Speed kills. It’s the message that we’ve had driven home for decades by law enforcement and the government. But it’s time to have a serious discussion about speed limits in Australia without the hysterics and put some cold, hard facts into the debate.
@Tau No. First, we need better drivers. Drivers who are taught Physics.
Cars need more things to be controlled by drivers, not less.
Every city should have a track where driving students can learn the consequences of losing control…safely…before they are licensed to drive on the road.
Then, and only then, can speed limits be increased.
Btw, older drivers need refresher courses. Drivers in their 30s, 40s, 50s, can be bloody nongs behind the wheel.
People definitely need refreshers. Every time I go out I see at least one idiot on the road who would cause an accident if the drivers around them weren’t paying attention.
I mean I won’t disagree with this, I am definitely of the opinion that people should be taught more driving skills.
I do doubt though that we’d end up with a useful course even if further training was mandated, so I am dubious as to the outcome of such a scheme. I say this as someone who’s been through a few licencing courses with a motorbike licence, MR licence, and forklift licence (and various other high risk or work related training courses). The truck licence didn’t really teach me anything new and was just a case of driving around making it look like you’re checking blind spots etc, the forklift licence practical was incredibly basic, and the theory part of stuff like the forklift and goods hoist license was basically served up to us on a silver platter rather than requiring learning. The motorbike courses at least tried to explain a bunch of basic concepts and handling but was stymied in practice by only being allowed to go 20km/h max in a carpark (after which feel free to head out out and do 90km/h on busy roads…).
@Tau I’m not sold yet. Bad licensing practices are no reason to say “Shove it. Let ‘so-called’ good drivers do faster speeds in supercharged cars, because we earned it.”
Most roads aren’t good enough for higher speed limits. Stick to XBox.
I absolutely agree, getting your Ls should involve a short course and test like it does for motorbikes. Just scanning the road and looking out for danger properly is a whole skill that people need to be taught.
I’d say the biggest thing we can really do for road safety is to just reduce car numbers, so of course more trains and a bunch of HSR between the cities. Going 130 can reduce your travel time by a tiny amount, but going 250-300 on one of the safest modes of travel is something else entirely.