The Northern Territory's plan to trial open speed limits could pose significant dangers to motorists and pedestrians.
The NT government plans to trial an open speed limit for 12 months from February on a 200km stretch of the Stuart Highway near Alice Springs, but the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) is urging it to reconsider what it believes is an irresponsible decision.
"Open speed limits have been removed from the vast majority of jurisdictions (worldwide) because of consistent evidence linking speed to car crashes, deaths and injuries," Chair of the RACP NT State Committee, Dr Christine Connors, said in a statement on Tuesday.
"By allowing motorists to travel at very high speeds, the Northern Territory government is putting the lives of Territorians at unnecessary risk."
In the 10 years between 2001-2011, there were no speed-related fatalities on the proposed stretch of road, NT Minister for Transport Peter Styles said last week.
"We are bringing responsibility back to motorists. They need to be able to drive to the road conditions and their capabilities," he said.
He stressed that motorists should consider the condition of the road, weather and the standard of their vehicle.
But risk-taking young men are most likely to be killed driving too fast on rural roads, and an open speed limit is giving them permission to drive even more recklessly, Dr Connors said.
"As a community, we should be protecting these young men as well as others using our roads," she said.
The RACP says that, prior to the introduction of speed limits on certain roads in 2007, the NT had the highest per-capita fatality rate across the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development - and twice the Australian average.
In 2012, more than a third of all Territory road fatalities and serious injuries were attributed to speed.
Of the 212 recorded driver fatalities in the NT from 2002-2012, a quarter were males aged between 16 and 25 years, the RACP says.
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