Plans to cut the Newell Highway speed by 10 per cent has been labelled as a band-aid measure by Forbes Mayor Phyllis Miller.
Late last week, the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) announced it would lower the speed limit on all sections of the Newell from 110 kilometres per hour to 100, effective from December 1.
The decision followed an RTA review of the Newell and is part of a safety program to spend $30 million in the next three years on highway upgrades.
Mayor Miller has joined a chorus of disapproval with the decision, criticising the lack of community consultation.
“Reducing the speed limit by 10km/hr instead of doing some much needed roadwork is simply a band-aid,” Mayor Miller said.
The Forbes Mayor said the State Government had been pressured to make a road safety announcement due to community disquiet about the lack of action on the Pacific Highway.
Mayor Miller agreed that some sections of the 1060km highway did require a lower speed limit, but not its entirety.
“They’ve picked the wrong road,” she said of the RTA decision.
“We are going to get conflict on the road because we will have trucks and cars on the same speed limit. If you have trucks at 100 and cars at 110 you have that variation of speed, but with this decision people will be speeding to get around trucks.
“People are going to take more chances,” she said.
“I just think its ridiculous.”
Mayor Miller said the lower limit would also add more time to long journeys and potentially lead to more driver fatigue.
She questioned whether speed or fatigue was the greatest killer on the state’s roads.
Councillor Miller’s Parkes colleague, Mayor Ken Keith, made similar comments on the weekend.
Cr Keith, also chair of the Newell Highway Task Committee, said reducing the speed limit may lead to more frustrated motorists.
“A more greater problem could be the frustration of drivers getting stuck behind slow vehicles such as caravans, trucks etc and not being able to overtake because of the lack of overtaking lanes,” Cr Keith said.
Meanwhile, the RTA said its decision was motivated by extensive Australian and international research which shows that lower speed limits had been effective in reducing the road toll.
An RTA spokesperson said more than $250 million had been spent over five years on safety and traffic improvements along the Newell, and another $54 million worth of work would be carried out this year.
“Speeding is a factor in more than 40 per cent of fatality crashes in NSW,” the RTA said in a statement.
“Motorists are urged to take regular breaks on long trips to avoid fatigue and travel on the Newell Highway is no exception.
“Heavy vehicles are already limited to 100km/hr or 90km/hr so the reduction in the speed limit will not impact on delivery targets or freight costs,” the statement said.
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