While it’s illegal to speed even when overtaking, many motorists seem to believe it’s acceptable to do so. Photo: Traffic and Highway Patrol Command, NSW Police Force, Facebook.
Two recent Region polls on road rules have garnered a record high number of responses – more than 5000 combined – with the vast majority showing a tolerance for speeding and a distaste for excessive policing.
Our survey on the NSW Government’s decision to trial average speed cameras for cars saw 81 per cent of respondents calling the controversial new measure ‘revenue raising’ and only 13 per cent describing it as ‘a good initiative to improve road safety’.
Average speed detection is achieved by installing cameras at two distant points on a highway, recording motorists at both spots. It hits you with a penalty notice if your average speed between the points exceeds the limit.
A pair of these cameras exists on Canberra’s Hindmarsh Drive, but opposition to trial them in NSW has been fierce.
Arguments include that the NSW Government should first invest in fixing potholes and making roads safer before introducing another means of slugging drivers.
NSW Nationals leader Dugald Saunders said the average speed camera trial was an example of the Labor government unfairly targeting regional residents and “picking” their pockets.
In a radio interview, he argued drivers may sometimes need to speed to overtake other vehicles – for example, drive at 110km/h to get past a car doing 98km/h in a 100km/h zone.
This is illegal in NSW and the ACT – where there are no exceptions to abiding by speed limits.
But when the issue was put to readers in another Region poll, most of the almost 2500 respondents saw the law as difficult to follow in practice.
Sixteen per cent agreed with the proposition ‘you can never speed’ to overtake, while about two-thirds of respondents said it was understandable to go up to 20km/h over the limit to get past another vehicle on a highway.
By contrast, most of those commenting on these articles were critical of anyone who condoned any form of speeding.
“You’re not allowed to speed to overtake,” Sean wrote.
“So the answer is still, if you don’t speed, you don’t have a problem.”
One said tolerance of speeding was a slippery slope towards allowing country folk to “drive without a seatbelt and while drunk, all with their mates riding on the back of the ute, taking the opportunity to shoot at signs (and roos) with AR-15s”.
Nevertheless, multiple Region surveys on speeding head in one direction.
In answering the question ‘Should Canberra suburban streets have a 30km/h speed limit?’, 66 per cent of respondents said ‘never, 40km/h and 50km/h is slow enough’.
Similarly, 73 per cent of respondents to another Region poll agreed speed limits were generally too low in Canberra.
While speeding is always illegal, it seems feeling the need for speed is still out there.
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