The introduction of the 50 km/h urban speed limit was based on emotionalism, ideology and unfounded statistical theory and not on sound traffic engineering principles. The task of setting appropriate speed limits is for suitably qualified traffic engineers, not politicians nor academics with PhDs in statistics.

There are many factors that cause people to crash. By the state government's own statistics covering the past 8 years, speeding was a primary factor in less than 1 per cent of all crashes, yet most of the valuable resources of police manpower and advertising expenditure is directed at one of the smallest of causes - speed.

The SA Government chooses to emphasise the notion that speed is a major cause of road fatalities despite its own evidence.

This is a government that has failed to tackle the real problems of inattention, failure to give way, reversing without due care and numerous other causes which figure prominently in the statistics and which are far more significant than speed as a cause of road fatalities and casualties.

The 2002 “Transport SA Road Crashes in South Australia” publication is now available and can be downloaded from

http://www.transport.sa.gov.au/publications/safety_pdf/road_crashes_in2002.pdf.

Analysis of “Apparent Error of Road User Responsible” for fatal crashes, casualty crashes and all crashes, per Table 18 of the crash reports is shown on the attached spreadsheets. The analysis covers the years 1995 to 2002 inclusive.

The basic results for “apparent error excessive speed”, as a percentage of all apparent errors:

Excessive speed was the primary apparent error in less than 1% of all road crashes in SA for the last 8 years, and it ranks only 15th in order of apparent errors!

Some more revealing SA statistics are available at http://www.sapolice.sa.gov.au/operations/tris/fatal_daily.pdf

Facts based on current "year to date" figures:

1. The YTD fatality figure at midnight on 18/09/03 was 112.
2. At the same time last year it was 97.
3. The YTD fatalities as at 28 February were 24 for both 2002 and 2003.
4. The 50km/h default urban speed limit was introduced in SA on 1 March 2003.

Conclusions:

Since the 50 km/h urban limit was introduced in SA there have been 88 road fatalities, but in the corresponding period last year there were only 73 fatalities.

That is an increase of 20.5% in total road fatalities since the 50 km/h urban limit was introduced in SA.

Metropolitan fatalities YTD rose from 31 in 2002 to 45 in 2003.

That is an increase of 45.2% in metropolitan road fatalities despite the 50 km/h urban limit.

So much for “50k roads are safer roads” advertised by the SA Government.