Yesterday I was fined $200 for travelling at 73 km/h at the 60 km/h sign on the northbound Mitchell Fwy off-ramp to Hutton St.
The Freeway is 100 km/h and it takes a while to reduce to 60 km/h. The off-ramp is designed to Freeway standards, there are no access driveways, no adjacent properties and no paths on it. There have also not been any reported injury crashes in the latest available 5 year crash record. The crash map shows literally hundreds of locations where crashes are occurring but the Police think that targeting a road with an inappropriate speed limit and no crash record is more important. It will definitely raise more money than targeting other roads, but it won't save any lives or injuries. And people wonder why WA has one of the the worst road safety records in the Western world. And the politicians and Police tell us that current enforcement practices (which are not working) are not about revenue raising. By the end of this week another four people will have died on our roads and another 27 seriously injured. But the Police will have met their quota because everybody drives fast past the 60 km/h speed sign on this Freeway off-ramp and they know that. What should we do? Slow down quickly and get hit from behind and start having high speed rear-end crashes where we have never had them before? Or should the Police concentrate their enforcement on roads with a known crash problem so we can reduce crashes and save lives instead of introducing crashes where there have not been any before?
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AuthorDavid Wilkins, Principal & Senior Traffic Engineer. Archives
August 2023
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