00:00I'm just outside the small town of Lagan in the New South Wales Southern Tablelands and I'm about
00:05to hit an unsealed road. Now the state speed limit for roads like these is 100 kilometers an hour.
00:11You drive to the conditions so sometimes that means I'm hitting 60 to 70 k's to dodge some
00:16potholes but in a new review presented to the federal government roads like these could be
00:21limited to 80 kilometers an hour. It's a move that road safety experts say will save lives
00:27particularly in isolated country towns but by shaving off 20 kilometers an hour local residents
00:33are concerned that this may become an excuse to not maintain these roads a band-aid solution that
00:38won't address the key issues that can lead to deaths on our country roads. When you're navigating washed
00:44out turns and shoulders that have eroded and potholes that are big enough to take out a tire
00:50or throw someone off a motorcycle there are huge concerns at play for safety when you can't call
00:55triple zero because there's no reception or when there's one ambulance in town that may be on
00:59another job during a time of an accident residents have spoken to us at the land about how taking
01:05off 20 kilometers an hour and adding on a few extra minutes to a commute every day will not make a
01:10difference in rural communities but instead could actually exacerbate issues that we've already seen
01:15across underfunded and severely damaged country roads
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