Comments on: Slow approach to tunnel safety

By: Eugene Hobbs

Eugene Hobbs — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:38:06 +0000

Ever thought that driving slower creates more accidents? Like people crossing in front of you at shopping areas (the slower you go the more people think it is satisfactory to walk across in front of you). Having a 100 or 110 kph speed limit on freeways is so boring, it’s no wonder people fall asleep. I mean how long can you look a picture with a line down the middle before you get bored. I am not talking about speeding; I am relating the speed of the thinking mind to driving conditions. If something is interesting it will keep you awake. Now there’s a thought, have everyone assessed for their capability say every 5 years – instead of getting a licence with the wheeties, or is your birthday card?

By: Guido

Guido — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 16:12:35 +0000

Having lived in Melbourne (back in the UK now) for a year driving standards are quite good. The problems are allowing large slow vehicles to use outside lanes and undertaking by all vehicles and tailgating.

Here in the UK its common to drive at 140Kmh for prolonged periods, its not the speed that causes the crashes but crappy consideration by other road users. It actualy nice to see Aussie cops applying the speed laws, Cops here let people get away with nearly anything. Indeed a Copper was recorded speeding at 250K’s and let off

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 03:12:01 +0000

I’ve just come back from Europe where the Freeway speedlimit is 130kmh (I did not die). In tunnels it is 100 (or 80 – I forget) – but the change in speed limit is only for the area immediately before and after the (many) tunnels – logical really.

On the freeways, the brilliant approach they have used is to allow cars to travel faster than the trucks (130 vs 100). This means that trucks keep left (well, actually right) and stay there as they aren’t mixing with traffic travelling at the same speed as them. It works very well.

We do the opposite here… trucks here are (generally) ACCURATELY (on a dyno) speed limited to 103kmh and the cars are fitted with INACCURATE speedos so at 100 they are really doing 95. This leads to the cars effectively travelling slower than the trucks (without the trucks necessarily speeding) and the trucks having to weave in and out of traffic on their speed limiters.

I think if we turned every 100kmh zone into a 110 or 120 zone (for cars only) we’d be surprised at how much smoother traffic flows, of course the government can’t do it because they would have to reverse their “Speed Kills” mentality (it’s easier that way)

By: Benjie

Benjie — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 01:17:30 +0000

Bracks only changed the speed limit as a knee-jerk reaction to the victim’s families pleas. The best option would have been to push all trucks to the far left lane and make lane changes illegal.

Dropping the speed limit before the tunnel to give people more of a chance to commit to the lane change is just ridiculous and slows everything right down. Only morons who leave lane changes too late are the ones affected by the previous 100km/h speed limit.

By: Lazybones

Lazybones — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 22:05:21 +0000

“will changing the speed limit really have an impact on the underlying issue here? No.”

Well that hits the nail on the head. Bracks was very weak on this and unfortunately this will haunt him with the events that occurred at Kerang.

When will they learn that speed is just a component of a bigger problem. Using mobiles, racing red lights, driving too close and bad lane decipline will continue to cause accidents. No speed reduction or speed camera would have stopped the above fatal accidents.