Rural Speed Limits May Be Reduced

Rural Speed Limits May Be Reduced

A new Upper hand plan has accessible that speed limits on most single - carriageway roads in rural areas could be cut from 60mph to 50mph in an dry run to reduce the numeral of car accidents and deaths.
Jim Fitzpatrick, the road safety minister noted that figures suggested a road accident was most likely to eventuate on rural parts of the road network, upon most of which the governmental speed limit of 60mph applies.
Dangerous roads
Great Britain had one of the best road safety records in the world, but this has slipped in recent dotage. In 2007, able were 2, 946 deaths and 30, 000 serious personal injuries on the roads. 29 % of these collisions were due to suggested speeding. The Force is catching a consultation on the plan, which is likely to be strikingly opposed.
The herald of the AA, Edmund Rajah, will right Mr Fitzpatrick and Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon to talk about the matter, but pointed out that a swathe diminution of speed limits would not make roads safer, habituated that many accidents on rural roads involved only one car.
“It will not solve the problem – you have to look at the detail a teeny closer. Halfway every weekend we clock these solo car accidents. They ' re nobody to do with the speed limit. They ' re to do with inexperienced drivers driving recklessly. For a prime of reckless drivers, the rest are punished. A overlay contraction could lead to some roads having a lower speed limit than necessary. That could lead to dangerous overtaking. The best speed limits are those motorists ovation and presume, ” he verbal.
Local authorities have the power to impose secondary speed limits, he bounteous. This is a thought that is also supported by The Clique for British Drivers, who get together the stress should be shifted from speeding to driving habits.
They have suggested that police patrols should be released to toil over dangerous or bad drivers, whether they are speeding or not – moderately than spending their term response after speeding vehicles that often represent no strain.
The ABD wider that the Government’s research suggests that oftentimes when speed is blamed for a car accident, it is really just bad driving. For name, accidents caused by ‘failure to evaluator other person’s corridor or speed’ are noted in the report.
The structuring however, verbal this theory was funny: “It is utter blather to class this as a ‘speed related accident’. The situation here is one person oversight to appraiser the path or speed of a second vehicle – which is not to say that the second vehicle is travelling at an pained or illegal speed. It is considerably a failure to watch correctly on the moiety of the first jump. ”
A Department for Transport spokeswoman vocal: “This is being looked at, but no decisions have been taken. ”
Shadow Transport Secretary Theresa Villiers spoken: “Rather than across the board reductions in the speed limit that hit the most responsible drivers, we swallow a project to make our roads safer needs to target problem drivers. ”