Truck drivers, who cause many fatal accidents, exceed the speed limit most often, as 29 percent of them speed, while 21 percent of minibus drivers and 16 percent of car drivers also disregard the speed limit.In order to better monitor vehicles breaking the speed limit, the KGM has placed monitoring devices on state highways in a number of cities. With data from these devices, authorities prepared a report showing what kinds of vehicles break the speed limit and how often. Examining speed statistics for all vehicles on state highways, they found that the average vehicle speed is 74 kilometers per hour.
The speed limit for all motor vehicles on state highways in Turkey is set at 70 kilometers per hour. Aksaray is the province where drivers exceed the speed limit most. İstanbul, where firm traffic controls are in place, falls in the middle of the rankings. The average speed in Ankara, İstanbul and İzmir, which have the most motor vehicles, is 83 kilometers per hour.
Turkey, where 10,000 people die in road accidents each year, ranks first among European countries and fifth in the world in road accidents. Accidents have cost Turkey TL 23 billion in the last 10 years. The report notes that speeding is one of the leading causes of the 600,000 accidents that occur in Turkey each year on average. A few years ago, 32 people died and 30 were injured in Aksaray -- where drivers were found to be breaking the speed limit most often and by the largest amount -- when a bus collided with a truck. It was later discovered that the bus driver had exceeded the speed limit. Eskişehir, Konya and Ankara, respectively, follow Aksaray with the highest average speed. In İstanbul, motor vehicles drive at an average of 80 kilometers per hour. Trucks exceed the speed limit most often and cause many of Turkey's fatal accidents.
‘The number of speed limit signs should be increased’
Turkish Highway Traffic and Road Safety Research Institute head İhsan Memiş said truck drivers in particular fail to obey traffic rules, adding that drivers travelling long distances always exceed the speed limit in order to return to their homes as soon as possible. “Truck drivers always break the [speed] limit, especially on their way home, to reach their destination in five hours rather than 10 hours. The most disastrous accidents are those in which trucks are involved,” Memiş noted.
Memiş also pointed out that excessive speed is the primary cause of accidents in Turkey and said more speed limit signs should be placed on highways.
