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.
Rod
Cherry picking from a Sennedd report – marking their own homework! Where is the independent report?
What I see every day is pedestrians taking less care, frustration and overtaking, and others just ignoring 20 signs. Any falls in 20mph areas are more likely due to the other interventions implemented at the same time as 20.
You need to find a collision or casualty (real or imaginary) that would have credibly not happened had the speed limit previously been reduced. Without that, there is no reason to believe that any reduction is due to 20mph.
Ultimately, the full picture will be clear to see, and road safety is the loser.
https://roadsafetygb.org.uk/news/drop-in-road-fatalities-in-2025-welcome-but-wider-casualty-figures-remain-deeply-concerning/
What a sickening waste of money.
Eric Bridgstock, St Albans
+1
Hi Eric
There is actually good evidence that the 20mph limits in Wales have worked well. This is what the Senedd Research report noted in 2026:
Key Findings of the Report
Fewer Collisions: Collisions on 20mph and 30mph roads in Wales fell by 22.5% between the second quarter of 2023 and the fourth quarter of 2024. In contrast, collisions on other Welsh roads dropped by just 0.2%.
Fewer Casualties: Total casualties on 20mph and 30mph roads decreased by 23.8% during the same timeframe.
Comparison to England and Scotland: Wales’s reduction in accidents and injuries outpaced both England (which saw a 4.7% fall in collisions on comparable roads) and Scotland (which recorded a 1.5% increase) over the same monitoring period.
You can read the report at https://research.senedd.wales/research-articles/what-impact-has-20mph-had-on-road-safety-in-wales/
The article from this website was from a year earlier. Since then the reduction in casualties after the 20mph implementation is very clear.
Your other report mentioned only covered the first 3 months of implementation. Whilst I continuously hear the mantra “we need 3 years of data before we know if its successful”, for you just 3 months is sufficient. Hmmm
We also know that :
Insurance damage-only claims reduced by 20% in Wales
There are no significant increases in journey times
20mph is at the core of the Government adopted Safe System Approach.
I appreciate that you do keep making the same arguments as you did over a decade ago. But we now have the data from Wales, Scotland, Highway authorities in England and research from across the rest of Europe that 20mph or 30mph should be the norm for urban/village roads with exceptions only where evidentially safe for vulnerable road users.
Rod King, Lymm
+2
Rod
As was clear from https://roadsafetygb.org.uk/news/wales-default-20mph-leads-to-fall-in-casualties/, your claim for the drop being due to 20mph is false. It is no better than the long-term [10-year] trend.
I also noted there…
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/deep-dive-good-and-bad-29329786
any drop in 20/30 has been offset by increases on other roads.
So no holistic success.
Eric Bridgstock, St Albans
0
Nigel
I have no problem with you and other road safety educators seeking to change the mindset of drivers. I applaud the efforts to do so. But I really don’t see why you have such a problem with speed limits that you want to challenge their effectiveness in order to promote your efforts.
Can you explain exactly what you meant when you said “Rod: You can get constapated [sic] by statistics.”
And you say that “Speed limits regulate behaviour. If you lower speeds you lower the effects of a crash”.
Could you not bring yourself to admit that lower speeds do reduce the likelihood of a crash? That would bring you into line with the huge body of evidence and data that shows that lowering speed limits and hence speeds does reduce crashes as well as the severity of crashes.
Rod King, Lymm
+1
You’ll have to remind me of those suggestions you mentioned in the past please, Nigel.
At the risk of being pedantic, lower speeds do not just lower the effects of a crash, fairly obviously they can prevent them happening in the first place!
Hugh Jones, South Wirral
+2
Hugh and Rod:
Hugh: The suggestions are clearly there and they have been in various previous ‘exchanges’ which we have had.
Rod: You can get constapated by statistics. There is no arguing that reducing speeds do have some benefits. As I have said previously the equation is very simple. Speed limits regulate behaviour. If you lower speeds you lower the effects of a crash, but as a generalisation that does not principally change the mindset which causes a crash. THAT is the key point.
Nigel ALBRIGHT, Taunton
+1
Hi Nigel
You seem to be making claims that are unfounded.
Lets look at your first :
“Speed limits do not stop crashes happening.”
So, to what do you attribute the 26% reduction in casualties on urban/village (20mph + 30mph) road after Set 17th 2023 in Wales. And also the 20% divergence in insurance damage only claims from the usual Welsh tracking on English claims. Both of these have been verified. Does it have anything to do with the change of national default limit for restricted roads from 30mph to 20mph or some other event?
Is 26% a significant enough change for it to register on your RS intervention success scale?
20’s Plenty does focus on 20mph limits for urban/village streets. That’s our specialisation. But we never see it as a panacea or silver bullet. It is however a pretty good foundation.
We also don’t knock other interventions. If anyone wants to focus on driver education, or traffic light sequencing or how School Crossing Patrols dress, then that’s fine by us. Do your thing, but don’t get obsessed with others doing their thing.
And as for 20mph on some narrow lanes, I see no plans for this to be a default for unrestricted roads and is only suggested to be applied where deemed evidentially appropriate.
