IT SEEMS few issues get Stock Journal readers hot under the collar quite like the lowering of rural speed limits.
After the state government recently announced eight regional roads would have their speed limits lowered from 110 kilometres an hour to 100km/hr, you lit up our Facebook page with almost 200 comments condemning the move. Our poll question on the issue attracted the highest number of votes I’ve seen – by a long way – with 96 per cent of you rejecting the claim that lowering speed limits would reduce vehicle accidents.
Several key themes emerged from your comments, with many criticising the move as little more than revenue raising.
Commenters were also scathing in their assessment of country road conditions, labelling them dangerous, ‘stuffed’, terrible, shocking and little better than goat tracks.
It was clear you consider dangerous driving – be it speeding (regardless of the limit), drink driving, inattentiveness or passing in unsafe locations – a major cause of crashes, while fatigue was also frequently identified as a significant issue.
On this note, it seems there is a real discrepancy between the value of time in the city versus the country.
In Adelaide, 3.5 minutes is apparently worth $160 million – the cost to extend the O-Bahn by tearing up the eastern parklands and building a tunnel so city workers can arrive at 8:57am instead of 9am.
Across town, the investment is even higher – spending $896m on the Torrens to Torrens South Road project to save up to 7.5 minutes.
Yet on rural roads, time is insignificant. The policy-makers rarely, if ever, seem to acknowledge that a speed limit drop from 110km/hr to 100km/hr means country commuters are on the road for 10 per cent longer. “It’s not a big deal, just a few more minutes,” we’re told – a sentiment that completely ignores the dangers of driving while fatigued.
If “just a few more minutes” is inconsequential, why are we spending so much on these major city projects?
Perhaps if more policy-makers hopped in the car, headed out into regional SA and drove from Adelaide to Kimba or Loxton to Bordertown, they’d have a new appreciation for a journey taking “just a few minutes” longer.
Who knows, they might even develop a new understanding of how inadequate investment in regional road repairs has been in recent times.
