Australia’s country drivers have long accepted that life beyond the city limits comes with a fair bit of dust, potholes, and the odd roo on the road. What they didn’t sign up for? A blanket 30km/h drop in the default speed limit across rural roads, from 100km/h down to 70. That’s the current talking point coming out of Canberra, and while the government says it’s about safety, plenty of regional Aussies reckon it’s got more to do with shifting blame than saving lives.
The Pitch: Slower Speeds, Safer Roads
The Albanese government is exploring a plan to reduce default rural speed limits as part of a broader road safety push. The central argument from the Department of Infrastructure is simple: a lot of regional roads, especially the unsealed and poorly maintained ones, aren’t safe to drive at 100km/h.
They’re right, in a way. Anyone who’s ever been spat off a washout or rattled along a corrugated gravel road knows this. The Department even estimates that dropping speeds to 70km/h could save over 100 lives a year. Hard figure, hard to ignore.
But here’s the problem: that stat doesn’t come with the whole story.
The Backlash: It’s Not the Drivers, It’s the Roads
Rather than celebrate the move, many in the bush see it as a cop-out, a band-aid solution slapped over a much deeper wound: chronic underfunding of regional infrastructure. That’s exactly the view coming from Liberal MP Tom Venning, who flat-out called it “an admission of failure” that the government couldn’t maintain country roads, so they decided to “slow everyone down instead.”
Venning, whose electorate covers a slab of South Australia, says drivers aren’t the problem, the roads are. He says funding for regional road repairs is “going backwards,” and it shows.
“We expect every vehicle on our roads to be roadworthy, yet many of our roads aren’t car-worthy,” he says.
The Cost of Crawling
There’s also the matter of productivity. Every truckie, farmer, tradie, and travelling family knows that chopping 30km/h off every country road turns every journey into a slog. Longer delivery times, slower commutes, higher freight costs. It all piles up. The government’s own modelling found that 70km/h had the worst economic return of the speed options they tested. Cutting it to 80 or 90 may still hurt, but at least it wouldn’t cripple country flow.
Which begs the question: why was 70 even floated?
Déjà Vu… With a Twist
Transport Minister Catherine King reckons these new speed limits aren’t Labor’s idea at all, claiming the Nationals under Barnaby Joyce were the first to put it on the table back in 2018. The flip-flop politics aside, what remains clear is this: nobody is denying that people die on rural roads. But dropping the speed limit might be more of a quick political win than a genuine fix.
If governments had done their job maintaining country roads in the first place, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
The Mr 4X4 Take
Every regional Aussie has a story about “that one road” you need a snorkel to cross when it rains, or a chiropractor to survive when it doesn’t. But you know what they don’t have many stories about? Daily crashes caused by doing 100km/h on an open, straight bit of blacktop.
Blanket restrictions on speed limits punish everyone, not just the idiots doing 140 in a paddock basher with bald tyres. If the government’s serious about saving lives, it’s time to fund the roads, not slow the people who rely on them.
Because if the only tool in your road safety kit is a lower speed sign, you’re not fixing the engine, you’re just taping over the warning light.
23 comments
Ridiculous idea. Along with many, many others I am fed up with Governments putting restrictions such as these into action. Trying to supposedly protect and save to everyone! We need to think for ourselves yet this government in particular are taking that away from us on a daily basis. No wonder there are so many F### wits in this country.
What a load of crap,we just done 50,000 km in ten months most of that in the out back, just drive to road conditions and you have know problems
100kmh is a limit doesn’t mean you have to drive at that speed. Basic rule is drive at a speed to suit the conditions.
Nothing New really, They have been lowering local speed limits throughout Brisbane in the name of safety. Plus the old 1 k over rubbish while people get in the right lane & travel 20-40 minutes staying in that lane.
What happened to fixing the roads, making people stay to the left unless overtaking & while your at it I’m pretty sure there are a lot less speed signs to find when driving these days!
It is also a push toward the 15 minute Cities and restricting our movements. Who in their right mind would want to travel across this huge country at 70 kph. The Country Folk will continue to drive the roads they (think they) know at speeds beyond the limit. Hmmmm Could be some Funding reasons behind the speed limit drop too.
BTW There are roads in suburbia that are not safe to drive at the speed limit.
Remember when they reduced the limit on the Newell Hwy from 110 to 100 some years ago? The result was an increase in incidents, not a reduction. The 110 limit was restored. A reduced speed limit has more effect than a simple slowing of traffic.
Fatigue will become a bigger contributing factor than it already is. Poor roads are more to blame than speed. Don’t try this at home. Drive a FWD car on a skinny bitumen road. Drop the left side over the lip into the gravel like you do when a vehicle come from the other direction. Start pulling back and if there is a lip you will feel your car being slow to respond. Pull a little harder and your car will respond by overcoming the resistance of the lip. Problem is it may well slingshot you across the road. Just another problem with poorly built and maintained country roads. But how would I know more than all these road safety experts, I was only a Police Crash Investigator.
If they want to realy fix this, add bush driving skills to the requirements for driving license. In the end we are all responsible for our safety along with other road user. Regardless of anything else the driver needs to read the road conditions, and then drive to those conditions. There are too many who can not perceive the risks well, lack experience or just think it will be OK…. till it is not and the worse happens.