Rod King, Lymm, Cheshire
+1
Nigel: I am sure we’re all agreed that ideally the mindset of the careless and reckless drivers needs to change to make the roads safer.. that’s not under debate…but you haven’t suggested a way of achieving this! Lower speeds DO make collisions less likely, but as the problem drivers can’t seem to achieve this for themselves, then laws and enforcement will have to prevail.
If you can find a way of radically changing peoples’ anti-social and careless behaviour on the road, then you can solve a lot of other society’s problems as well as it’s that same behavioural mindset that blights society.
Hugh Jones, South Wirral
+1
Rod. Speed limits do not stop crashes happening. That is the fundamental flaw with with the strategy and it creates a delusion of safety in real terms. A main reason is that generally they don’t change mindsets. They only generally and temporarily change behaviour. It is primarily mindset which determines behaviour and it is changing that which is a key to reducing crashes. We are also back to the fundamental point of the article, which I am afraid you are clearly missing, that is that when RS strategies start to place the responsibility for crashes on the head (sic!) of those involved THEN we will likely see a significant change in road crash statistics. It’s not that in the interim speed limits might have some value, but please don’t get over focused on them as the panacea of the solution. Please see: https://youtu.be/qkiheeBBRRk
Nigel Don ALBRIGHT
+1
There is a mindset with some drivers, whereby they interpret a speed limnit sign as saying “It’s now okay to increase your speed to ’30’ or ’40’ (or whatever it may happen to be)” Even to go as far a thinking to themselves “Okay that is the speed I must now drive at apparently..no no more and no less” which is obviously nonsense.
Whilst Rod has earlier perfectly explained the obvious link between speed and collisions, for those drivers who still cannot work it out for themselves, having a legal enforceable upper limit is currently the only way to bring about the necessary lower speeds…not ideal, but until, drivers master safe driving by themselves as Nigel (and I for that matter), would want, it will have to do.
Hugh Jones, South Wirral
--1
20mph limit areas have their place where drivers who are likely to try and comply can see the reason ( around schools / busy town areas. However without enforcement most drivers ignore them from my experience. These will be the same drivers who ignore speed limits habitually. I walk my dogs along the 20mph limit outside a large school which is on a section of straight urban road slightly uphill with a pedestrian puffin crossing outside the school and a kiss if vision and a bend ahead of that. I would say 80% of drivers exceed the limit and of that 20-30% excessively. I stare at some and point at the 20 roundels . I would say the vast majority of these drivers are in the age range of 25-to elderly. It is all about attitude to speed.
Average speed cameras do the job as there is then a definite consequence to that attitude.
I instruct in a small town where within 10 minutes on a lesson you can be on a rural road or the pupil lives on one. They all say the same thing ….’ Why is the NSL 60 , you just can’t drive at that speed along here’ . The NSL on rural roads does need reducing in my view. Since its inception ( when the majority of cars were much less powerful and there were less motorised vehicles on the road ) the intensity of traffic and size of some vehicles and power of them has increased. Just look at tractors, some are huge ( as are the trailers and machinery on the back of them and they can tow 25 tons at 40 mph .
More people use the roads for pleasure purposes ( I counted 40 cyclists on one rural road lesson on a Saturday morning. It stands to reason that 50/40 is more suitable now. I get my pupils to respect those roads ( by doing them enough to experience the type of hazards they will come across and not to ‘switch off’. I appreciate not all instructors in cities can do that. I’m ex police Advanced driver btw and a horse rider .
Andy, Sevenoaks
0
Who the heck is Chris? And are we talking about road traffic accidents (RTA)? If so, it might be worth remembering that excessive speed is but one factor in an RTA. I do agree with Philip that the best thing that never happened is what used to be known as “external to vehicle dynamic speed control”. This became ISA, which should have been mandated a decade ago, if only we could rely on the authorities to apply sensible speed limits. In my area, sadly, the latest travesty is a formerly beautiful rural road which has been plastered with 20mile/hr signs, despite it being barely possible to reach that speed in any case. There are now so many barely credible speed limits sprayed around that I, for one, can’t cope with them. Roll on, autonomous vehicles, Nigel. I can’t wait to see a stop to all this nonsense. If only the effort had been spent on rural roundabouts – something that’s guaranteed to save lives.
Andrew Fraser, STIRLING
0
I don’t think it a blinkered mindset Nigel. All that has been proposed with a Safe System Approach is that consideration should be given to survivability when setting national speed limits and excepting up where appropriate.
Actually lower speeds do stop some collisions happening. You know that. And lower speeds do result from lower speed limits being set. You surely know that as well, don’t you?
No-one is saying that appropriate speed limits negate the benefits from or need for education of road users.
Rod King, Lymm
0
The story continues with people focused on the 20 mph aspect in rural roads and the general seemingly blinkered mindset regarding constantly reducing speed limits. In so doing those are completely missing the point of the article that speed limits do not stop crashes happening, but other approaches are well proven they can do so.
