ACT government looks to reduce local speed limit to 40km/h

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By Matt Brogan | November 27th, 2009

ACT Minister for Transport, Jon Stanhope, is urging Canberrans to have their say on whether speeds limits around busy retail and commercial precincts should be reduced to improve the safety of pedestrians and cyclists.

Canberrans have until Friday December 18 to provide feedback on whether the 40 km/h speed limit, which currently applies in school zones, should be expanded to other areas of the ACT such as shopping centres and community facilities.

Stanhope said an independent review, commissioned by the Government, had confirmed a 40 km/h speed limit could improve the safety of vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists in areas of “high activity”.

“The ACT Government is exploring whether to expand the 40 km/h speed limit to targeted areas where there are significant numbers of pedestrians and cyclists.

“We are inviting Canberrans to have their say on whether they believe a 40 km/h speed limit would be appropriate for their neighbourhood shopping centre or town centre,” he said.

Stanhope said even small reductions in speed limits could significantly improve the likelihood of a pedestrian or cyclist surviving a crash.

“The risk of death to a pedestrian or cyclist struck at 60 km/h is greater than 90 per cent compared to 30 per cent at a collision speed of 40 km/h.”

The debate follows calls from Sydney’s Lord Mayor Clover Moore, who in August said that the CBD and inner suburbs needed 40 km/h limits to protect pedestrians.

She said pedestrians were involved in 23.8 per cent of road accidents in the City of Sydney in 2007 compared to the state average of 8.3 per cent.

“Just 15 per cent of people travel to work in the Sydney CBD by car, and the rest, 85 per cent, travel on foot, by bike or public transport.

“It’s time we made this majority a priority,” she said.

The ACT Government is yet to decide exactly where the reduced speed limit would apply if approved.

“Further consultation will be undertaken with locals and traders if the proposal is supported by the community,” Stanhope said.

Canberrans can provide feedback by completing a questionnaire available online at http://www.tams.act.gov.au/, or in hard copy at Canberra Connect shop-fronts and public libraries.

by Tim Beissmann

Lion

It’s not surprising to find the high level of incidents in Sydney when you consider the low level of thought and the herd mentallity that pedestrians display.
What ever happened to taking responsibility for your own actions?

If people dissobeyed the simple basic road rules when they drive, like it seems acceptable to do when you are a pedestrian, there would be chaos.

Stay on the footpaths, cross at crossings, STOP at red lights when you should, and reduced speed limits are not needed.

Schools zones are different in that children need protection as they learn the correct road sense.

Hung Low

+1
Nobody

Heck yeah, if only political fatcats had common sense like that.

Shak

Lion is correct. Drivers shouldnt have to take resposibility for irresponsible pedestrians.
Hung Low

It is always easier to reduce speed limits rather than building proper pedestrian crossings and overhead bridges. After all it still gives the public the same sense that Pollies are doing something! Plus the extra revenue from enforcing that big bad criminal doing 50 in a 40 zone doesn’t hurt either!
Glen

When they first introduced 50 kph limits in NSW it was supposed to be only on minor roads. Now we have them on very wide major roads that do not need these limits. You can drive at 70 kph, bumper to bumper, on multi-lane suburban roads in Sydney, but you have to do 50 kph in 2 horse towns in country NSW. There is a 40 kph school zone near my place. I have never seen a school kid in it.
Cupid Stunt

In this day and age why should pedestrians have to wait for long period to cross roads where cars rule the roost. I agree with this totally. people change personality when they drive becoming aggressive and intolerant not giving anyone on foot a chance.
I quite agree with comments concerning irrlelevant limits but this applies to shopping high streets where folk just want to get about on foot to go about their ways.
Anyone would think the above commentors never get out of their cars.

Lion

Cupid I dissagree. This is NOT London we are talking about.
I take responsibility for my actions on the road whether driving or walking. Why is it so hard for others to do the same?
Pedestrians that wander out accross the road when and where they like are impatient and lazy. Car drivers wait their turn, why not pedestrians? Pedestrians never have to wait more than 1 cycle to get accross, why sook over a few minutes (not “long peroids” like you insist are such a drama).
Many inner city intersections have pedestrian only cycles which make it even safer.
If everyone acted responsibly and courtiously then there would be very few problems. Most pedestrian accidents or near misses I’ve seen actually involve bycicles not cars anyway.

