Saudi to introduce new 140kph speed limit on some roads

Saudi Arabia will introduce new speed limits on some major expressways on Monday under the instructions of the road safety authority.

The new limits are 140kph for cars, 100kph for buses and 80kph for trucks, the director of public relations and security colonel Sami Bin Muhammad Al-Shuwairikh told Saudi Press Agency on Saturday.

Signs will be installed on roads where the new speed limits are in place and drivers have been warned to not exceed them.

The affected routes include Riyadh-Taif road to the west and east, Riyadh-Qassim road to the north and south, Makkah-Madinah road to the north and south and Madinah-Jeddah road to the north and south.

Al-Shuwairikh said the new limits did not mean drivers had to increase their speeds to match.

He also cautioned drivers to be careful during different weather conditions.

In December, an official from the kingdom’s Ministry of Transport was quoted as saying an average of 20 people were dying on the kingdom’s roads each day.

The ministry is aiming to bring down the rate of deaths from road accidents to one for every 100,000 people from the current rate of 26.8 per 100,000 people.

The average is 9.2 per 100,000 in high-income countries, 17.4 per 100,000 globally and 24.1 per 100,000 in low-income countries, according to the World Health Organisation.

Read: Saudi traffic authorities say 20 dying on roads each day