Life in the slow lane proves limiting

Reducing speed limits from 100 to 80km/h is an “easy fix” to more complicated issues affecting the road toll says South Gippsland local Shaun Curtis.

Easy fix: South Gippsland farmer Shaun Curtis says reducing the speed limit to 80km/h is cheaper than fixing potholes on rural arterial roads. Picture: Chloe Smith

DRIVING the highways and byways around his South Gippsland home, Shaun Curtis occasionally spots a number plate with the 1990s slogan — Victoria: On The Move.

“These days, I reckon it should be ‘Victoria: Grinding to a Halt’,” the Wild Dog Valley farmer says.

State Roads Minister Jaala Pulford last week ruled out cutting the rural default speed limit from 100 to 80km/h, a proposal mooted by bureaucrats to curb Victoria’s rising road toll.

However, Mr Curtis said an 80km/h speed limit already applied to long stretches of rural arterials such as Korumburra-Wonthaggi and Korumburra-Warragul roads.

“You drive most places in Victoria and there’s a potholed road that’s had the speed limit reduced from 100 to 80km/h,” he said.

“It’s an easy fix. Putting up a few signs here and there is cheaper than filling in the many potholes we have around our part of the world.”

Mr Curtis blamed drugs, alcohol and fatigue for most collisions in his region as well as further afield.

“There was a crash in Cranbourne last year where a mother and daughter were killed after a school parent teacher night,” he said.

“The driver was doing 160km/h in a 100 zone and high on drugs and alcohol. Now everybody has to do 80km/h. This would not have changed the outcome.”

The driver involved in the crash, Thomas Charles Adamson, pleaded guilty in a Melbourne court earlier this year to killing the mother and daughter.

In the wake of the crash, VicRoads lowered the speed limit on the South Gippsland Highway from Bullarto Road to Clyde-Fiveways Road from 100km/h to 80km/h.