Rural Regional Roads – Reducing Motorcycle Trauma Through Speed Limits and Infrastructure

EXTENDED ABSTRACT: Analysis of 80km/h speed limit reductions and/or infrastructure treatment on high speed Victorian rural roads revealed that motorcycles had the largest observed speed reductions. Given that motorcycles are over-represented in crash statistics this result indicates that the speed limit reductions should be an effective, low cost treatment on popular motorcycle routes.
Analysis of recent crash data reveals that speed limit reduction on its own, without concomitant infrastructure, did not significantly reduce serious and fatal injuries to motorcyclists. However, these results are not statistically significant on the basis of a chi-square test and may be an artefact of the relatively short period of analysis.