The sub-target that 80 per cent of all road users should drive within current speed limits was introduced in order to reach the national traffic safety target of a maximum of 220 traffic fatalities by 2020. The target applies to passenger cars, heavy goods vehicles, motorcycles and mopeds alike. The aim of this study is to improve the knowledge regarding the speed of motorcyclists on different kinds of roads incorporating recently introduced speed limits, and to evaluate any changes in speed in connection to the new speed limits. The evaluation was performed by utilising available speed data on rural roads obtained from measurements in connection with the national evaluation of new speed limits. Results from speed measurements show an increase of approximately 3 km/h in the motorcyclists' travel speed on motorways when speed limits increased by 10 km/h on roads previously holding a speed limit of 110 km/h, or on 2+1 roads (a continuous three-lane road with alternating passing lanes and the two directions of travel separated by a median barrier) with a previous speed limit of 90 km/h. Both changes are significant. The degree of the change is similar to previous estimates for passenger cars. The changes are not significant on 2+1 roads and 2-lane rural roads where speed limits were reduced from 110 km/h to 100 km/h. Motorcyclists reduced their speed by 2—3 km/h at four studied assessment points at 2-lane rural roads incorporating a reduced speed limit from 90 to 80 km/h. With regards to speed limit compliance, it is apparent that the percentage of speed violations in general increases by approximately 20 percentage points when speed limits were reduced by 10 km/h to 100 km/h on 2+1 roads and 2-lane rural roads. Correspondingly, the effect of increasing speed limits by 10 km/h is that the percentage of speed violations has been reduced by 14.4 percentage points on motorways that has got increased limit from 110 to 120 km/h and on 2+1 roads with increased limit from 90 to 100 km/h. On examining the level of speed violations by motorcyclists, it becomes evident that 48.3 percent of motorcyclists exceed current speed limits on motorways holding a speed limit of 120 km/h. The equivalent figure for motorcyclists on 2+1 roads and 2-lane rural roads with a reduced speed limit to 100 km/h is 57.4 and 50.6 percent, whilst the level for 2+1 roads where the speed limit has been increased to 100 km/h shows that 45.8 percent of motorcyclists exceed current speed limits. Common to all the studied road types is that the proportion of traffic volume exceeding the current speed limit by 30 km/h or more is approximately 5 per cent on all the different kinds of roads studied. (Author/publisher) This report may be accessed by Internet users at http://www.vti.se/en/publications/speed-of-motorcyclists---levels-and-c…
Samenvatting