MOTORING NEWS - While persuading drivers to obey the speed limit is an essential part of road safety, it is also important for drivers to understand the importance of speed differentiation.
A speed limit on a highway may be 120km, but this is not always the safest speed.
"If you are driving in heavy rain with reduced visibility, driving below the speed limit may be a safer option," says Eugene Herbert, managing director of advanced driving instructing company MasterDrive.
"This kind of weather requires more time to react and slower speeds give you extra time and more control if you need to take evasive action.
"Drivers need to start seeing speed limits not as a 'target' which they need to meet, but as the maximum speed they may go in a perfect driving situation. One's speed instead needs to be determined by a number of external factors."
These factors include:
- Weather
- Traffic levels
- Potential hazards on the side of the road
- Visibility
- Speed of other drivers
The same theory applies if travelling much more slowly than others.
"If you are driving at 80km in the 'fast lane' of the highway and other drivers are coming up behind you at speeds of 120km or maybe faster, you are creating a very dangerous situation.
While 80km is the minimum speed limit and therefore legal, it is still not the safest option in the fast lane.
Also, if you feel you can drive just as well as you usually do when it's raining, the other cars on the road may nonetheless make slowing down a road safety necessity.
If every other car is slowing down, there is no longer a way for you to continue at your speed without becoming a hazard," says Herbert.
There is no doubt that South African drivers are fond of driving too fast. Just recently two stories about reckless speeding have made national headlines.
One was a police officer driving 180km with a taxi full of children and the other was Orlando Pirates player Happy Jele, who was allegedly caught driving 223km.
For many South Africans, speed limits remain 'targets' or merely 'guidelines' rather than something that is there to ensure safe roads for everyone.
As stated by former transport minister, Dipou Peters, drivers need to take responsibility for their actions.
The first step in stopping high speed crashes is for citizens to recognise that it starts with them.
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