Alexandrina Council seeks to overcome ‘crazy’ 100km/h beach speed limit amid safety concerns

A council wants to find a way to overturn a “crazy” rule it says allows hoons to run wild on one of the state’s most iconic strips of sand.

A south coast council will attempt to quash a “crazy” rule that allows people to drive at up to 100km/h on the state’s beaches.

Alexandrina Council has long been fielding complaints about hoon driving and people speeding on Goolwa Beach, a popular place for families to spend a day on the sand. swimming and fishing.

An approach to the state government about the issue recently resulted in a response from the Transport Department, which said that where no speed limit was specified, a default of 100km/h existed in areas that are not “built-up”, including most beaches.

“It’s crazy,” Mayor Keith Parkes said of the 100km/h limit.

“People just go for it – it’s 14km from the exit ramp to the Murray Mouth,” he said.

“We get people flying down there as fast as they can go and ones that do doughnuts and wheelies and all sorts of stuff.”

A traffic jam at beach road Goolwa Beach caused by a 4WD becoming bogged. Picture: David Cronin

The council is expected to next week vote to lobby the Transport Department for a much slower, signposted, speed limit at Goolwa Beach, amid worries about safety.

“All the police can do at the moment is if they were down there on the beach and somebody was driving too fast, they could charge them with driving without due care,” Mr Parkes said.

He believed a 40km/h was appropriate, which was fast enough to stop cars getting bogged.

Goolwa Surf Life Saving Club president Matt Burrage said members backed calls to cut speeds on the beach, having observed people driving close to 100km/h.

“It would be terrible for a speeding car to take out a young child who has gone down to the beach for a day,” he said.

Goolwa Beach is a popular place during summer. Picture: PIRSA

“On Australia Day and on a hot day, there’s vehicles from the ramp all the way down to the river mouth.”

A sign advises that people must stick to a maximum 40km/h on a beach access ramp, but any move to lower speed limit on the sand must be signed off by state government.

Mr Burrage said about two years ago, lifeguards attended a car rollover after the motorist was driving dangerously on the beach.

He said club members saw “plenty” of people doing the wrong thing and speeding was a “huge problem”.

A council report said in response to staff queries, the Transport Department advised speed zoning a beach was challenging because “the surface of a beach, by its very nature, is unstable, unpredictable, variable and susceptible to sudden changes”.

Alexandrina Mayor Keith Parkes says the council wants a speed limit on Goolwa Beach to protect people’s safety. Picture: Morgan Sette

The department said that made it “impossible to determine a reasonable speed limit”.

Guidelines allowed for a signposted 20km/h limit in areas with lots of “pedestrian activity” or 50km/h to “allow a speed limit consistent with the built up area limit to be applied”.

“However, the difficulty in locating the signs where they are clearly visible to drivers and limited to the defined area of activity, may rule out this approach,” the department said.

Maintaining signs in coastal environments may also be difficult and expensive, it said.

The department said it was up to people to drive to the conditions.

The department told The Advertiser it would consider a signposted speed limit on Goolwa Beach if it received a submission.

“Any beach immediately adjacent to a town (a “built-up area”) may attract a 50km/h speed limit,” it said in a statement. “Because Goolwa Beach is not immediately adjacent a built-up area, it has the general default speed limit of 100km/h.”

[e-mail]