THE Heart Foundation wants speed limits on suburban streets cut to 30km/h to encourage more walking and cycling around Adelaide.

And limits on busy roads which have high pedestrian and cycling traffic should be cut down to 40km/h.

The ideas have been put forward to theState Government’s Citizen’s Jury, which has been tasked by Premier Jay Weatherill to come up with a plan that would allow motorists and cyclists to more safely share South Australian roads.

There have been four cyclist deaths in the state this year, an average of four per year for the past five years, and 34 since 2004.

The Heart Foundation was one of 26 individuals and organisations to make comment in public submissions on current efforts to encourage safe cycling on SA roads.

“Slower speeds also create safer streets and the Heart Foundation is calling for 30km/h in residential areas and 40km/h on busy roads where there is high pedestrian and cyclist activity,’’ spokeswoman Jenni Carr stated.

“Physical inactivity is a major modifiable risk factor for heart disease and many other chronic diseases but one in two Australian adults do not do enough physical activity for health benefit. It is a critical factor in Australia’s obesity epidemic and the cost to the economy is estimated at $13.8 billion a year.’’

The jury is currently considering the suggestions and will report to the government before next year’s Tour Down Under cycling event.

Meanwhile rules for selection on the Citizens’ Jury have been changed to stop political hacks being randomly selected, after Opposition Leader Steven Marshall’s former communications director Daniel Gannon was last year one of 43 jurors chosen from 20,000 people selected, and an unidentified Labor government staffer was picked but disqualified himself.

“The wording will be changed to say that citizens whose primary employment is with a political party are ineligible for selection,” a spokesman for Mr Weatherill said.

Motorists last month successfully forced the abandonment of the Adelaide City Council’s trial of 40km/h speed limits in the CBD’s southeast, despite support from the State Government, road safety experts, cycling groups and a local school.

In its submission to the Citizen’s Jury, the Motor Accident Commission general manager road safety, Michael Cornish, revealed cycling crashes were far more frequent than statistics suggest because many are never reported.

“In terms of cyclist casualties, MAC figures indicate there has been a general rise in recent years, reaching a peak of 589 in South Australia in 2012,’’ Mr Cornish’s submission states.

“It is believed that some cycling crashes often go unreported to police, thus the real number of cycling casualties is likely to be higher than these figures.’’