RAC makes submission on 'Towards Zero' Road Safety Strategy
06 December 2007
The RAC will support a targeted reduction of speeds in high risk areas as part of the ‘Towards Zero' 2008 - 2020 Road Safety Strategy but will not support blanket speed reductions on WA's roads.
The RAC's Executive Manager for Member Advocacy David Moir said the RAC supported the general approach by the Office of Road Safety in the development of a new road safety strategy and many of the proposals.
But Mr Moir warned that RAC members and the wider motoring public were largely opposed to blanket speed reductions and that there was a lack of consistent evidence to suggest that lowering speed limits would save lives in WA.
"It is difficult to see how a blanket reduction of speed limits would work when so many motorists are against this happening," said Mr Moir.
"We are concerned that the education and enforcement effort required to get people to drive 10 km/h slower than current limits would require a huge increase in resources with little benefit in saving lives and injuries."
A recent survey of RAC members and the wider motoring community found that 80 per cent of people oppose speed reductions on open highways, 74 per cent oppose reductions on main arterial roads and 66 per cent oppose reductions on residential streets to reduce accidents.
Mr Moir said that there was a considerable body of research examining the relationship between crash rates and speed limits but conflicting evidence as to whether a reduction in speed limits would actually reduce road fatalities.
"Some research points to there being a relationship between speeding and crashes but other research has found no significant changes resulting from speed limit reductions," said Mr Moir
"What the RAC would like to see is targeted speed reductions in high risk areas such as shopping centres, crash hot spots or 2 star roads. These are the danger areas on our roads and this is where our attention should be focused - not on penalising all motorists on all roads."
Mr Moir also said in its submission on the Towards Zero discussion paper the RAC has called for better enforcement of existing speed limits as one of the key ways to promote road safety.
"We believe that the vast majority of roads already have a suitable speed limit but that those speed limits have not always been effectively enforced," said Mr Moir.
In the submission the RAC is also calling for:
- A review into the effectiveness of the existing speed camera program in reducing crashes before it was expanded to include more mobile speed camera locations and use of fixed speed cameras.
- Dual-purpose speed and red light cameras trialled at high risk intersections and point-to-point enforcement technology to check speeds along risky rural and remote highways.
- Measures to ensure it is easier for motorists to comply with speed limits such as:
- improved road signage
- more repeater speed limit signs
- marking or rumble strips on the road surface at change of speed limits
- better identification of school zones and when they are in operation
- use of vehicle speed feedback technology
- Intelligent Speed Adaptation trial and rollout in vehicle fleets
- Changes to roads and roadside environments in high risk areas to encourage drivers to slow down
- More consistent speed limits to help motorists confidently anticipate the speed limit and the trial of variable speed limits and traffic management to help traffic flow on freeways in hazardous conditions.
The RAC wants the government to focus on a better system to implement the new strategy because many of the road safety targets for the current Arriving Safely strategy had not been met.
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