Austria plans to raise speed limit to 160 kilometres per hour

VIENNA, Feb 10 (AFP) - Austrian Transport Minister Hubert Gorbach on Thursday said that he planned to raise the speed limit on the country's highways from 130 to 160 kilometres (80 to 99 miles) per hour.
"We are studying the matter," Gorbach told ORF public radio.
"We are going to try it out in 2007 around Linz (in central Austria) and if the results are conclusive, the speed limit will be raised to 160 kph in 2008 or 2009 on three-lane highways, if the weather conditions allow it and the traffic is flowing smoothly," he added.
Gorbach said drivers will be told where and when they can drive faster by road signs controlled by an information centre.
He told the weekly magazine News that the government hoped the change in the speed limit would improve the traffic flow in Austria and save the country "hundreds of millions of euros."
The country's director of road safety, Othmar Thann, however strongly criticised the minister's plans, saying the proposal would undermine an undertaking made by the government in 2002 to reduce road deaths to 500 by the end 2010.
In 2004, 771 people died in road accidents in Austria, 108 of them on the country's highways, according to government statistics.
These accidents cost the government 3.7 billion euros (4.8 billion dollars), the data showed.

02/10/2005 16:39 GMT - AFP