Calls to increase Hume Highway speed limit

Former Roads and Maritime Services safety manager Lex Stewart, who was solely responsible for increasing the Hume’s speed-limit to 110, wants to see the highway fast-tracked again.

It comes after drivers and truckies traded blows over a proposal for an Australian

autobahn, which would run down the Hume as a high speed rail alternative.

Mr Stewart said a raised speed limit would improve freight efficiency, increase tourism to regional areas and ease the burden for interstate drivers.

“Unfortunately, there’s been a paranoia surrounding speeding as a problem where all the bureaucrats would love to see us always travelling at 20 kilometres per hour,” Mr Stewart said.

“We’d have endless benefits from putting up the Hume Highway speed limit to 130 on a normal day, and 110 in wet weather.

“There's little bits where we'd have to clean the shoulders up, iron out the bends,

and do some minor road works (on the highway) –but it’s not hard.”

He argued an increased police presence and further education would combat speeding.

“When we put the Hume speed up everybody thought the road toll would go up, but it actually went down,” he said.

Each year, road trauma on the Hume costs NSW $88.8 million, according to RMS statistics.

Fatigue is accounted for approximately 20 per cent of Australia’s accidents.