Dear Editor,

I am puzzled by the 80 kph speed limit on all roads except Highway 2000. It is neither the only highway built from scratch in recent times, nor is its engineering superior to several other stretches of road across the island. Why is it the only one privileged to have a 110 kph limit?

Over the last 25 years, billions of dollars have been spent on our highways to either build them from scratch, or to realign, widen, grade, and resurface existing ones into things of beauty. What special merit do these decades-old speed limits have to recommend them under these transformed conditions? They are either inappropriate now, or they were then. Cars in the 1930s were probably at their design limits at 80 kph. Today’s reality is very different.

One such folly is seen on the North-South toll road. I travel its full length at least twice weekly and am convinced that the speed limit there has little to do with road safety. This road is an engineering marvel, with a plethora of safety features built-in to facilitate rapid, safe transit. Yet, nowhere can you legally go faster than 80 kph, the same speed limit as any old country road that doesn’t even have lane markings or a proper surface. How can we justify this? Indeed, long stretches of this world-class highway have 70 and even 60 kph limits, and the police are out there enforcing these speed limits.

While I share the concerns about the carnage on our roads, I am also concerned at the narrow focus on classing accidents as due to “speeding”. 100 kph is within the allowable limit on Highway 2000 but far above that for every other road in the country. If two vehicles doing 70 kph collide head-on, people will die. Is that speeding?

What about the role played by any combination of stupidity, poor judgement, “bad” driving, and un-roadworthy vehicles? Head-on accidents should be the most difficult to occur since each driver is being approached in his line of sight. However, it appears to be the most frequent, often happening on roads with long sight lines. When drivers can see oncoming vehicles a long way off, is the “head-on” really due to speeding?

Several years ago, I was in an accident which nearly cost me my life. The driver of a big “country” bus was overtaking a minibus coming towards me. They were perhaps 100 metres away so I wasn’t initially perturbed, figuring that the driver of the big bus would simply go back into his lane. It didn’t play out that way. He accelerated, obviously determined to complete the overtake, and the driver of the minibus accelerated, equally determined to prevent the bus from passing.

I pulled up against the retaining wall on my side and stopped. The big bus slammed into my car, and were it not for the kindness of passersby who took me to hospital, I would likely have died of my injuries right there. Was this merely speeding? How do these “drivers” get licences? We are rightly concerned about traffic accidents, but it is not sufficient to legislate speed limits that appear to have little merit as a cure.

Michael R Nicholson

kovsky54@yahoo.com