Australia's governments should leave rural speed limits alone. Instead, they should improve safety by fixing black spots and spending more on road upgrades and maintenance, Australian Trucking Association Chair Mark Parry said today.
Mr Parry was releasing the ATA submission to the Australian Government infrastructure department's consultation paper on reducing default speed limits outside built-up areas.
The preferred option in the consultation paper would reduce the speed limit where there are no signs to 80 km/h. In most states, the default speed limit outside built-up areas is 100 km/h.
Mr Parry said there were more effective ways to improve road safety.
"According to the consultation paper, reducing speed limits would generate $2.20 in benefits for every dollar it would cost," he said.
"For the same dollar, we could get $9.60 in benefits by placing more warning signs at dangerous locations on rural roads or $6.60 in benefits through line marking," he said.
Mr Parry said the Australian Government should spend more on road upgrades and maintenance.
"Maintaining non-urban roads better and upgrading them would support the industry's productivity, reduce maintenance costs and improve the resilience of the road system as Australia's climate gets worse," he said.
He said the ATA's members had raised productivity concerns about the speed limit reduction, including delays in meeting delivery curfews and the impact on time-sensitive freight like livestock.
"After the consultation paper was published, a Sydney Morning Herald story noted that the reduction would increase the length of a 30 minute transit by around the duration of a Taylor Swift track," he said.
"There aren't many 30 minute transits on non-signed roads in rural and remote Australia. In any case, truck drivers work all day, not just for half an hour.
"The productivity impact of reducing the speed limit would be significant and is understated in the paper," he said.
The submission points out that the cost modelling in the paper-
- assumes that truck driver wages have not increased in real terms since 2013
- uses a 9.25 per cent superannuation rate instead of the current rate, 12 per cent
- bases the cost of increased freight travel times on a survey that looked at the cost of inter capital and metropolitan freight, not rural freight.
