Road Fatality on Kuringa Drive, Spence.

troll-sniffer said :

Why oh why can’t we just have a three tire system of speeds:

50km/hr in single lane and some dual lane suburban streets.
80 km/hr on non-suburban single lane roads and dual carriageways.
100km/hr on designated open roads and freeways.

The Greens have a Molonglo discussion paper going around at present which proposes a 30KMH speed limit for Molonglo ‘as this is now a recognised international standard’.

Kuringa Dr is easily one of the most dangerous stretches of road in Belconnen

No, people just won’t drive to conditions or go faster than their driving abilities allow. Yeah, it’s slightly windy but seriously, dangerous?

Thumper wins…

Drive to the conditions. If the conditions include some retard (yep… arrogant retard even!) who wants to save 11 seconds of a journey, find a suitable place to pull over and let them speed ahead and kill themselves (or some poor innocent bugger).

I live near where Tillyard DR becomes Kuringa DR and let me tell you: that road is dangerous. Its not dangerous because of construction, curves etc – its dangerous because people seem to fly through there. I’ve asked the police SO MANY TIMES to put speed vans there, yes I’m sick of the noise but its mainly because it is so dangerous. The road along there is 60km/h (accident happened in the 80Km/h section) and 60km/h is really the maximum you can do through there if its dry. About 40km/h in the wet as some stupid idiot found out the other day when he spun out coming around the corner in the rain.
Anyway, end rant. Please if anyone knows how to get the cops to monitor speeds better through there let us all know. Its a miracle not more people get killed on this road.

This series of arguments above highlights everything that is wrong with the current ACT roads administration of speed limits.

I think it’s time we the citizens of Canberra let this guvmnt know that the current plethora of speed zones and the consequent confusion by a large percentage of the population about what speed they should be doing on any section of roadway is not good enough.

Why oh why can’t we just have a three tire system of speeds:

50km/hr in single lane and some dual lane suburban streets.
80 km/hr on non-suburban single lane roads and dual carriageways.
100km/hr on designated open roads and freeways.

With the money saved on thousands of speed signs, they could put in proper school zone signage and lights that would be a lot safer than the current easy to miss system.

Even dopey bogans and expectant mothers would then know by default roughly what limit they should be doing. If there are driveways off the road, it’s 50km/hr. If not chances are it’s 80km/hr unless you’re on a highway or Tuggeranong Parkway at 100km/hr.

I would gladly give up the often short stretches of 60 and 70 km/hr roads for the introduction of sanity in our speed limits.

Auckland is a prime example of how such a system would work, they basically have a blanket 50km/hr in all residential areas and 80km/hr, and it’s not that hard to get used to travelling at 50km/hr everywhere you see driveways. Some trips take three of four minutes longer than they would if sections were made 60 and 70 km/hr but no-one minds, for they don’t have to constantly scrutinise the roadsides for untold numbers of speed signs.

JC said:

“It is 70km/h on the bit west of Kingsford Smith Drive“

It actually drops to 60km/h here and continues all the way tin Tillyard.

Where the sign says “Belconnen”, that’s where the speed changes (back to 70km/h for southbound and up to 80km/h for northbound)

The crash happened just north of the sign, so technically, the speed limit was 80km/h.

I think the problem is that people hug the white line when going round that curve. All you need is 2 cars huggomg the white line in opposite directions, and you’ll have a head on.

JC said :

vg said :

Actually its a 70 zone

Unless it has recently changed the end where the accident was is actually an 80km/h zone. It is 70km/h on the bit west of Kingsford Smith Drive.

I drive along Kuringa Dr on a regular basis, and there are actually 3 speed limits – 60km/h between Tillyard Dr and Kingsford Smith Dr, 70km/h from Kingsford Smith Dr to just east of Owen Dixon Dr, and then 80km/h from there to the Barton Hwy intersection.

Kuringa Dr is easily one of the most dangerous stretches of road in Belconnen. It’s sad to say, but I wasn’t at all surprised to see that another person had died on this road. As Spectra mentioned above, it is very rare to be on that road with other people doing the correct speed limit. The signs are clear enough but either people don’t see them or don’t care. As a result, if you do the speed limit, you usually get tailgated in one part and held up in another.

Spectra said :

I presume you must be one of the people who take such delight in holding me up on that stretch.

The entire length of Kuringa Dr is 3.2km

3.2km @ 70kph = 164 seconds
3.2km @ 80kph = 144 seconds

There’s all sorts of reasons this could have happened, although at that time of the morning I be suspecting either alcohol/drugs or fatigue, although it could just as easily have been a simple mistake.

Best to just let the police do their thing.

vg said :

Actually its a 70 zone

Unless it has recently changed the end where the accident was is actually an 80km/h zone. It is 70km/h on the bit west of Kingsford Smith Drive.

Actually its a 70 zone

No. It’s not. The part of the road where the accident happened is an 80 zone. I promise you. I drive that road twice a day, have passed speed cameras on it multiple times, and I’m absolutely, 100%, completely positive the limit from just north of Owen Dixon to the Barton Highway is 80. Going northbound there is only one sign to indicate this, and it’s on the right hand side of the road, on a light pole, but it’s most definitely there.

I presume you must be one of the people who take such delight in holding me up on that stretch.

I’ve never thought of it as an odd bit of road, but people do some odd things on it’s, vastly differing speeds not the least of them.

Always sad when such a random accident happens.

Another more than likely drunk moron doing a rediculous speed and killing himself, I feel sorry for the 18yr old girl driving the other car.

The Canberra Times actually did some local news updates today:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/man-40-killed-in-spence-headon/1773654.aspx

Actually its a 70 zone

It occurred just north of Owen Dixon Drive, just south of the farm overpass.

I’ll grant that it’s a mildly unusual section of road, but I’ve never understood why so many people (relatively speaking) seem to find it so difficult to navigate safely, or, indeed to stick to the speed limit in either direction. It’s an 80km/h zone, but half the people on it are trying to go 100 and the other half refuse to go above 60 (which infuriates the hell out of the half of us who want to actually go 80). Yes, I know that’s three halves. Shut up.

If it is on the Barton Highway end then that is the better part of the road, no worse than any other single lane section of road in the ACT so a bit surprising. The Fraser end, well a different story. Never understood why that part has never been straightened out. If you look at the google map link posted above it wouldn’t be that hard, as the road is more or less straight the whole way, except for a little kink in the middle and a sweep near Kingsford Smith drive.. Knock down a couple of tree’s and lay some new tar.

The perfect solution though would be to rebuilt west of Kingsford Smith drive, then keep going past Tillyard drive and connect with Douglas Waterhouse drive in Dunlop and maybe provide a connection to Shakespeare drive in Fraser. With Dunlop now almost fully developed a better link, bypassing the centre of the suburbs is needed.

Not a surprise in one sense. It is a strange section of road.