Gold Coast speed limit changes: Road speeds to be slashed to 30km/h to stop rising fatalities

Critics have rounded on council plans to drop speed limits to 30km/h on Gold Coast roads, calling it “a lousy idea” and a “brain dead suggestion”. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PLANS?

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BULLETIN readers have slammed a council proposal to reduce the speed limit on Gold Coast roads to 30km/h in areas where there are many pedestrians and cyclists.

Councillors at a transport committee meeting backed the idea as part of a series of tougher road safety measures.

But feedback from Bulletin readers has been almost unanimously against the proposal.

“Brain dead suggestion,” said one reader. “As if the traffic on the Gold Coast isn’t slow enough without legislating to protect a minority of stupid and drunk.”

Another said simply it was a “lousy idea”.

Reader Rose Myers said people “may as well walk”.

“It is bad enough when people sit 20km/h under the speed limit now,” she wrote. “It will be worse if they drop the speed limit to 30, people will drive at 10km/h.”

Many readers commented that reducing speed limits would do little to improve safety – because existing limits were already widely ignored.

“You can make the speed limit whatever you like but it won’t stop those who would break the law regardless, and that is the main issue,” Bret wrote. “Stronger deterrents need to apply.”

THE PLAN TO CUT SPEED LIMITS

SPEED limits could be reduced permanently to 30km/h and flashing signs introduced to change the levels at tourist precincts at night, under a new road safety plan.

Councillors at a transport committee meeting have backed a series of tougher measures being flagged by officers as they build a Gold Coast Road Safety Plan for 2021-26.

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The Coast’s road toll more than doubled in the past 12 months with the 20 fatalities comparing to nine in 2019, preventing council reaching an aspirational target of reducing serious injuries and deaths by 30 per cent.

Up to 40 per cent fewer drivers were on the roads during COVID-19 but a council report suggested those driving were going faster, aware of the lack of police and random breath testing teams as cops got assigned to border patrols.

Council officers had put forward nine potential safety measures ranging from wheelie big road speed sign advertising and installing white lines across roads.

But councillors gave their strongest support to lowering speed limits on roads where there were many pedestrians and cyclists. Full council will consider the report on Tuesday.

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“Recent research indicates a 30km/h speed limit along certain road environments may be beneficial to improving the safety of all road users,” an officer’s report said.

Deputy Mayor Donna Gates asked officers about Hedges Avenue at Mermaid Beach which had been the city’s previously only beachfront road with a 30km/h zone.

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Officers confirmed there was evidence from both Hedges Avenue and similar roads in other CBDs that reducing speed limit to 30km/h prevents crashes involving vehicles and pedestrians.

Transport committee chair Councillor Pauline Young told the meeting: “James Street in Burleigh and Connor Street were dropped from 40km/h to 30km/h. We’ve had a lot of feedback through our office that it’s well supported, especially by the elderly residents and those with children who take longer to cross the road. We’ve had quite positive feedback.”

Coolangatta-based councillor Gail O’Neill said Griffith Street in Coolangatta was about to change to 30km/h where there were unlit areas.

While not authorising the change, Cr O’Neill asked officers to report back on the speed reduction in the main street once it was introduced.

Helensvale-based councillor William Owen Jones voiced his support changing speed limits in entertainment zones like Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach.

“I particularly liked the signs in the entertainment areas,” he told the meeting.

“I think where we were mixing ultimately people who might have had good time and moving at a slower speed, that makes a lot of sense. I think that’s a really good thing for the city.”

The report said dynamic speed limits which required flashing signs could be not just in “night-time economic precincts” but include special event areas.

“A lower speed limit would apply during certain times when there is a prevalence of pedestrians, roadside dining and congregation of people,” the report said.

Officers said many of the examples listed “were well established interventions” and council only needed to work out whether they would be successful on a road after an engineering check for approval to be given.

Scene of a roadblock near a serious traffic crash on Nerang-Murwillumbah Road in the Gold Coast Hinterland. Photograph: Jason O'Brien.

The Road Safety Plan 2026 was being “developed” with the aim to report back to the transport committee in June.

The final draft will be completed in May and after backing from the committee the plan is scheduled to start in July.