We have a lot of unsealed roads (and some sealed that are worse than a dirt road), there condition varies from motorway smooth down to low range 4wd crawl. Those very good gravel or dirt roads are great for 80 or even 90 kph safely with good eye out for conditions change. A 20% reduction means 20% increase in travel time, a 20% increase in transport cost to a part of the population who already have a high cost of living due to remoteness.
Let’s take Albo for a 200km trip on a good but corrugated road, and when he is screaming fo a Chiropractor, then show him the ride difference at 90kph. The only person who can determine the best speed for a particular road is an experienced driver, on the day. Enough blanket constraints to help protect a very small minority who don’t want to help themselves
A ridiculous solution to many of our poor country roads & more likely fuelled by a further money grab via speeding fines.
Another cause of those that don’t use the roads telling us how we should drive the roads. This will bring an increase in costs to transport, an increase in accidents due due to boredom, and increase to revenue raised for speeding , which is what they want. And a further reduction in maintenance of our roads.
Yes, the lack of road maintenance is a massive issue, but we cannot say it is not also the drivers. But it is NOT the drivers driving to the limit (or even “casual speeding”), it is the idiots that cannot stand to be behind another vehicle, overtake around corners or with low visibilty, drive unroadworthy cars (or rather steer unroadworthy cars, most of them can’t actually drive). There are also the ones that will do 70-80 until they get to an overtaking lane (or even just a flat stretch with nothing coming the other way) and speed up to 110 so you can’t overtake. Lowering speed limits WILL NOT stop these idiots.
Speed limit IS NOT a target speed, it is a MAXIMUM speed. Drive to f*****g conditions!
I drive a particular rural blacktop road twice a week (in my trusty 2 x 4 2002 Hilux) and over the past 15 years I have experienced that drivers have sped up quite a bit, tailgate more aggressively, overtake over double yellow lines etc and do not “drive to the conditions”. New cars are smoother and much faster so drivers assume they can go faster. This also increases the deterioration rate of the roads, where the tar once lasted for 20 years in my locality now lasts just a few years. Councils cannot keep pace with the damage, and funding has not increased in line with the population. I would not say that the lack of road maintenance is just one-sided. Don’t blame it all on the roads.
Every day this country gets dummer & sadder.
What a crock of 💩
Let’s look at deaths per 1000 licence holders or car registrations.
In NSW and Victoria in the late 60’s and early 70’s the population was approximately a quarter to a third of what it is today thus lots less registered vehicles and licence holders YET the road toll in those states was somewhere in the vicinity of 11 to 1200 people per year.
Using the information in my second sentence, you will find the road toll has decreased exponentially.
OH, I’m sorry, those statistics don’t meet the government’s agenda.
Official government stats don’t list all the elements in serious or fatal crashes, just one ‘cause’. On country roads, if no other ‘cause’ is deemed responsible, the answer is shown as FATIGUE’. If the speed limit is reduced by 30%, the time to travel that same distance will increase x 30%, thereby adding to that very same ‘causes’. Now we all know you should drive to the conditions, that is both logical and desirable, as it should be. But speed limits are determined x the 85th percentile driver i.e. the speed at which 85% of drivers themselves feel safe to drive at. I don’t know who or how 70km/h was chosen but that has repercussions, it is not that simple and not enough thought appears to have been given to this topic. And yes, unsealed country roads, surface and width, roadside environs, ARE NOT funded to sufficient a standard as to be deemed safe. The obvious comment will then be post over zealous enforcement to a new road rule will lead to the inevitable negative comment – it is nothing more than a revenue raising exercise. Do a better job than this, have genuine dialogue, particularly amongst those most effected, increased funding for country roads, after all, they are not second class citizens living in the bush. (Retired Forensic Crash Unit OIC)
I was born and grew up in a rural community, and I was taught to drive responsibly and to the road conditions not the maximum speed limit. What is wrong with our pollutions have they no common scents at all, a reduction in speed to 70kp is an absolute dumb idea and will cause more grief for our rural community.
I agree with all that’s already been said , if you haven’t done so contact your local members , both state and federal and let them know your objections , numbers count .
Couldn’t agree more, total over reach if this is passed, yes roads need fixing, but drive to conditions, not mandate stupidity.
Almost every Australian gravel unsealed road with a trees either side is a potential death trap for unskilled drivers, especially if they hit the loose stones near the edge. At speeds over 80km/hr it is highly probable the driver, passengers or both are highly likely to suffer injury or death. Dropping the speed limit to 70km/hr may save lives of those willing to comply but many don’t drive to the conditions & ignore speed limits. It might take 10-15 minutes more to get to your destination travelling at a slower speed on these types of roads. Is that worth it if you arrive alive and uninjured ?
Dropping the speed limit on our country roads will no doubt increase the time spent travelling, depending on the distance you need to travel may increase travelling time by 1 hour + !!!
There is no mention of statistics by way of increase of vehicles on our roads from one year to the next. Fuel taxes are syphoned to fund other Govt programs, but not all on our roads!
Wake up Australia
JUST DUMB,who ever thought of it DUMB,treating the public as DUMB ,More road patrols needed to catch DUMB drivers not cameras ,penalising the majority of road users because of the few just DUMB ,DUMB,DUMB,DUMB. Just like so many politicians JUST DUMB!
Do the government realise how long it would take to get anywhere by doing 70kms in rural Australia. I don’t think that any of the government people have gone anywhere on holidays by car because if they did, the roads all around Australia would be in better condition than what they are now. 70 is stupid but most of us that have common sense and drive to the conditions. It’s a band aid fix for a lazy government