Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten wrote: >>With the relatively low population in Australia, I bet you have even more of >>them. >> >But what is the use of enforcing a speed limit on those roads I wonder. Usually >after every crossing the enforced speed limit has to be repeated. Imagine all >those signs standing in the middle of nowere... pbbbrt. Hell of a job >periodically cleaning them. ;o) > They don't get very dirty - mostly shot up by drunken idiots. There are no changes in speed limit once you're out of the towns, but there really are road signs staked out every 5km or so of open empty country. Some of them are warning signs (koalas cross here and narrow bridge etc) and some of them just guideposts to tell you how far you have to go.
There have been a few thoughts about enforcing speed limits, but most governments are too scared of the conservative outcry - it's easy to portray that carnage and mayhem will be the inevitable result. One state doesn't have any open road limits, and their traffic fatalities are predominantly fatigue and alcohol related, so there's no evidence that removing speed limits will cause those sorts of problems. Simply, there aren't enough cops to patrol the roads, so even with aircraft and long-range radar in use, most drivers know they can drive at whatever speed they want in the outback. There are a lot of Australian rural roads which aren't all that empty, and don't have 360degree vision for kilometres, so we do still need limits on lots of the rural roads. Cheers Russell C.
