140km/h safer in Australia

[sgt_doofey]

Originally Posted by gtfpv

I Really think we should be booked for leaving the left lane vacant .

Sssshhhhhh!!! Sometimes, the left lane is the quickest one to be in! Don't spoil it for those of us that know that!

[BluepearlXH]

He shot himself in the foot when he said both road tolls are pretty much the same per capita.
So whats the point in changing?
I would love it.
I would love it more if they would finish road works quicker so i could actually DO the speed limit!

[TheInterceptor]

Originally Posted by sgt_doofey

Sssshhhhhh!!! Sometimes, the left lane is the quickest one to be in! Don't spoil it for those of us that know that!

Somtimes? More like more than half the time 'round here.

I dont know when the fast lane became the slow lane and the slow lane became the fast lane...In an 80 zone, middle and right lane, 70-. Left lane, empty or 80+.

[davessleepin351]

[QUOTE=sgt_doofey]Funny that you mention these drivers, I've been living in the Valley now for 5 years and haven't come across these types of drivers, but then again, I drive out of the Barossa every day for work, not around it. Besides, there is only one road where you can do 110km/h now in the Barossa and that's the Sturt Highway. Everything else is now 80 or 90km/h.[QUOTE=sgt_doofey]




its not only elderly, but the disabled as well. I have relatives in the industry, and if you havent had this issue your either heading towards town, or your one of them im constantly having to hit the skids, i saw some old bloke take out a give way sign the other day coz he thought the turn off lane went straight on!!

[RAREV8]

Originally Posted by BluePearlSP

He shot himself in the foot when he said both road tolls are pretty much the same per capita.
So whats the point in changing?
I would love it.
I would love it more if they would finish road works quicker so i could actually DO the speed limit!

Quite the contrary- the sheer population and density of population in Germany compared to here should translate to a much higher road death toll.....as has been said, driver education levels here are not good compared to Europe......I'm still not sure exactly why but the keep left/ keep your distance issue here is awful.
Sadly, it is idiots trying to get to the next set of lights quicker and not only do they become dangerous but actually get there slower anyway!

[XRtowcar]

Just back from Europe and they do drive more courteously than here.
As soon as you pass a car your back in the right lane (left for us) and you keep moving to the right until thats the last lane left.
Dont just pick a middle lane and think thats it.
Hang around in the fast lane and you get abuse and flashing headlights from cars doing 160 to 200 k's closing in real quick.
Get back to Aus and on the way home from the airport follow a truck in right lane on the Monash for 10km's with no intention of getting out of anyones way.
Half the reason for that is were limited to 100 and thats what he was doing.
Guess he figured no one was supposed to pass him anyway.
Would love 140 speed limit to happen here but theres too many bad habits to break out of people,
and the governments answer to that is more fines. Not better road skills.

[kyro_02]

I class myself as a moderate speeder, so these limits don't affect me, I have my own rule book

[NAK302]

it's hard to comment here without some sort of sarcasm towards past/present governments. revenue will always win
p.s. the people of the NT have themselves to blame when they voted the socialists in a few years back. looks like the folks in Melbourne are on the same journey after voting the greens in this year. bend over and take it , you deserve what you get

[Brent]

Read the article and some good points made. Have said it before and I'll say it again........any 'autobahn' stye arrangement here will really struggle to work, not so much due to roads, but due to driver attitude of the general populace. I'm sorry, but driver attitudes here are so stuffed they're basically beyond redemption.

OK, let's say we have a 140kph limit on selected roads. Before the paint is dry on the new speed signs the following would be occuring/have occurred:

- Several carloads of bogans in VN Commodores, shot-up Skylines etc would have wrapped themselves around trees trying to do 140kph on bald tyres in drizzling rain. At at night. On P plates. The media would love it with headlines of "Our new Killer Speed Limits". Game over.
- Everyone will still sit 10cm from the car in front, and there'll be impressively sized pileups that will be repeated on World's Worst Driver documentaries around the globe for years to come.
- Countless turkeys will sit in the fast lane and block it to buggery because its their misguided right or whatever.
- With use of side and rear view mirrors already a forgotten art in this country, the merging into and out of the fast lane will make for fantastic heart in mouth motoring moments. Instead, just take a revolver, load 3 random chambers, spin the cylinder, point at head and pull trigger. It'll be safer.

