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Hey pedestrians, it’s time to take some responsibility for your own safety

My whole neighbourhood is being turned into a school zone and I’m not happy about it.


My whole neighbourhood is being turned into a school zone and I’m not happy about it.

A couple of weeks ago, signs began sprouting up on King St, Newtown warning of the impending change to speed limits along what is one of inner Sydney’s busiest thoroughfares.

Currently, the majority of the 3km-long stretch of King St from Carillon Avenue in Camperdown to Sydney Park in St Peters is signposted at 60km/h, dropping to 50km/h in high pedestrian areas, with the obligatory 40km/h stretch of a few hundred metres for the local high school.

It seems to work well, certainly from my driver’s seat where speedsters are few and far between, and traffic moves in a mostly orderly and respectable fashion. That’s my experience, anecdotally.

But now, notwithstanding the fact that 60km/h, hell even 50km/h, remains all but a pipe dream for most motorists along this busy stretch of two-lane each way roadway, the idea that the entire length of road covering three suburbs will now be reduced to an interminable 40km/h crawl is laughable.

I’m all for 40km/h school zones. After all, our precious little ones – of which I am the father of two – need all the protection they can get from absent-minded parents and even worse drivers. And I happily stick to the school zone speed limits every time I navigate one within the proscribed hours of operation.

Yes, it seems as if the world is rotating in slow motion whenever you strike the zone between 8:00am–9:30am and 2:30pm–4:00pm. But those few hundred metres are a price worth paying for the safety of our beloved children.

But, imagine a world where 40km/h becomes the new standard. Where all roads, despite the lack of schools, become havens for the headphone wearing, carelessly engrossed, smartphone addicts who wander aimlessly without a situational awareness or regard for other road users. And make no mistake, once a pedestrian decides to step off the footpath to cross a road, they are indeed a ‘road user’.

But, here’s a thought. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time pedestrians lifted their faces from their phones, and started paying attention. Y’know, taking responsibility for themselves rather than entrusting their personal safety to people in two-tonne metal conveyances capable of travelling at 60km/h.

According to Transport for New South Wales, the King St precinct has been declared a “High Pedestrian Activity Area”.

A comprehensive review undertaken by Transport for NSW found that there were “a total of 221 recorded crashes from 1 June 2015 to 30 June 2020 in Sydney's inner west – 59 resulted in serious injury, 48 involved pedestrians and 15 where speeding was a contributing factor”.

Look at that last number – 15. Fifteen (!) where “speeding was a contributing factor”. In other words, about three a year over the period of the review.

Now, for those who don’t know the area, King St is a busy road with tens of thousands of vehicles travelling along its four lanes each and every day. So to think that three accidents per year where speed was considered the contributing factor has now caused this seismic shift in policy is somewhat laughable.

We’ve seen what the future looks like, every time we travel along a school zone. And it’s a frustratingly slow, if necessary, evil.

But, this is just the beginning of the erosion of common sense. I can envisage a future, and it’s likely not all that far away, where 40km/h becomes the new norm, and even slower speed limits will be imposed on “high pedestrian activity areas”.

And it’s already happening. Drive's HQ in Sydney is located on a small one-way street on the North Shore, where the signposted limit is 30km/h. Elsewhere in the country, 20km/h limits are being imposed on some high foot-traffic areas. At this rate, it will be soon be faster to travel on horseback. Or walking.

And don’t get me started on the vast swathes of Sydney’s motorway network, where 90km/h is increasingly the norm with only a few stretches of 100km/h and – will someone please think of the children – even fewer slabs of 110km/h. And we pay for this privilege. But that’s another rant.

What do you think? Should there be more 40km/h (or even slower) speed limits imposed on our roads outside of school hours? Let us know in the comments below.

Rob Margeit

Rob Margeit is an award-winning Australian motoring journalist and editor who has been writing about cars and motorsport for over 25 years. A former editor of Australian Auto Action, Rob’s work has also appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Wheels, Motor Magazine, Street Machine and Top Gear Australia. Rob’s current rides include a 1996 Mercedes-Benz E-Class and a 2000 Honda HR-V Sport.

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