anzupassen.

And in English for the non-German speakers;

The driver of the vehicle is only allowed to drive at speeds where he/she is capable of continually controlling the vehicle. The driver must in particular adapt his/her speed to the road, traffic, visibility and weather conditions as well as his/her personal driving skills and the characteristics of the vehicle and its load.

I can see Germany from my office window. I drive on unrestricted sections of Autobahn at least once a week. You simply have to drive to the conditions. If there is traffic you slow down. If it's raining you slow down. If it's dark you slow down. If it's clear, good visibility, you can drive faster. It's not rocket science!

The problem, in my eyes at least, is that the average driver in Australia is not trained to the same level as a German. They do not have the same self-awarness, and critically, self-control. Too many dickheads would abuse an open speed limit. And too many incompetent drivers would not be able to manage those sort of speeds...

Personally I would only be comfortable with open speed limits in Australia if drivers had to get a special accreditation on thier license for high-speed driving, and that this accrediation could be visible to other road users (i.e. the Police as well). Something like a special marking on the cars number plate. You should have to earn the right to drive fast, just giving to any muppet who has a license will be dangerous.

[TonyJZX]

personal responsibility is pretty much an unknown concept here

[darwinschops]

...Monash is apparently well known in the legal system as the place you go when you need to 'prove' something in court. They're academics for hire; there's no objectivity there, they just get paid by various roads authorities to say whatever political spiel the rosds authorities pay them to say. It's nothing to do with cronyism or state anything, it's pure capitalism.

Which is prety much what I said and no surprise if this dept is any reflection. Trying to shorten the rants - cronyism is interchangeable with opportunism in this case and is paying the bills. Corruptible subjective humans we all are and corruption this is (more than capitalism).

I find it reprehensible they trade on their name. More so for what is does for the perception of academics everywhere. They can be a strange bunch but most I know generally try hold the objectivity thing central.

no, its pure fraud.The only reason they get away with it is because their 'studies' suit the current social agenda.

... I drive on unrestricted sections of Autobahn at least once a week. You simply have to drive to the conditions. If there is traffic you slow down. If it's raining you slow down. If it's dark you slow down. If it's clear, good visibility, you can drive faster. It's not rocket science!

The problem, in my eyes at least, is that the average driver in Australia is not trained to the same level as a German. They do not have the same self-awarness, and critically, self-control. Too many dickheads would abuse an open speed limit. And too many incompetent drivers would not be able to manage those sort of speeds...

I agree with the former and that Aus is full of morons strikes me every time I hit the road (either overly defensive, lane blocking twit or skids on someone's lawn).

It alludes to the wider problem though - that we are being conditioned to do less and less thinking for ourselves. Which has consequent effects of enabling and entrenching the above. This is part of a disturbing wider trend.

[132oft]

Personally I would only be comfortable with open speed limits in Australia if drivers had to get a special accreditation on thier license for high-speed driving, and that this accrediation could be visible to other road users (i.e. the Police as well). Something like a special marking on the cars number plate. You should have to earn the right to drive fast, just giving to any muppet who has a license will be dangerous.

The problem with this is you're still having to share the road with muppet australian drivers. In the rare event that one of them actually uses a mirror and sees you coming at an elevated speed, they are then 11ty times more likely to pull in front of you for no reason other than to slow you down because fuck you and your faster speed than I deem to be safe.

The level of driver education here is lacking so far behind what should actually be required is fucking laughable.

[Jack Nicholson]

^^^Are you suggesting that someone would deliberately pull out in front of a car travelling at speed just to be a cunt?

People pull out in front of cars travelling fast in the inside lane all the time on the Autobahns, but it's out of stupidity or apathy, rather than malicious intent...

[Captiva Fan]

Again with the "driver education" ... the problem on the roads is cultural, every lazy arsehole is being a lazy arsehole, not going to drive in the lane they fucking well should be driving in just in case they might have to change lanes or something if they drove in the correct lane. Those drivers know better, they just don't give a shit.

Their attitude needs adjusting, not their knowledge.

no, its pure fraud.The only reason they get away with it is because their 'studies' suit the current social agenda.