Like many here I've driven in Germany including the autobahns and I'd love nothing more than to have a similar arrangement here. However, you only have to drive over there to see how far away we are from that utopia, and how we are actually getting further away every year, both in terms of driver ability, attitude and law enforcement approach. Sorry kids, but it won't happen here.

[XRtowcar]

Found Italy to have a good law where it's 130 kmh in the dry and 110 in the wet. Shows some common sense.

[dannyhilton]

I'm going against the majority here, and suggesting that 140km/h won't fix our issues in Australia, at least not yet. There are too many other factors in Australia that need to be addressed. Many here will say they feel safe driving at 140km/h, but I wouldn't. I'd like to think I'm a car fanatic but I don't feel my experience so far, or my training would be suffice enough to enable me to drive at speeds like that. German drivers are properly trained right from the get go, they know their speed limits and I'm sure most drivers on the roads have been properly trained, simply introducing 140km/h in Australia would be a disaster. We first need to look at getting many of our roads up to scratch, proper driver training for everyone, not just young people, and look at the implications of such speeds, fuel consumption goes up significantly and with so many older cars on our roads without ABS or the like, this can't be a simple knee-jerk reaction.

I have no doubt that with the correct training, removing cyclist from the roads and fixing our roads 140km/h could work, but these and all the other issues need to be addressed first. Let's start with driver training.

No use hopping on your push bike for the first time and just going as fast as you can. You need training wheels first, then take steps from there.

[Brazen]

Originally Posted by Brent

Read the article and some good points made. Have said it before and I'll say it again........any 'autobahn' stye arrangement here will really struggle to work, not so much due to roads, but due to driver attitude of the general populace. I'm sorry, but driver attitudes here are so stuffed they're basically beyond redemption.

I hate these comments, as its such a cop-out. The reason why attitudes are so 'stuffed' is because their is absolutely no reason to drive with care when the limits are so low. Peoples attitudes to driving are born from the environment they drive in, you make driving slower and slower and people just zone out and not pay attention.

An increase in the highway speed limit would see a massive improvement in driver attitude. Ive driven in Europe, Asia and North America and the one common component is a much more switched-on driver behaviour on the high speed roads - they concentrate more, because the speed and conditions force them to. Put a German, Malaysian or American on a long, boring, fatigue-inducing 100kmh Australian highway and you will see the same crap driving as you see in Australia.

[Keepleft]

Originally Posted by TheInterceptor

I dont know when the fast lane became the slow lane and the slow lane became the fast lane...In an 80 zone, middle and right lane, 70-. Left lane, empty or 80+.

Sgt Doofey references the Australian behaviour of "KEEP MIDDLE UNLESS OVERTAKING" when on freeway bearing three traffic lanes - that often run for tens of kilometres.

It is recognised that the left-lane on these three-lane lengths is often devoid of traffic, whilst 'regular' traffic sits at, near, or above the speed-limit in the middle-lane for the journey, even when towing a caravan etc.

Sometimes that traffic overtakes using the left-lane (legal in OZ), most often however - it will overtake in the right-lane, then return back to the middle-lane. The left lane - stays clear!

And so it goes that you will sometimes get folk in the left-lane passing slower traffic "keeping middle". That is prima facie evidence of the passed traffic not keeping left.

Improvement will come when we END the RIGHT freeway traffic lane when dropping a three-lane run back into a two-lane scenario. This then means the left-lane would then be unbroken for the entire length of the route. AUSROADS are looking at this catch up with EU method. It will be trialled on the F3.

Originally Posted by XRtowcar

As soon as you pass a car your back in the right lane (left for us) and you keep moving to the right until thats the last lane left.
Dont just pick a middle lane and think thats it.
Hang around in the fast lane and you get abuse and flashing headlights from cars doing 160 to 200 k's closing in real quick.

You will like PAGE 132 of this NSW driver trainging document, wrote it years ago:-
http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/licensing/...s_handbook.pdf

[Brent]

Originally Posted by Brazen

I hate these comments, as its such a cop-out. The reason why attitudes are so 'stuffed' is because their is absolutely no reason to drive with care when the limits are so low. Peoples attitudes to driving are born from the environment they drive in, you make driving slower and slower and people just zone out and not pay attention.

