Liberal Democrats NSW President Dean McCrae wants an increase on speed limits on NSW roads

Liberal Democrats NSW President and Temora resident Dean McCrae said Australia is lagging behind other countries, such as Germany, and his party wants limits raised to 130km/h on some NSW roads.

"We arguably have some of the best freeways in the world ... car safety has improved over the years and we're still managing people's lives in a manner as though we have poor roads," he said.

"It is not realistic to continually keep slowing down traffic in the pursuit of zero accidents on the road."

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He also believes that increasing the speeds on our "major and better" roads would reduce fatigue for drivers, making roads safer.

"If you think about the drive time to say Wagga to Sydney, that would be nearly an hour saved," he said.

"We have many roads here. For example, I drove from Temora to West Wyalong today, there is plenty of space on that open flat road where 130km/h I suspect would be absolutely no more disadvantageous or advantageous to the numbers other than people getting where they're going quicker."

Road Freight NSW chief executive Simon O'Hara said he'd be open to the idea, but would have to hear more details.

"Our view is that you've got to drive to the conditions and what really dictates the speed is the construction of the road," he said.

"If you are on a single lane driving on windy roads ... we wouldn't recommend doing 130km/h.

"But if you're on a freeway and the conditions were such that allowed a semi trailer or B-double to stop safely, we would certainly like to hear the arguments for and against."

But Dr Raphael Grzebieta from the Transport and Road Safety (TARS) Research Centre, said raising the speed limit would be "reckless and unethical".

He said the roads in Europe which allow higher speed limits are of much higher quality than Australian roads, and countries such as Germany are smaller, with larger populations and more money to put into roads.

"These are common arguments that are used by people that advocate for increasing speed limits," he said.

"But at 130k/mh, if you hit anything, your car will disintegrate literally. It's a huge amount of kinetic energy that you face."

Crashes are only really survivable in speeds of up to 65km/h, he said, anything above those speeds is "pure risk" and if you survive you're "really lucky".

"Cars are designed for 65km/h offset into another car," he said.

The other issue is the faster speeds we travel, the less reaction time drivers have to react to any hazards. And as for fatigue, driving at higher speeds does not cut travel time by a great deal and in fact can be taxing on your nervous system and actually tire drivers out, Dr Grzebieta said.

"The argument about fatigue is rubbish and if you continue at a higher speed you're overloading your cognitive abilities and having to be sharp as a tack," he said.

Tara McCarthy, deputy secretary for safety environment and regulation at Transport for NSW, said NSW roads do not meet the "engineering road design and safety requirements to consider higher speed limits than the current 110km/h maximum".

"There is no available evidence that increasing the speed limit to reduce travel times reduces the likelihood of fatigue related crashes," she said.

"However, there is evidence that increased travel speeds increases the risk of and the severity of crashes on the road network."

NSW government statistics show that in 2021, speed was a contributing factor in around 43 per cent of fatalities on country roads, while fatigue contributed to 24 per cent.

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