Calling for lower speed limits in Hindley Street where there is high pedestrian activity, to make the streets safer for pedestrians

  • Letter to Adelaide City Council
Posted on by Walking SA

We were concerned to hear about pedestrians being hit by a car in Hindley St and seriously injured this week.

Many ‘hit pedestrian’ vehicle crashes are completely avoidable or could be reduced in severity by slowing down vehicles to 30 km/h where there is high pedestrian activity. At a collision speed of 30km/h pedestrians have some chance of surviving a crash but this rapidly decreases with higher speed, with the majority killed if hit by a car at 50 km/h or above.

We support lower speed limits in Hindley Street and other areas in the Adelaide CBD where there is high pedestrian activity, to make the streets safer for those on foot.

In conjunction with the Heart Foundation we sent a letter to the Lord Mayor of the Adelaide City Council calling for lower speed limits in Hindley Street, which has high pedestrian activity.

Key extracts of the letter are below, or view the full letter.

A recent report on Pedestrian Casualty Crashes shows the majority of ‘hit pedestrian’ casualty crashes occurs in Adelaide city centre, where for the 5-year monitoring period there were 222 casualty crashes. This is followed by North Adelaide with 28 hit pedestrian casualty crashes. Around 26% of these casualty crashes were either serious or fatal.

Many of these crashes are completely avoidable or could be reduced in severity by slowing down vehicles to 30 km/h where there is high pedestrian activity. At a collision speed of 30 km/h pedestrians have some chance of surviving a crash but this rapidly decreases with higher speed, with the majority killed if hit by a car at 50 km/h or above.

We were concerned to hear about pedestrians being hit by a car in Hindley St and seriously injured this week. We believe that you are also concerned and would like to make the street safer for those on foot.

The Heart Foundation and Walking SA call for lower speed limits in Hindley Street and other areas in the CBD where there is high pedestrian activity.

We commend the City of Adelaide for the valuable work you are doing to improve the health, wellbeing and safety of your residents, visitors and workers. We were pleased to award City of Adelaide a Heart Foundation Local Government Award recognising your good work in 2016 and 2017. However, more needs to be done. Pedestrian deaths are not acceptable. We urge council to review the speed limits and continue to improve walking infrastructure.