An increase in the highway speed limit would see a massive improvement in driver attitude. Ive driven in Europe, Asia and North America and the one common component is a much more switched-on driver behaviour on the high speed roads - they concentrate more, because the speed and conditions force them to. Put a German, Malaysian or American on a long, boring, fatigue-inducing 100kmh Australian highway and you will see the same crap driving as you see in Australia.

OK, fair point, but its now the chicken and the egg argument isn't it? What comes first? So, you raise the limit to 140kph or whatever, and those people who tailgate or don't use mirrors or who can't merge onto a freeway will suddenly be cured from such things? I doubt it.

What would happen is that within 3 minutes of any materially increased limit being put in place you'd have a carload of teenagers spread their bodily parts all over a gumtree on the side of the Hume Highway, and there'll be media footage of the mother and father in tears crying over the grave of their young ones, pleading to the authorities to stop the carnage, asking why the government has allowed their son/daughter to be killed (via these murderously high speed limits). Try standing against that as a politician and watch your career go down the toilet. The onus on the driver will be ignored totally.

Don't forget that we live in a culture of blame and lack of accountability. The conduct on the roads is just a byproduct of a wider problem. The "stuff you I'm alright mate" attitude coupled with the "its always somebody's elses fault" is a big bit of the problem, and it manifests itself on our roads as well. Of all the attrocious driving behaviour you see on our roads, is it all caused because of the odd speed camera or radar trap? Rubbish. Its a crap, couldn't give a stuff attitude and you'll find that most people who are clowns on the road are morons off it as well.

[Keepleft]

Originally Posted by Brent

Of all the attrocious driving behaviour you see on our roads, is it all caused because of the odd speed camera or radar trap? Rubbish. Its a crap, couldn't give a stuff attitude and you'll find that most people who are clowns on the road are morons off it as well.

The cameras have helped with the dumbing-down agenda, rem the time of (//) when folk drove with much better - "behaviour".

I'd suggest, or agree, that nowadays -folk drive "poorly" here, deliberately; its a national pastime, because our system makes it so, AND because people in Australia are increasingly angry and reflect that in many, many ways including on the roads, and that issue goes beyond the mere roads and driver topic.

[RAREV8]

Originally Posted by Brazen

I hate these comments, as its such a cop-out. The reason why attitudes are so 'stuffed' is because their is absolutely no reason to drive with care when the limits are so low. Peoples attitudes to driving are born from the environment they drive in, you make driving slower and slower and people just zone out and not pay attention.

An increase in the highway speed limit would see a massive improvement in driver attitude. Ive driven in Europe, Asia and North America and the one common component is a much more switched-on driver behaviour on the high speed roads - they concentrate more, because the speed and conditions force them to. Put a German, Malaysian or American on a long, boring, fatigue-inducing 100kmh Australian highway and you will see the same crap driving as you see in Australia.

I see where you are coming from but our limits are not that low- they pretty much ( freeway driving limit 110kph) compare to the 70 mph limit in the UK- the difference is twofold- driver attitude/ability and policing.

If you choose to speed in urban areas, you will find yourself (and rightfully so) having the book thrown at you by the local constabulary but the motorway speeds are far less vigourously enforced compared with here because they simply do not represent the dangers that speeding in built up areas do.
The policing attitude is less based on revenue raising, (although you will see speed cameras appearing more frequently) but on genuine risk reduction.
The UK system is far from perfect but it is a damn sight more effective whilst allowing drivers some freedom which they respond to by, in the best part, driving curteously and most of all, keeping left.

However, in all countries, there are always a handful of lane hogs (caravanners, older folk and just plain ignorant ) who flout these rules but they do tend to be dealt with more often than here.......has anyone ever seen anyone policed for NOT keeping left? There is signage stating that fines can be given but I have yet to see it happen.

If one caters to the lowest common denominator ( irresponsible "P" platers, etc) then the speed limit wouldn't matter anyway.
More responsible RTA messaging, state based road laws and effective policing and driver training would all help, raised speed limit or not.