The decision to change the speed limits on the highways has now been reversed after an outcry from the public and politicians. The speed cuts were met with a lot of opposition with the main issues being the fact you can’t reduce speed limits overnight without informing the public and secondly speed cuts won’t reduce traffic or accidents. [Source]
12 replies on “Speed limit changes postponed”
Mhm that’s right, great coverage as usual.
Before Kuwaitis speak, why don’t they think? In Germany, people take extensive professional driving training and then take a ‘regulated’ driving test before they acquire a driving license. In Kuwait, the driving training is poor, unregulated driving centres and testing to acquire a driving license. In Dubai, which is closer to home, they have very good driving training and regulated driving testing with a RTA that is completely networked. I am sure that the gracious Emiratis would assist Kuwait in setting up an integrated RTA with proper driving training if Kuwait wants to handle this matter at the core. We do drive at 100 km on most major roads in Dubai, but we have extensive cameras on roads and all our driving licenses/tickets/car insurance are networked with the RTA. No one can escape the law because it is IMPLEMENTED. Quit trying to go for the ‘quick fix’ and analyse your issues, implement the proper legislation and be consistent with your regulations. Rome was not built in a day.
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Yeah but that would take effort and we don’t do that
Thank God for this. I can’t imagine driving @ 100 in 5th ring road when there’s no traffic.
They reversed it because people “didn’t like it.” Seriously? That’s how it works? All the obvious need for training aside – the government bends because people can’t take driving slower? And yes, it would reduce accidents. Reducing traffic isn’t even a speed issue – it’s how the city and highway system was designed. They clearly hadn’t thought a million billion cars would be on these roads. I don’t bash on Kuwait a lot. I work here and I’ve met some awesome people. But whoever those complainers are need to “man” up, and deal.
Yes, of course NO accident was ever caused by speeding…..DUH!!!
Why don’t they just adjust the radars to the actual speeds they should be triggered at instead of 20kmh over the posted speed limit
probably because the radars aren’t 100% accurate and have a margin of error.
Laser radars have an error of +/-5kmh (roughly 5%) So if you are going 130. You could be going 125 or 135.
Its a huge argument when fighting a radar ticket in court in the US. They put it higher to make sure you are speeding but +20kmh is excessive.
Source: I’m a traffic engineer
Also a car’s speedometer is not as accurate as you think. Compare it with a GPS based speedometer and you will see. Even something like over/under deflating tires will cause a few km/h difference (especially when you are above 100km/h)
I’ve beaten speeding tickets in the US when I provided a mechanic’s calibration results stating that my speedometer wasn’t working accurately. 🙂
I think the main point of all this is that planning isn’t the norm here. For example, if you are planning to change the speed limits, you should first change the signage, provide proper notice to the public, etc etc; Not just make a decision based on a whim.