00:00I'm just outside the small town of Laggan in the New South Wales Southern Tablelands
00:04and I'm about to hit an unsealed road. Now the state speed limit for roads like these is 100
00:10kilometres an hour. You drive to the conditions so sometimes that means I'm hitting 60 to 70 k's
00:15to dodge some potholes but in a new review presented to the federal government roads like
00:20these could be limited to 80 kilometres an hour. It's a move that road safety experts say will
00:26save lives, particularly in isolated country towns. But by shaving off 20 kilometres an
00:32hour local residents are concerned that this may become an excuse to not maintain these
00:37roads, a band-aid solution that won't address the key issues that can lead to deaths on our
00:41country roads. When you're navigating washed out turns and shoulders that have eroded and
00:47potholes that are big enough to take out a tyre or throw someone off a motorcycle there are huge
00:53concerns at play for safety. When you can't call 000 because there's no reception or when there's
00:57one ambulance in town that may be on another job during a time of an accident. Residents have
01:02spoken to us at The Land about how taking off 20 kilometres an hour and adding on a few extra
01:07minutes to a commute every day will not make a difference in rural communities but instead could
01:13actually exacerbate issues that we've already seen across underfunded and severely damaged country roads.
01:23i'm
01:25so
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01:29I'm
01:29so
01:30i'm
01:31oh
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