Cupid Stunt

Lion
Just seems that Australians think there is nothing in the UK but London, stop being short sighted. I live in a small city of 270K people and trying to cross road at times is fraught with danger due to aggresive drivers.
Try something next time your out driving down Burke Road and let that mother with push chair cross the raod in saftey and slow down, give way, it feels great afterwards, just try it.
Carry on as you are and the authorities will change priorities to pedestrians to make life driving a whole lot harder.
Contro

I agree with Lion,out of a car and a pedestrian who has the ablity to stop faster in an emergency?,who has clearer vision around them and who has the better hearing ablity to detect the unseen other one? Answer = Pedestrians,Pedestrians and Pedestrians,The onis is on them to use there naturaly better sences to detect the Car.That dosen’t mean drivers havn’t got a bit part to play.Its just down to a responsible attitude,pedestrian and driver,lowering the speed limit to 40(except schools) may also lower pedestian attitudes.

JEKYL & HYDE

nothing against 40 zones,as long as there is a parallel road near it with a 80 zone,hang on,that would be too hard,wouldn’t it.i used to live in canberra;if you had a brain fade in a 40(then school) zone,you almost certainly would get pulled over…
MatthewM

Why stop at 40k? 15k seems like just as nice an arbitrary figure as 40, and as a side-bonus, horse drawn carriages will be able to keep up with traffic.
hepiL

It is another way to raise revenue, as people being stress out to drive at slower speed thus break the law and get speeding fines… in Melbourne this year I saw at least 10 new speed / trafic light camera installed… the government should provide either better roads (no on road parking on main roads) and also better public transport system
Anarchist

Did he say Canberrans or Canberramorons? Whatever, considering 95% of the population are lazy bone idle public servants or parasitic lying politicians, the more killed the better. Except for school zones, I say raise the speed limit and let natural attrition thin ‘em out. Darwin’s theory really….

Yonny

Let’s please limit the killing to parasitic lying politicians, thanks. Most public servants I know are hard working, it’s not their fault if you don’t like what they’re actually working on.

Anyway, Stanhope is truly a Canberramoron – he and his government are determined to bully drivers in any way possible. As is typical of his breed, he realises it is much cheaper (and a source of revenue) to impose unrealistic speed limits than it is to actually separate cars and pedestrians.

Eric

Are you kidding me??? this country is too big for speed limits like that… No wonder we’re so unproductive and inefficient. And has it occured to anyone that dricing slow is boring and so you dont really pay attention dooze off then run over a kid or some idiot that decided to not look before crossing!?!?!?

And the new cameras that double as red light and speed cameras!!! Our government is soooo bloody smart arent they. encouranging drivers to hesitantly slam their brakes on yellow… lets watch insurance claims for rear ending prove that point.

Speed doesnt kill… poor driving skill does! So break the limit it you know what your doing. If you are confident of your ability to control your vehicle, then go for it- you’re probably one of the safer drivers on the road anyway. Hitting a person at 30km kill too ukno.
Shak

This may stray off topic slightly, but when the governmnet does all these surveys that say a certain speed is more dangerous than others, id like to know what car they use.
Obviously being hit at 60 by a Range Rover will do more damage than in a Jazz. Either way u end up dead at any speed. We should instead educate people on how to drive in a proper way on our streets, i know thats where id like my taxes spent.
Frenchie

What if you were doing 60kph in a 40kph zone on a push bike could you get fined?
……………You can’t get a speed camera fine!
Sputnik

What a wank! Canberra drivers travel at 20k’s over the limit all the time. Unless. of course, they’re trying to nab a park outside the cafes in Manuka.
Matt

i have read the ” independent report” which was done by the privatised government body, and it reads like they were asked to write a report to say that 40 kph zones are good. I did not see a single word in there about the extra pollution and inconvenience of decelerating and the accelerating. and if the zone is less than 400 meters long they can’t enforce it any way.
Mashed Mellow

I know,how about putting large graffic warning signs on the footpath to tell pedestrains how bad a speeding car can be.Like “Being hit by a car at 60 can damage your health” or “Being hit by a car at 60 while pregenant can harm your baby” and “Being hit by a car at 60 can flattern your arteries”.Then follow up with a quit line to help a the pedestrians who continue to be hit by cars at 60,retrain them to only get hit by cars doing 40.

