In this opinion piece, Nigel Albright outlines why blanket speed limit reductions on rural roads will fail and addresses the underlying the underlying causes of collisions.
I have lived in Devon and Somerset for most of my life and regularly drive on country roads. I have some fifty years’ experience in the advanced driving sector, having also been training officer for four different advanced driving groups, which are purely concerned with safe driving behaviour. I am regularly in touch with former police driving instructors, considered to be the safest drivers anywhere in the world.
The general feeling within the peer group is the idea of a 20mph limit on rural roads is a total insanity and this obsession with constantly reducing speed limits is the sort of mindset which points back to days when a man walked at 4 mph in front of a vehicle carrying a red flag. Yes, really.
The anchor point of the argument is that it reduces child fatalities and injuries. That is the emotive element, but it is well known that emotions can over-ride logic. There may be some statistics related to children in town and city conditions, but I can’t remember the last time I saw a child (unaccompanied and unsupervised) on a rural road. The argument there is totally illogical.
Another argument is that reducing speed protects another vulnerable element, cyclists, however there is much many of them can do in rural areas to cover their own safety in the first place. I am also a cyclist.
The naivety of the argument does not take account of a massive increase in fuel consumption or the dramatic loss of time efficiency for businesses either based and/or working in the rural environment which would greatly increase business overheads. Royal Mail and parcel delivery companies being just two examples of many.
There are a wide variety of country roads, some are very open with plenty of view and some single track with high hedges with little or no view. If everyone drove according to the conditions speed limits would not actually be necessary.
If you want a sound road safety strategy there needs to be an emphasis on drivers and riders, indeed all road users, taking responsibility for their own behaviour and safety and if they get into crashes that is a situation which generally they have either directly created or, through lack of situational awareness, got themselves into. When penalties are attributed to the mindset and behaviour, then people will take responsibility for their actions and general safety on the road will improve accordingly.
Lowering speed limits only reduces the amount of damage in a crash. They do not remove the root of the problem which is where the action obviously should be. That is in the competencies, skills and strategies for avoiding crashes happening in the first place. That strategy is feasible and well proven. It just needs the right people in the right positions of influence to get on with it on a national policy basis.
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