It’s time for all RACT members to stop ‘our’ Club yet again vetoing the move to lower speed limits in Tasmania. It is obvious to almost everyone but the RACT and the powerful transport industry lobby that the default speed limit on rural Tasmanian roads should be lowered from 100km/hr which is simply too high for safe travel on most of them (and there is nothing to stop the ones that are safe for a higher limit being marked as such).
The RACT argument that this approach is simplistic and that a package of measures is needed instead is nonsense. Taking this nearly cost-free first step need not and should not prevent other measures also being taken.
The RACT campaign seems more akin to a deliberate strategy for inaction than a responsible road safety position.
And unfortunately it is a strategy that has been successfully used to defeat each politically courageous (given the power of the road transport industry) attempt to lower Tasmanian speed limits during the past decade. Unless members now revolt, the latest proposal, like the equally sensible one to lower the speed limit within the CBD (also opposed by the RACT) will probably be again defeated.
Members should ask two things – one, will the RACT cease speaking out on this issue until members can have a say, and two – what mechanisms are in place for members to be consulted on this and other contentious public policy issues. For example, a recent Saturday Mercury article quoted the RACT Public Policy General Manager as saying that ´´RACT members believed the introduction of lower alcohol limits would unintentionally catch people who were trying to do the right thing without addressing the real issue´´. How exactly do they know what ‘we’ think?
I wrote to the RACT about six months ago – the last time they tried to stifle sensible debate on lower speed limits. I asked them then how members could have a say on the speed limits issue. I received an initial courtesy letter promising to get back to me on this. I am still waiting.
