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.
Have human reflex’s been updated since the speed limits were set? The distance a car travels in the time it takes for you to see something like a pedestrian while driving, recognize it as a hazard, press the brake pedal, and then for the car itself to respond to your command and stop is one of the primary determinants of a safe speed.
About the only thing on that front that’s changed since the 70s have been improved breaks, but that’s been largely balanced out by heavier vehicles so stopping distance hasn’t been radically improved.
Higher speed still means longer stopping distances, longer distances between vehicles, wider minimum safe curves, shorter reaction times, more energetic collisions, and a larger gap between the speed limit and the maximum possible speed in rain, snow, and fog, which have remained nearly identical since the vehicles of the 50’s.
Vehicle on vehicle collisions have gotten more survivable when things do go wrong, but surely we should rejoice that people are more likely to survive a trip rather than increasing speeds until just as many die as they did before? I mean personally I would much rather live to see my destination than save a few minutes.
This also all just talking about highways, on all other streets and roads the six year old running out into the middle of the road has not gotten any more crashworthy than they were in the seventies, and slight reductions in speed have been proven to result in massive increases in pedestrian survivability.
Actually the biggest difference there is modern tyres. These are considerably better than those in the 70s - for an easy visualisation compare MotoGP lean angles and cornering speed from that era to what even consumer sport touring motorcycle tyres can handle these days (they weren’t cornering so comparatively slow for no reason, the tyres were the main limiting factor).
You also have modern suspension making a marked improvement on road handling, ABS making it so a chimpanzee can get the best braking without skidding, and in the last decade or so ESC has been making a notable difference to stability under braking and swerving. All together the average modern car will outbrake and outhandle an average 70s car by a long shot, particularly when not driven by an expert.
Agreed.
Except if you fit the noname retreads/tyres that happened to be on special when you needed tyres and have no money, and have manufacturing dates from some years ago.
Worse than driving on black ice.
I always look at the reviews and buy the best wet handling tyre I can afford. That’s when things get squirelly.