[crisis]

Problem with obsessing over speed limits and speed is that it does not take care of stupid and incompetent drivers who drive at the legal speed.
The one size fits all mentality fails on many fronts.
Firstly the reduction of 10 km here in Adelaide a few years back on certain suburban roads was seen in a study to have reduced the number of fatalities and serious injuries on those roads affected. The study went on to say there was no other factor they could say would have contributed. Wrong. Each year thousands of new cars take to the road and thousands of old ones are retired. The new car will stop in far less space at 60kmh than the old one will at 50kmh. The new one with the airbag will be far safer in a collision at 80kmh than the old one at 50kmh.
A report of road deaths (the road toll) was published in one of our newspapers recently. The road toll went up. The question was asked what we do to remedy this. The cry form police , politicians and the media was for people to slow down
Upon studying the figures I found that it was people in the 40-60 (approx) bracket who were most represented in deaths. Is this the traditional group generally regarded as irresponsible speeders?
It was also clear the larger percentage of deaths was on country roads. While the police love to sit in 100k zones and book you for 115kmh the accidents we see on the news of cars shredded in these accident happen at far greater speeds.
One factor that stood out from this whole thing was that in several accidents there were multiple fatalities. 4 dead in one car 3 in another. So while the road toll was a few people higher than the previous year the actual amount of accidents may have been less.
What does this all mean?
The simplistic ideology that speed kills and if we slow down all will be good is merely an excuse to collect money. The cynicism of it is what really pisses me off. If the authorities really wanted to reduce the amount of deaths they would force drivers to undertake proper defensive driving courses before they were allowed to drive.
Will it eliminate road deaths? Never. You have two objects approaching each other at 120kmh occurring thousands of times a second separated by a painted line on the road and a couple of feet. And people treat this activity as a secondary priority while doing something or thinking about something else. And that was before we had mobile phones.

Speed bumps are a lot les problem in a Landcruiser too.