MJ

lol HA HA HA HA HA!

bob

Damn paternalistic nanny state. Regulation is the answer to all the worlds ills (they think).

Perhaps Stanhope just wants to reduce the noise of cars going past his favorite cafe on a saturday morning to a mere 40km/h hush.

The argument for 40km/h zones around school zones was because there are unsupervised children there who do not have the same spatial awareness and road sense as adults.

Adults at shopping centres SHOULD be self aware enough to be able to watch out for traffic on their without Mr Regulation holding their bloody hand.
bob

just read the review here http://www.tams.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/172384/20091120_Roads_ACT_40_km_HPAZ_Report_Part_A.pdf

Its a bit daft because the scope was so narrow that there could only be one answer.

It asked – Will reducing speed limits reduce the chance of injury in the “inevitable” event of an impact between a car and a pedestrian? Duh. Of course it will.

But no mention in the scope of proposing alternative options to perhaps make the impact not so “inevitable”. e.g. Expensive systems to separate pedestrians and traffic.

Then, it states that only 0.19% of accidents in the ACT resulted in a fatality (including drivers, passengers and pedestrians). So i’m guessing that pedestrians alone would have been very close to zero %. Yet it says that this type of accident is still a major concern. ?!? What? on the basis of those horrific figures?

I call sham on the ACT Government’s part.
TuffGuy

This article was about expanding 40kmh zones to other areas yet the majority of comments seem to focus on Canberra-bashing. Take it from someone who lives here that we are (unfortunately) saddled with a local government whose only motivation on any issue is to be seen as trendsetters, they want to be the first to do anything, regardless of whether we want it or even if it is a good idea. Take their vendetta against smokers, push for legalisation of gay marriages and attempt to establish the first legal injecting room for druggies (people don’t call the Telstra tower the big syringe for nothing). As for STANHOPEless well he is just a total moron and is already taking away road space and narrowing lanes to put stupid, hardly used bike lanes all over the place. So wanting to give more to pedestrians is hardly surprising. It does not matter that pedestrians have become totally arrogant and think it is their god given right to walk anywhere on any road whenever they like, then bleat like stuck pigs when they get run down.
It just happens motorists are the latest on their hit list. Imagine driving along an arterial road in your cityat say 80kmh and you go to take an off ramp when you see some moron on a bike in a ‘green zone’ who has right of way so you have to stop in the middle of the road and wait for them. Result – bike rider is alive and safe but you have just created (unintentionally) a multi vehicle rear ender with tens of thousands in damages and possible personal injuries, countless hours in lost work time, community cost for emergency services to attend, cost to the health system, etc, etc. And now they want to create the same carnage by letting pedestrians wander all over our roads too.

Yonny

Exactly. I left Canberra last year and now live in NSW – where the politicans are just incompetent and stupid, and not (like in Canberra) incompetent, stupid and seemingly intent on making us all drive at 5 kilometers an hour.

As I said in a previous post, the current ACT government seems hell-bent on making it as difficult as possible for motorists, what with those green zones mentioned above, inappropriate speed limits and what seems to be a deliberately obtuse and obstructive approach to reducuing road trauma. The government is seemingly blind to the real causes of road trauma – but why wouldn’t they be, when focussing on speed is so lucrative.

Jono

Why doesn’t the ACT government really set a trend, and trial a system that has been implemented successfully in many European cities? The idea of shared zones without signs and traffic lights etc has demonstrated that motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians can co-exist successfully. Without the confusion and distraction of speed limits, lights, signs, road markings, cameras etc, all road users are free to ‘communicate’, and drive defensively.

Obviously this system doesn’t work in all situations, but it has been proven to increase traffic-flow and cut injuries/fatalities overseas. Maybe this is just another area in road and traffic management where Australia is destined to lag behind Europe?