80Km/H Limit On Undivided Roads

[GOLDIE]

These figures maybe right.

BUT there is an easy solution to this get the pollies and buracrates out of there air conditioned offices and make them start fixing these roads instead of wasting billons of dollars on studies to tell us that we will die if we hit something.

I could die if my head hit this key board does that mean I need to slow down.

WE have wasted and still are billons of dollars on insulation and schools when we could have saved lives by putting that money into roads so they are not death traps.

Tab I am with you just look at the 2 death trap highways that head west and south west of brissy.

Dash turbo you do have some ideas but next time you go to one of these conferences ask them what they are doing to the roads to make them safer and what about driver education.

I bet they could not ansewr that as the goverments make money out of fines and not biulding better roads.

What price do they put on lives.

Ian

[nang3]

I dont get why its a known fact that roadside trees are strong mofos and will not give way to a car, yet the RTA govt etc still keeps them right on the side of the road for 100's and 1000's of kms all over Australia??

I would love to know the stats for deaths caused by tree regardless of speed.. surely the govt can just mow down all trees thicker than a wrist for 50m each side of the highway??

It may cause a few greenies to spit the dummy but fark them as it will be guaranteed to save a few lives a year at the very least... which is the supposed whole point of the revenue raising I mean speed kills propaganda?

[dashturbo]

nang and goldie I couldn't agree more, however the roads in Victoria are getting heaps of work done, whoever your road advocates and government are they should be spending the speeding fines on roads!

Roadside Trees give me the sh*ts and I couldn't agree more, I love a good tree, but if you can stop cars hitting it, cut the Farker Down!

[Craig.]

  On 05/04/2010 at 11:59 PM, dashturbo said:

The idea is that more roads get divided, that is what is being done, but the undivided ones, the ones people are dying on, they should be 80 km/h

Have you ever done any long distance driving? Perhaps up the Newell through Western NSW to SE QLD, or even over to Adelaide? The rwason I ask is that I don't think you actually have any concpet of what most of Australias roads are like if you think that 80 on our national highways is a good idea. As you live only a stones throw from the CBD and live in a physically small state with above standard roads, you probably don't have the need to do any real long distances behind the wheel, and those that you do travel on are a lot better than the average QLD,WA or NSW highway. Our country is huge and many people travel vast distances to get form point A to B. I work 150klm from home for example.

I regularly travel from here to Brisbane. Its 900klm of substandard, dangerous highway and all but the last 100klm is single lane highway. Much of it is in remote areas with nothing to look at and towns are anywhere between 100-300klm apart. Fatigue on a road like this is a real issue at the current speed limit. Slow poeple down 20-30 KPH and it is likely to increase those killed. It will definitely increase those injured due to fatigue. While this may not impact on the road toll, it will affect more peoples lives as they have to live with the consequences. Not pretty.

As for your claims that an 80klm head on is survivable, do you realise that this is the equivalent to hitting a tree at 160kph? Survival is unlikely.

[Craig.]

  On 08/04/2010 at 12:13 AM, GOLDIE said:

WE have wasted and still are billons of dollars on insulation and schools when we could have saved lives by putting that money into roads so they are not death traps.

I agree. Whatsmore, that 20 odd billion that was handed out as part of the stimulus package so that everyone could go buy a chinese made LCD TV with their $900 payout would have been better spent on improving our roads.

[BensXR6T]

Chinese LCD TV??? HUH??? More like a 5" high flow cat, injectors and tune to match

[dashturbo]

  On 09/04/2010 at 12:27 PM, craiginmackay said:

.... While this may not impact on the road toll, it will affect more peoples lives as they have to live with the consequences. Not pretty.

As for your claims that an 80klm head on is survivable, do you realise that this is the equivalent to hitting a tree at 160kph? Survival is unlikely.

It is not equivalent to hitting a tree at 160kph.

I can understand that if you simplify it a lot it may be equivalent to hitting a stationary car at 160kph (with a deformable front) of equal mass, assuming that both cars end up at 80kph after the accident.

but the impulse put through a car hitting a substantial tree at 80kph is more significant than a head on at 80kph.

because the car hitting the tree stops dead, with no deformation or movement from the tree.

