Rural Speed Limits May Be Reduced

Rural Speed Limits May Be Reduced

A new Jurisdiction plan has made passable that speed limits on most single - carriageway roads in rural areas could be cut from 60mph to 50mph in an crack to reduce the cipher of car accidents and deaths.
Jim Fitzpatrick, the road safety minister noted that figures suggested a road accident was most likely to happen on rural parts of the road network, upon most of which the federal 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 caducity. In 2007, competent were 2, 946 deaths and 30, 000 serious personal injuries on the roads. 29 % of these collisions were due to suggested speeding. The Supremacy is booty a consultation on the plan, which is likely to be incalculably opposed.
The superintendent of the AA, Edmund Potentate, will happy Mr Fitzpatrick and Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon to consider the matter, but pointed out that a shroud diminution of speed limits would not make roads safer, given that many accidents on rural roads involved only one car.
“It will not solve the problem – you have to look at the detail a inconsiderable closer. Nearly every weekend we peep these solo car accidents. They ' re not anything to do with the speed limit. They ' re to do with inexperienced drivers driving recklessly. For a adolescence of reckless drivers, the rest are punished. A envelop lessening 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 dignity and understand, ” he verbal.
Local authorities have the power to impose inferior speed limits, he increased. This is a thought that is also supported by The Troop for British Drivers, who weigh the weight should be shifted from speeding to driving habits.
They have suggested that police patrols should be released to enterprise over dangerous or bad drivers, whether they are speeding or not – moderately than spending their trick action after speeding vehicles that repeatedly represent no vexation.
The ABD farther that the Government’s research suggests that often when speed is blamed for a car accident, it is really just bad driving. For present, accidents caused by ‘failure to assessor other person’s corridor or speed’ are noted in the report.
The institution however, spoken this theory was silly: “It is utter drivel to class this as a ‘speed related accident’. The situation here is one person failure to sheriff the path or speed of a second vehicle – which is not to say that the second vehicle is travelling at an cursed or illegal speed. It is all told a failure to catch correctly on the branch of the first binge. ”
A Department for Transport spokeswoman vocal: “This is being looked at, but no decisions have been taken. ”
Shadow Transport Secretary Theresa Villiers verbal: “Rather than across the board reductions in the speed limit that hit the most responsible drivers, we postulate a policy to make our roads safer needs to target problem drivers. ”