Montenegro finds no case yet for higher road speed limits

Montenegro’s Ministry of Transport told Vijesti that earlier road-safety audits and inspections have not shown a professional case for raising speed limits. A specific study of traffic signs is still ahead, and the review of limits on state roads remains in a preparatory phase. No decisions have been taken and no proposals have been drawn up to allow higher speeds on particular sections. The ministry did not say when the analysis might finish or when new signs might be installed.

The comments follow a September initiative by the Interior Ministry to reconsider existing limits, after changes to the Road Traffic Safety Law and tighter checks on road users. Vijesti had also reported driver dissatisfaction. In an editorial survey that collected 1,107 responses, 82.9 percent of the 1,100 people who answered a question on whether limits are appropriate said they are more often too low than too high. Respondents also pointed to frequent changes of the permitted speed on short stretches and to signs they see as illogical or out of step with the condition of the road.

The Transport Ministry said it supports any initiative aimed at greater safety, and that limits must be set only on expert analysis and data rather than on impression. In its view, every decision on a speed limit directly affects how many people are killed or injured on Montenegrin roads.

After the Interior Ministry’s initiative, the transport ministry held several meetings with the relevant institutions. With the Traffic Administration, which manages main and regional roads, it looked at routes where speeding is most common and where traffic police most often carry out checks. Those figures were used to pick roads where signs, including current limits, will be analysed first. Officials said the next step is a traffic-sign study and then a signage project. They gave no deadline for the first concrete decisions. The administration must first publish a public call for the study, after which a designer is chosen, the project is prepared in line with the study, and the project is reviewed. New signs can be put up only after those steps. The ministry said the timing depends on public procurement and on the deadlines for preparing and reviewing the project, procedures set by law so that any change is professionally based and checked. It confirmed that, once the study is done, the Traffic Administration will present the solutions and conclusions in public.

Montenegro has written road-safety audit at the design stage, and inspection of existing roads, into its legislation in line with European practice. The Traffic Administration has carried out several such projects. Among the latest are Lipci–Grahovo, where work on the ground is finished, and Cetinje–Budva, where it is still under way, the ministry said. The Interior Ministry had earlier told Vijesti that audits were completed on Lipci–Grahovo and Kolašin–Mateševo. The Transport Ministry did not release the individual results and did not say whether any specific part of those roads needs a higher or lower limit. It said the purpose of the checks is to make the road itself safer, to prevent crashes and to lessen the harm when one happens — what the profession calls a road that forgives mistakes — rather than simply to raise or lower the number on a sign. Previous audits and inspections, it said, found no professional justification for higher limits, and no proposal to raise the permitted speed has been prepared.

The ministry cited a model used by the World Health Organization and the World Bank: a 1 percent rise in average speed increases the risk of a fatal crash by about 4 percent and the risk of a crash with serious consequences by about 3 percent. A cut of only 5 percent in average speed can reduce deaths by about 20 percent. Even a small change in speed, it said, has a large effect on lives lost.

Sections are prioritised for safety checks using several criteria, including the international iRAP rating of road condition, analysis of dangerous stretches and black spots, where crashes occur, and speeding data. Fatal crashes and serious injuries receive particular attention. On main roads, the ministry’s figures show 30.6 percent of all crashes but 69 percent of all deaths. Of 67 people killed in traffic in 2025, 46 died on main roads. Officials said that is because those are the roads where people drive fastest, and speed affects both whether a crash happens and how severe it is. Asked whether checks had already found limits that are unjustifiably low or high, or illogical and frequent changes on short sections, the ministry said that specific analysis is still to come. Licensed specialists will carry it out through the signage study, and the public will be told the findings, including any inconsistencies in the signs.

The 2025 road-safety report recorded 6,831 crashes in Montenegro. Sixty-seven people were killed and 3,179 were injured, 685 of them seriously. Deaths were lower than in 2024, when 75 people were killed, but the report still rates overall safety as unsatisfactory because risky behaviour by road users continues to rise. Montenegro has about 108 road deaths per million inhabitants, against a European Union average of about 43. The ministry cited 16 per million in Norway, 20 in Sweden and about 24 in Denmark. It said Romania and Bulgaria, which it ranks among the weakest EU countries on road safety, still have fewer deaths per million than Montenegro, at 77 and 78.

Speed measurements in October and November 2025 covered more than 37,500 vehicles, and 52.8 percent of drivers were above the limit. The highest shares were in Petnjica, 78.2 percent, Danilovgrad 70.1 percent, Bijelo Polje 68.6 percent and Pljevlja 68.5 percent. On the motorway, 44.6 percent of drivers exceeded the 100 km/h limit. Preliminary expert findings put speed that was not adapted to conditions as the leading cause of fatal crashes in 2025, ahead of crossing into the oncoming lane, alcohol, not wearing a seat belt, and inattention.

To illustrate the consequences, the ministry gave the case of a car and a child. If a child runs onto the carriageway 36 metres ahead, a car travelling at 50 km/h can stop in time. A car at 80 km/h would hit the child at about 62 km/h, which is almost always fatal.

Changing limits on main and regional roads is the job of the Traffic Administration. A licensed traffic engineer first prepares a signage project, and another licensed expert reviews it. Signs are installed or changed only on the basis of that reviewed project. The designer takes account of road geometry, sight lines, traffic density, the state of the pavement, pedestrians, cyclists and junctions, and how vehicles behave in motion. When a road is rebuilt, a new project sets out the road markings and the signs, in line with the law, technical rules and professional practice. The ministry said the figure on a sign is the end result of a calculation meant to leave the driver enough space and time to react and avoid a crash.

It asked road users to treat speed limits as protection for their own lives and for other people. Drivers were urged to follow the rules, to drive rested and focused, and not to drive under the influence of alcohol or psychoactive substances. Fatigue, inattention and intoxication, the ministry said, lengthen reaction time and further raise the risk of a crash and of its consequences.