Like jumping onto concrete head first from the roof rather than into the pool.

Edited 12/04/10 02:29 AM by dashturbo

[Craig.]

  On 12/04/2010 at 2:28 AM, dashturbo said:

It is not equivalent to hitting a tree at 160kph.

I can understand that if you simplify it a lot it may be equivalent to hitting a stationary car at 160kph (with a deformable front) of equal mass, assuming that both cars end up at 80kph after the accident.

but the impulse put through a car hitting a substantial tree at 80kph is more significant than a head on at 80kph.

because the car hitting the tree stops dead, with no deformation or movement from the tree.

Like jumping onto concrete head first from the roof rather than into the pool.

I am not here to debate the difference in impacts due to crumple zones. I am basically referring to moving objects travelling in opposite directions at the same speed versus a moving object hitting a stationary one. I'm not here to discuss the theory of the effect of crumple zones and their role. Depending on the angle of impact this can have a major, in the case of a front on, or very little effect in the case of a car getting side on and being T boned.

What I am more interested in, the way I believe we should be heading, is actually putting things in place so that we are avoiding these single and multiple vehicle impacts in the first place.

Rather than saying that we need to drop the speed limit to a point where WHEN people do hit each other or a tree, they may have a greater chance of survival ( and lets face it there are lots of variables here which is why setting an 80KPH limit is wrong) lets engineer ourselves out of the problem all together like other countries around the world who seem to have no issue with roads with limits currently much higher than ours on open hghways.

Oh and you still haven't answered my question. Have you ever actually done any long distance driving? Been behind the wheel all day? Crossed a time zone while driving? I feel the answer is probably no based on the simplistic solutions you present to what remains a very complex problem that the government has no real intention of fixing unless there is a buck in it.

Edited 12/04/10 03:22 AM by craiginmackay

[tab]

Absolutely spoton.

To be totally honest this probably wouldn't impact me a great deal, now that I live in a capital city the only time I really ever venture on to an un-divided highway is either heading north to see the family or south to sydney...probably four or five times a year.

However if I still lived in central queensland I'd be pretty fcken ropeable with such a suggestion, so look at the subject with that in mind.

And that is the problem with practically everything in today's society, it's all decided by some pen-pushing bureaucrat with a degree rather than being based on real-life taking into consideration how it can adversely effect others. Yeah it might be a case of "for the common good" but that just absolutely stinks.

A classic example of this bullsh*t is the 'national highway' surrounding Gympie. I know I've harped on about it previously plenty of times, but here is a road in pretty good condition with well-cambered corners that could safely be driven at 150km/h in a modern vehicle. But because too many useless fckwits kept running in to each other it's now 90km/h for around 60km, and knowing how draining that is to drive now is a pretty good indicator of why this suggestion is beyond ludicrous.

[Craig.]

Mate I am vary familiar with the Bruce either side of Gympie myself. My parents are on the Sunshine Coast so I travel that road often to bring the grandkids down to see them.

The problem with it is that it carries too much traffic. If the government had spent the money on a dual lane freeway all the way to the Harvey Bay turn off when the 4 lanes were done back in the 80s ( or was it the early 90s), then this would hae saved a lot of lives.

Instead, they drop it back to 90. People geteven more frustrated and do even dumber sh*t than they used to. As a result there are probably more deaths lost along this stretch than when it was 100.

The thing that really makes me laugh along that stretch is that on either side of Gympie in the 90 zones there are a couple of old country schools. The school zones are 80 zones during the appropriate hours. Every time I see this I chuckle to myself because this has to be the only place in Aus where the school zones are 80 instead of 40. Elsewhere, if you get caught doing 46 in a school zone you cop a fine, yet here you can do 80?

Does this mean that the kids in the Gympie area bounce of a bonnet better than anywhere else in Aus? Are they just bred toughter?

Does this not make a mockery of the 40 school zones in urban areas?