There're undoubtedly 'studies' they do, paid-for by lawyers, which don't suit any particular social agenda. They get away with those, too. They probably get paid more often because they have more people to pay them, by supporting one of the current political vote-cows?
Is it legally fraud? They use real actual numbers, they spend the paid-for time analysing those numbers & coming to the required conculsion.

[morerevsm3]

I have driven between adelaide and Darwin more times than I care to remember. Mostly in a fully laden prado with a packed box trailer. Some instances with wind not in our favour we would slow right down to an economical speed eg 80-90kmhr. Would get insanely bored and fidgety/distracted from not having to concentrate as much. Other times once we could do 100-120 even 130 I would be both hands on the wheel paying very close fucking attention to driving.

There is no doubt in my mind the faster I drove the more I paid attention. Plodding along at 80 is fucking dangerous.

if you are concentrating that much more at 130 than you are at 100, you will be mentally fatigued much, much quicker and are a greater danger of falling asleep at the wheel, the trick is to concentrate the same as any other time you are driving, and make sure you are looking far enough ahead while doing so, people that mostly drive in urban environments are often not looking anywhere near far enough ahead on country roads

[rowdytoot]

Double doh

[rj_astra]

Fatalities on the Stuart, Victoria and Barkly Highways have almost halved since speed limits were introduced, from 62 to 32, but the statistics show that the drop is more to do with fewer drink-drivers and the increased use of seatbelts by Territory drivers. The number of speed-related deaths droppped from six to four, while the number of alcohol-related deaths dropped from 22 to eight and the seatbelt-related deaths dropped from 19 to nine.

And that would be because when they introduced the 130 limit they also deployed extra highway patrols to enforce it (and other offences). What we need to see is the number of crashes (overall and non-fatal) on those roads. That would give a better idea of what the speed limit change actually achieved.

“There is no evidence to suggest that increasing speed limits reduces boredom and there is also no evidence to suggest that a reduced speed limit increases fatigue related crashes,” she said.

Can anyone point to a well researched study on this topic?

[jzx83]

if you are concentrating that much more at 130 than you are at 100, you will be mentally fatigued much, much quicker and are a greater danger of falling asleep at the wheel, the trick is to concentrate the same as any other time you are driving, and make sure you are looking far enough ahead while doing so, people that mostly drive in urban environments are often not looking anywhere near far enough ahead on country roads

The Bruce Hwy from Gympie to Cooroy was reduced to a blanket max of 90km/h several years ago, because people kept getting killed on that section. Thing is, I would find myself bloody exhausted with the effort of mile after mile of unnecessarily slow speed limit coupled with signs everywhere terrifying everyone that they were going to get 14 speeding tickets in 40km. The effect of that was that most of the time the ability to do 90km/h was a mere fantasy - the people at the front of the queue were doing 80km/h just to make sure. The actual road itself was basically fine - for the traffic levels in 1990. Now we have so much more traffic that the tipping point has been reached, two lanes meant that there was just zero chance of overtaking as the traffic in the other direction was constant. They had put in three lane sections where north and south bound took turns to clear a bit of shit, but these were token efforts at best.

My point being that it is FUCKING STRESSFULL being forced to drive that way, and my experience was that too many drivers were bored out of their minds and making the stress worse as they were doing daft shit that they never would if they were actually engaged in the task they were meant to be performing. It is my strong opinion that the speed limit reduction was seriously counter productive, and a total knee jerk reaction when better solutions were at hand.

I'd use the analogy that you may be concentrating more on your driving at 130km/h and yes this will sooner or later contribute to fatigue, BUT if you are having to exercise the same or greater levels of concentration to avoid breaching one or several arbitrary rules that have been overlaid onto the underlying need to avoid smacking the roadside furniture, fauna or other road users, you will probably be more fatigued in fewer hours, and if the speed difference is at all substantial as is likely in the NT case, you will have covered a hell of a lot less of the journey you are making.

I think a massive thing that has been missed in the road use debate is that once upon a time people used to ENJOY driving on the road, and the underlying assumption nowadays seem very much to be that you are almost certainly breaking the law, or at best morally suspect, if you are enjoying yourself on the road. For mine this state of affairs is beyond sad, its a fucking travesty.