Wipe off 5

Speed kills right?  At least that’s what our departments of motor vehicles [and DARE] tell us. 

Down here, they’ve got VicRoads which is like our DMVs in that it’s state run, but then there’s the Transport Accident Commision (TAC), which … well, I’m not really sure what the TAC does except try and get people to not speed.  There are billboards everywhere posted by TAC with in-your-face messages about how accidents kill.  A lot of the messages I’ve seen have been targeted at motorcycle riders to a. wear safety gear and b. not lane split [which to the best of my knowledge is not illegal here except at red lights]. 

But for a while now, the TAC has been running TV spots encouraging drivers to “Wipe off 5.”  As in slow down 5 kph.  The ads are fairly graphic by American standards [without being gruesome], but they certainly get your attention.  Do they work?  Only TAC knows, I guess.

But what gets me is the general speed limit of the roads here as it is.  The 5-lane high way that goes across the bridge right by our house is often 80kph; then it drops down to 4 lanes and the speed goes up to 100kph [60mph]; then you turn off onto another highway and it goes down to 2 lanes and the speed increases again to 110kph.  All of this is on major highway-type roads, mind you.  But then you head out into the bush, away from the cities, either into the roads through rainforest parks or along the ocean, and it’s a double-lane-kinda-narrow-only-paint-dividing road and the posted speed limit is 100kph, with curve warnings of 30kph.  One, how the hell anyone can get up to 100kph on those roads is beyond me.  Two, why would you want to?  [Well, let’s be real, I know the answer to that one].  But, three, why is the speed limit on this twisty, windy road the same as the flat, straight, divided highway!? 

It just doesn’t really make sense to me, that’s all.  When the government is trying to encourage drivers to slow down to avoid accidents or at least avoid fatalities when an accident occurs, why would you have major-vein roads that are posted slower than the twisty, blind-corners ones?

-EP