Former F1 superstar Mark Webber says lifting speed limits on Australian road could improve driver concentration and save lives.

Webber wants a 15 per cent increase in speed limits, claiming current restrictions were “so, so slow” and it was no surprise bored drivers reached for their phones.

He believes it could also help clear gridlocked roads.

“In Europe, the speed limits are higher and you have to concentrate,” he told the Herald Sun.

“Here, the speed limits are so slow and they have all these different limits up and down to create revenue. That model needs a total look at.”

Webber said adopting European-style laws would help people get to where they are going faster in cars that “are so good now, the tyres are brilliant, the brakes are brilliant, the airbags”.

Camera Icon Mark Webber Credit: News Corp Australia

But in WA, speed limits in some areas are actually being cut as part of moves to slow drivers down and make metropolitan roads safer.

Limits have changed on 14 sections of major metropolitan roads over the past year — with only one increasing.

The biggest change was in Perth’s outer southern suburb of Coolbellup, where the speed limit on a section of Coolbellup Avenue (between Forrest Road and Cordelia Avenue) was formalised from the 110km/h default to 60km/h.

Closer to the city, another significant change occurred on Surrey Road in Rivervale in September when the speed limit on the section between Great Eastern Highway and Cohn Street was reduced from 50km/h to 30km/h.

The “slowdown” trend comes as Main Roads WA and the City of Vincent confirmed its two-year trial of a 40km/h speed limit in an area between Newcastle and Vincent streets will begin on April 29.

The trial, which will be used as a major research project to determine the appetite for lower speed limits, will not impact on the major roads within the trial zone, including Charles, Fitzgerald, Walcott, Lord and William streets.