“I didn’t spell it. It is a cut and paste from an American website.” Well that’s OK then. I now see that you quote references without reading them or verifying that they are correct or make any sense whatsoever. I’ll give you credit for consistency and clarifying for me your research methods.

The only thing I find confusing are your responses. They often seem to lack a coherent sequence of ideas and invariably finish with an ill-tempered stream of abuse, which of course demonstrates further a lack of clear reasoning. I also find it amusing that you accuse me of trolling, when I seem to spend a fraction of the time posting on this site that you do, but then, I have a life outside of this blog.

The Morris Minor link caused me to chuckle. Really, is that the best you could find? Aren’t there any other examples less than 60 years old? I guess that just proves my point that every speedometer in this country in the last 40 years or so has had the correct abbreviation of km/h. Besides, it doesn’t matter how far back you trawl and how many examples you find, kph is still wrong. It is like consistently misspelling a word, even though you know correct way, because that is how you have always done it.

Kind regards,
The Oracle.

Refer to my post further down in response to your other comment for more on this. Blaming the drivers is not always fair.

As for your comments further on I agree to a point about the roads and driver error. it still doesn’t excuse the fact that our fuel taxes should be going towards better roads. I can accurately say that if all major highways were divided dual lane in this country ,the road toll would come down. Just as I can also say that if crash barriers were installed along the side of all roads to ensure that a vehicle can’t hit a tree there would be less deaths.

If all traffic is heading in the same direction on a given carriage way the risk of death is greatly reduced. Anyone who has watched 500cc motor cycle racing and seen riders come off at 280 kph will know exactly what I mean.

For far too long motorists have been made to pay the ultimate price for poor government management of our roads. The offshoot of this is for them to post ridiculous speed limits to compensate for THEIR lack of action. We are heading back to 3rd world standards on some of our highways. So yes ,the 5 young people that died today were victims of driver stupidity, BUT had there been a crash rail there they wouldn’t have hit the tree.

Just as a woman who was killed in a head on up here a few weeks ago would still be here if the government had put overpasses at the intersections years ago as promised. The culprit wouldn’t have been able to get onto the wrong side to avoid police to begin with.

It’s too easy for people to accept that we are victims of our own behavior, when sometimes it is government inaction that causes the deaths of innocent bystanders like the woman I mentioned above.

Why are there still huge H-section signs built for advertising right next to highways? Why do we still use white reflectors on the middle of higways when yellow are far more visible? Why don’t powerpoles have a crash absorbancy barrier around them along roadsides to slow impact?

Most importantly, why are politicians so thick?

I would be more interested in seeing the stats on serious crashes than the stats on deaths alone. Is the focus on speed limits reducing the number of serious crashes, or is the crash rate increasing while only the improvement in the safety of the average car on the road is keeping a lid on the road toll? Especially when the crackdown on drink-driving and drugged driving (far more dangerous than 70 in a 60 zone) has also been in place.

I would love to see figures to suggest the speed limit thing, ESPECIALLY on highways and out beyond the inner city, is helping at all.

Most of the “close calls” I see on highways (40,000km+ per year on highways) are caused by inconsiderate slow drivers either not completing an overtaking move in overtaking lanes (yes, even the second lane of a multi lane highway is not yours to dawdle along in at your discretion if you’re not overtaking – that’s the law in any speed zone over 80km/h – keep left unless overtaking), or are simply too scared to travel at the speed of the other traffic. This casues frustration & confusion – both precursors to accidents (quick lane changes, tailgating, road rage, etc).

Speeding *and* , ummmm, ‘Slowing’? both kill. Going 20 km/h over on a highway has same effect on impact risk as going slower by the same amount. The only benefit of going slower is when hitting a stationary object, under which circumstances your speed was not the only problem…

Solution? More driver training – and not just once! I don’t care how thorough the training was the first time you did it. Humans forget, road consitions change – indeed, road rules change – & thus the need for retraining. If you want your license renewed, complete a test (practical & written) – may as well get some value out of the $100 bucks it costs to do this for absolutely no value, except maybe as an ID card – what other value does a license hold after 10 years of not being revalidated?.

Anyway, rant over…

RE: the crash that killed the 5 young people…..
Reports were of around 200kmh!!!!

Driver error would have been the initial fault, but speed wuld amplify the error, and it would be the high speed that killed.
The reason why I also agree that the speed would have killed, is if they were doing the speed limit, the accident wouldnt have been as violent.
Lower speed during the initial driver error may have seen lives saved.

The speed did the killing, the driver error amplified by the speed caused the accident.

Of course ,the biggest factor is the standard of the roads. We built the snowy river hydro and yet we can’t seem to build roads. In a country as vast as ours where the cities are so far apart it is inexcusable.

Perhaps a 150 kph (km/h, mps, cmps, mmps ,mpw, mph) limit with training before you can use it at that speed? Afterall there are various classes for trucks. Was it speed only that killed the 5 young people in NSW this morning? I doubt it. It was a contributor, however I bet that a) he wasn’t driving to suit the road conditions and b) there is a high probability that with 6 young people in the car he was distracted.

But ,it will immediately be put down to speeding without any regard for his lack of experience.