A session at NRSC 2025 will look at the issue of speed/speed management, and specifically what road safety professionals can do to convince road users of the importance of travelling at safe speeds.
National Road Safety Conference (NRSC) is Road Safety GB’s flagship event. For the past two years, it has attracted almost 400 attendees and has sold out.
NRSC 2025 is being held at Wyboston Lakes Resort, located adjacent to the A1 between Cambridge and Milton Keynes on 4-5 November. It is being hosted by Road Safety GB Eastern Region and is co-sponsored by National Highways, Jenoptik and Westcotec.
For NRSC 2025, more than 260 people have already registered to attend, and the conference committee received around 100 submissions from people wanting to speak at conference. In addition, 20 organisations have already signed up to exhibit at the event.
- Click here for prices and/or to register to attend.
- Click here for prices and/or to book to exhibit at the event
The ‘speed’ session comprises the following five presentations:
A new approach to Speed Management
Dr Suzy Charman, Executive Director, Road Safety Foundation
This presentation outlines a new way of setting speed limits based not on current operating speeds, but instead on the function of a road. It is proposed that road authorities should define a functional hierarchy of roads and idealised functional speeds and then set speed limits according to these idealised functional speeds. The role of the road safety engineer is then to try and ensure these are both credible and safe.
Mind the speed: evaluating 20mph zones and limits in London
Anastasia Trofimova, Assistant Road Safety Strategy Manager, Transport for London
This presentation explores the role of lower speed limits in achieving Vision Zero, London’s strategy to eliminate all road deaths and serious injuries by 2041.
Survivable Speeds
Brian Lawton, Road Safety Research and Policy Officer, Road Safety Foundation
The Road Safety Foundation has carried out a project to synthesise the available research that shows the speeds at which 10% of collisions of different types will be fatal or serious in outcome.
Affecting behaviour change with those who speed beyond the limits
Ruth Purdie OBE, Chief Executive Officer, UKROEd
The national speed awareness course (NSAC) is UKROEd’s flagship course. During 2024, NSAC underwent a full evaluation and subsequently a new course was developed and implemented across the UK by December 2024. Between 2024-2025 over 2.050,000 million attended an NDORS course, with 86% attending a speed awareness course. In feedback from participants, more than 93% state they will be a more considerate driver as a result of attending the course and 95% say they will be more considerate and aware of other road users.
A Collaborative Approach to Speed Enforcement in the West Midlands Combined Authority Region
Darren Divall, Regional Road Safety Manager, Transport for West Midlands
This presentation will highlight the processes undertaken to better understand the situation for Average Speed Enforcement (ASE) in the Combined Authority region. It will also outline the reasoning behind a new Joint Working Agreement for ASE and provide a summary of how the work of the Partnership has transformed, but not perfected, delivery of the scheme.
For more information about NRSC 2025 contact either Sally Bartrum (delegate registration) or Nick Rawlings (agenda, exhibition and sponsorship). Both are available on 01379 650112.
Just a quick (fairly obvious perhaps ) correction to Eric’s final comment..I’m not aware of any authority, local or national, or any legislation which actually tells drivers ‘at’ what speed they should be driving at, in any particular moment! An upper limit yes, but not any actual fixed speed which is what I think he is implying. The driver’s actual speed is obviously down wholly to the driver based on, as Eric says, response to hazards perceived by the drivers themselves, and not being ‘given information’ about them (?).
Hugh Jones, South Wirral
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Driving involves positioning a vehicle relative to the road layout and other road users, proceeding at an appropriate speed, in the appropriate gear, and monitoring and adjusting those using the steering wheel, pedals and other controls, in response to hazards. It also involves observing, and signalling intent to other road users. Good drivers develop the ability to do all of these instinctively and even poor drivers manage to do most of them fairly well most of the time.
Speed is an output from the driving process – a mostly intuitive response based on the driver’s experience, maturity, concentration, observation and judgement of the prevailing conditions. It is likely to be a weakness in those driver attributes that is the root cause of any incident.
Speed management, and speed cameras in particular, focuses a disproportionate amount of attention on that one instinctive aspect of driving – speed – reducing the time and attention available for the others. The consequence is that the driver’s assessment of conditions is distorted. When most collisions involve misjudgement, poor observation or a lack of concentration, it is inevitable that interventions such as speed enforcement will have a detrimental effect on drivers’ judgement and attention, increasing risk to all road users, and contributing to more accidents than they could ever prevent.
Road safety will improve, and road casualties will reduce (road deaths rose last year) when drivers are given information about hazards rather than being told at what speed they should be driving.
Eric Bridgstock, St Albans
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Referring to the first paragraph of the article, “…what road safety professionals can do to convince road users of the importance of travelling at safe speeds…” There are plenty of videos out there showing drivers crashing because they could not stop in time due to their speed and lack of awareness, in the seconds immediately beforehand. The road safety professionals message should prioritise defensive driving if they want to make a difference.
Hugh Jones, South Wirral
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