The 50km/h speed limit in New South Wales: a joint partnership between councils, their communities and the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority.

Speed is one of the major factors contributing to road trauma. The vast majority of crashes in New South Wales (NSW) occur on 60 km/h roads and the groups most at risk are pedestrians, in particular children and the elderly, and cyclists. The NSW Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) has developed a major speed management strategy to reduce road trauma in NSW. The key objectives of the strategy are: To ensure the community drives consistently at safe speeds; To implement an effective system for managing the speeding problem; and To make speeding socially unacceptable. Key integrated elements of the strategy include communication and public education, speed limits and speed zoning, enforcement, regulation and legislation. A major initiative of the speed management strategy was the introduction of a 50 km/h urban speed limit, implemented as a joint partnership between councils, their communities and the RTA. This paper discusses the rationale for a lowered limit on local streets, the implementation of the 50 km/h speed limit, and evaluation findings to date. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E202275.