Police reject Top Gear’s call for new speed limits
Authorities brand Top Gear Australia's call to lift speed limits to 130kph as irresponsible, ridiculous and offensive.
- Published by David Knox
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Following TV Tonight‘s story yesterday on Top Gear Australia hosts calling for interstate freeway speed limits to be increased, Victoria Police and the TAC have now weighed into the argument.
A Victoria Police spokesperson said the comments were irresponsible considering around 100 people die each year on Victorian roads due to speeding.
TAC chief executive Janet Dore criticised hosts Shane Jacobson, Ewen Page and Steve Pizzati when she spoke to the Herald Sun.
“The comments made are absolutely ridiculous and offensive to anyone who may have lost a loved one in a crash involving speed or fatigue,” she said.
“Speed limits are in place for a reason and if you choose to drive above them you are placing yourself, your mates, and other road users in potentially deadly situations.”
VicRoads advised fatigue was best avoided with planning and scheduling rest breaks.
The episode in which the hosts argue the case for lifting the limits airs at 8:30pm tonight on Nine.
36 Responses
For God’s sake people, wake up! This is a publicity stunt for a tanking TV show!
Does anyone on Earth give a sh@t what Top Gear Australia thinks about anything?
Do any of you think that listing your half-baked opinions on raising speed limits on a freaking TV blog is going to do anything other than bore the socks off those who read it? Geez.
ps.Nobody under 30yo old should be allowed on our roads anyway 😉
I spend half the time on the Pacific Highway looking at my speedo rather than the road because of the erratic speed limit changes. How is that safer than having a higher, consistent limit? They really need to stop treating the general public like idiots and babies. There are some morons out there but driver training and harder tests would help cut some of that out. Or sterilization… Just sayin’.
Another reason to axe this poor imitation of Top Gear.
I was actually under the impression roads in Europe had a speed limit of 120km and not 130km? Anyway 130km could be a bit much but I think the speed limit should definitely be lifted to 120km on the major highways.
This is Top Gear Australia: Nobody cares.
The police have no place in commenting on this issue. They are not politicians, nor are they experts in road safety.Their job is to enforce the law, not make it. I don’t necessarily have any strong opinion on whether or not speed limits should be raised, but the police have certainly done a very unconvincing job of arguing their case. Their claim that arguing in favour of higher speed limits is somehow “offensive” to road toll victims is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard. Clearly there are a lot of countries with higher speed limits than us, so it is unbeleivably closed minded and arrogant to assume that all of Australia’s speed limits are right and every other country with higher limits is just being “ridiculous”. If the highest speed limit on Australian roads was 90kph, these clowns would be complaining about “offensive and ridiculous” it would be to raise it to 100.
Jokester, to equate autobahn conditions with Australian country roads is just ridiculous. My understanding is that autobahn conditions are 3-4 extremely well maintained freeway-type conditions. I certainly think there’s room to manoeuvre on some stretches of straight, multi-laned freeway but there’s also a huge issue with an Australian culture of poor driver training, a propensity (still) of many people willing to drink drive or drugged, together with a huge country crisscrossed by poorly maintained roads which also brings into play fatigue. Compare that to Germany and other parts of Europe where drivers are very well trained at high speed and it’s just not good thinking imho to raise speed limits by 20kph. I’d love to see young drivers undergo comprehensive training (and I wish I had) … I think it’d result in much more mature drivers across the board.
Publicity stunt, nothing else. Channel Nine you are proving once again how soulless you are.
Funny, I thought speed and fatigue kills.
Keep the speed as it is and yes educate road rules at school.110k is plenty fast enough. They must be kidding re fatigue. To stop fatigue stop and have a break.
To the surprise of no one.
I agree the top is design to get attention but it still a worthy topic for debate, cars as safer than ever with traction control, ABS and airbags but new speed limits are constantly been set lower even on new freeway standard roads. I live on the Sunshine coast and one example comes strait to mind where the new divided road with crash barriers and wide run-off areas is 80kph then you get to the older road with less built in safety, a while line dividing you from the oncoming traffic and the speed limit it goes up to 100kph!
How can you do 130 on Australian roads? This country does not have European Freeways, just potholes !!’
Oh stop, shameless attemp to grab some attention for the woeful local version of top gear!
For a show with hosts that behave like d***heads on the road , play stupid crash games and dimwitted stunts , the police are right to say this is a bad idea.We have enough death on the roads now and we dont need anymore.How many have cars that are well past there UBD that would be even unsafer at higher speeds.
Maybe one day the governments will do somethimg but the days of true progress are dead and buried.
Yes raising the speed limit on freeways would be a better idea. Plus maintaing the roads is also crucial to preventing accidents on the road also having a drag strip where people who want to drag can do so in a safe and appropriate way. Also the most important part of all is to have drivers education in our high schools. I have said this before and i have no problem of saying it again Australia needs drivers ed in schools. It would be more affordable and the kids would be taught how to drive safely and properly. But the authorities dont want to do that because it takes too much work on their part and they can not be stuffed, thats the real reason. The easiest thing to do is to put up and lower speed limits. Before you know it the behicles will be going at snales pace, and their wont be any need for a vehicle of any kind, ok that probably will not happen but its not out of the question.
I think its a good idea.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_autobahns
2.2 road user fatalities per billion vehicle kilometers on German autobahns in 2008.
A faster travel time, reduces the time on the road. Less time on road, less time for fatigue. Less fatigue mitigates colisions. Better driver education mitigates colisions.
When you hand out driver’s licenses like lollypops, that is the problem.
The cops need to get real. You’ll never get the road fatality numbers down to 0, because driver education sucks in this country. It’s too easy to get a license, and then even easier to keep it until you’re 90.
what a bunch of muppets
I think it is absolutely ridiculous and offensive that the TAC & VicPol produce such a one dimensional response. They are not advocating breaking speed limits but raising them on interstate freeways and improving driver training. The Police & TAC response has shown such ignorance of the subject they raise…worrying really
@Ben
Ditto
Typical police response, always believe that lowering the speed is the anwser. What they said they want actually improve training for drivers which is they did that and people knew how to drive safely, 130 km/h on national freeways would be fine. It is a valid opinion and don’t know anybody can find it offensive.
“considering around 100 people die each year on Victorian roads due to speeding’
Yes this is inappropriate speed, I’d like the statistics on where those 100 deaths were, I’m betting the majority were in built up areas (100kph in a 60 zone) on on poorly maintained country roads and was the result of a tired driver.
Oh good point. Let’s save more lives. Drop the speed limit to 50 km on all roads open and city. That should help. Nah come on seriously I read recently that 70% of people killed on our roads are under 25. Wouldn’t we be better off focusing on ways on which to further increase safety in the under 25s?
So just the standard police response, I don’t think anyone would be surprised, after all they are government employees doing what they are told. It is a sensible suggestion to raise speed limits, which are based on logic and the arguement deserves proper discussion and research, not old world propoganda.
Unbelievable. Grossly stupid and irresponsible of the show to do that.
Anyone who thinks this is anything but a grab for a ratings lift is a fool.