South Africa’s speed limit lie

There is no evidence that speed prosecution leads to safer roads and that reducing speed limits would positively impact road fatalities.

This is according to Rob Handfield-Jones, road safety expert and managing director of driving skills company Driving.co.za.

Handfield-Jones recently wrote an extensive letter to the editor following a MyBroadband article comparing South Africa’s speed limits to the rest of the world.

The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC) announced in 2022 that it planned to implement several interventions to reduce fatalities on South Africa’s roads, including further limiting maximum speeds.

It said the decision would align South Africa’s regulations with the United Nations’ recommendations to reduce speed by 10 km/h, which was binding for South Africa as a member of the United Nations’ roads council.

The RTMC’s focus on speed reduction would also have seen South Africa’s 60 km/h residential speed limit dropped to 50 km/h and its 120 km/h limit reduced to 110 km/h.

Handfield-Jones said South African authorities’ focus on speed limits and traffic fines was a red herring.

“In 1998, South Africa had its safest year in history on our roads despite speed limits which were, on many roads, considerably higher than now,” he said.

“Speed only gets airtime because it is associated with motor racing and danger, but the irony is that back in 2006 — the last year in which South Africa had credible traffic statistics — a South African racing driver was statistically twice as likely to die in their road car than in their racing car.”

Handfield-Jones said Motorsport South Africa keeps its own statistics on motorsport safety.

“The widespread introduction of modern timing systems around the turn of the millennium means they know with considerable accuracy how far racing vehicles travel each year, making it easy to determine accurate fatality rates,” he said.

“Even the RTMC, which has banged the speed drum non-stop, disregards government’s own research.”

In a 2003 study of contributory factors to fatal crashes, it was found that 7.9% of fatal crashes had speed as a contributing factor.

“In other words, 92.1% didn’t — and that’s fatal crashes,” said Handfield-Jones.

“Extend the study to include all crashes and speed would fade into insignificance compared to driver errors like incorrect following distance or insufficient awareness before manoeuvering.”

Handfield-Jones said government’s reduction to speed limits from 120 km/h to 100 km/h for public transport vehicles similarly made no difference to safety.

“In fact, four years after the change, the bus occupant fatality rate — as reported by the RTMC — rose by nearly 30% in a single year from 2005 to 2006!”

The RTMC embarked on a more wide-ranging study in 2021. Handfield-Jones’ analysis was less than flattering.

“It resulted in an almost comedic document that no credible statistician could take seriously,” he told MyBroadband.

“For example, on page 16, the document includes a graph that accidentally demonstrates an inverse correlation between speeding infringements and fatal crashes for almost all vehicle types, undermining the entire thrust of their argument that more speed prosecution was needed.”

Handfield-Jones added that low speeds are far more dangerous than people think.

Citing the 2004 book Traffic Safety by Leonard Evans, he explained that the median change in velocity (delta-v) at which most vehicle occupants are killed is just 39 km/h.

“This research was a primary driver of the global move towards lower urban speed limits, although improved crashworthiness of modern vehicles has played a large part in reducing urban fatality rates,” said Handfield-Jones.

“But a crash with a delta-V over 115km/h is uniformly fatal, so it’s a moot point whether one hits a bridge at 120km/h, nice and legally, or at 140km/h (shock-horror, a reckless speedster!). You’re stone dead in both cases.”

Handfield-Jones said research conducted by BMW found that the average speed on German Autobahns increased from 115 km/h to 124 km/h between 1977 and 1994, yet the fatality rate dropped by 56%.

This reveals that driver behaviour, not speed control, is the primary impetus behind safety, argued Handfield-Jones.

“The only reason speed continues to suck oxygen from the road safety debate is because it’s misunderstood by most people, but easy to measure and amazingly profitable,” he said.

“Some municipalities derive over 50% of their revenue from traffic fines, almost all of which are for speeding.”

Citing 2009 statistics presented at an Institute of Licensing Officers conference, he said the following was revealed.

In the roughly three months between 12 February 2009 and 8 May 2009, Johannesburg issued 1,011,084 infringement notices. Of these, the main categories were:

• 98.94% for speeding
• 0.57% for disobeying road traffic signs
• 0.24% for disobeying the rules of the road
• 0.08% in connection with fitness of vehicles
• 0.07% for learners and drivers licenses
• 0.05% for registration and licensing of vehicles
• 0.03% for professional driving permits
• 0.01% for passenger carrying vehicles

“Alcohol and driving did not even merit a mention, despite repeated National Injury Mortality Surveillance System studies showing that nearly 58% of all drivers killed in crashes were under the influence,” said Handfield-Jones.

Of these fatalities, the average intoxication rate was nearly four times the legal limit.

“This is because prosecuting drunk drivers is hard and expensive. Speed cameras are easy money.”