Nigel Don ALBRIGHT, TAUNTON
0
Chris
I would like to take you up on a couple of points:
“Here in Wales we have a blanket 20mph limit where all 30mph and many 40mph limits previously were.”
The Welsh legislation only applied to “restricted roads”. The guidance to HAs advised them not to consider 20mph for roads which were not “restricted”. No 40mph road can be a “restricted road” by definition. As part of the TRO to set a 40mph limit it has to be de-restricted.
Equally, some roads which had a 30mph set by means of a TRO that were not classified as “restricted” did not automatically inherit a 20mph setting unless the HA made a specific TRO to class then as “restricted”.
“Not discussed with relevant road safety groups, just implemented on a whim from politicians. ”
The original call for 20mph came from a cross party group of Assembly Members including Conservative, Labour, Plaid Cymru and Lib-Dems. This was even before Mark Drakeford became First Minister. It was facilitated in the Wales Act 2017 which devolved the setting of national speed limits and was passed by 600 odd MPs in Westminster. Hardly a few and not much of a “whim” given the scrutiny of the Wales Act in both houses, as well contributions from Cardiff.
The Welsh Government set up the 20mph Task Force to fully evaluate the idea of setting a 20mph national default. This included invites to all HAs, road safety groups, emergency services and motoring groups. This spent a year evaluating how it could be implemented, and the outcomes. The 22 recommendations were accepted with cross Party support in Senedd in 2020 with the recommendation to proceed. So hardly a “whim”.
Regarding your last statement. Do you consider yourself to be a “keyboard warrior”?
Rod King, Lymm
0
Well Nigel, your title is quite specific “Speed limits alone won’t make our rural roads safer”.
Taken at its face value then presumably you are saying that increasing or lowering the speed limits on rural roads makes no difference at all to casualties. That is what “safer” means isn’t it.
I can understand that after spending many years teaching professional drivers with high cognitive skills to driver fast and even faster than the limit you feel that speed and all its implications can be mitigated by advance driver training, this does not mean that it removes the risk of speed.
To imply that providing such training to every driver would be better than setting a survivable default speed limit does seem rather implausible.
I do not see any “obsessive” depressing of speed limits, but moreover an understanding how the speed of vehicles and the maximum legal speed is an important pillar in the Safe System Approach. If that appals you the so be it.
Rod King, Lymm
0
It is always a disappointment when ‘professional’ trainers raise the old canard of the Red Flag man, which, in the public mind, was a universal and unnecessary rule applying to ‘ordinary motorists’ like themselves, setting the standard for all that is ‘wrong’ with our roads today.
The Act governed Steam Road Locomotives, which were likely to frighten livestock, and the Red Flag man (usually a boy) had to walk 60yards ahead to warn and assist with horses, etc. It was repealed in 1896, only a few months after the very first practicable car (imported) hit the road. The speed limits of 2mph in town and 10mph elsewhere were raised to 14mph. ‘Ordinary’ motorists did not yet exist, so were unaffected.
As to potentially reducing speed limits to 20mph, this will have a mixed effect: some will abide by it, while many others will as always do their own thing, which is likely to give rise to further collisions.
The biggest problem of all is the astonishing level of ignorance displayed by many road users, and not just in relation to speed and their ability to stop safely.
Having presented Speed Awareness Courses for some 25 years, I have never ceased to be astonished at the collective lack of knowledge demonstrated by attendees, not just of the Highway Code, but of their own vehicles and their, often imaginary, skill levels.
On any day on rural roads, especially those with varying limits (I was told once by a motorist that he ‘had better things to do than keep changing speed’) vehicles will be observed travelling at random speeds unrelated to the posted limits. Anyone unfortunate enough to keep to a low speed limit is invariably tailgated and ultimately overtaken.
Sadly, the cat is out of the bag in relation to speed observance, as it is with phone use, drug driving, signalling, tailgating, vehicle lights, and a whole range of other subjects.
Motorists are only too aware that they can get away with almost anything without fear of retribution, due to the ever-reduced Police presence on the roads.
Having provided training and assessment in a wide range of countries around the world, only in Britain do I generally find motorists asking me questions designed to enable them to skirt the rules.
Probably the best thing (that never happened) was external speed limiting by GPS.
Philip Hastings, Shaftesbury
+1
May I refresh the page, as it were. In my view some commentators have eschewed the principle theme behind the item which is reflected in the title. The possibility of 20 mph speed restrictions in the rural environment is not the real issue. The issue is this widely found obsessive belief that keeping depressing speed limits is one of the real answers to safety on the roads. This narrow focus is much like having tunnel vision to the extent that it almost automatically excludes understanding that to get drivers and riders to take ownership of their own safety and start to make them responsible to a greater or lesser degree if they get involved in a crash is ultimately the route which is going to have the greatest effect, at least until fully autonomous vehicles arrive.
Nigel ALBRIGHT, Taunton
0
Yes, Rod. The item was stimulated by the Active Travel England Rural Design Guide. As per my article there is this ongoing obsession to reduce speed limits here there and everywhere and that is now so imprinted in the public psyche that they end up believing it is a major contributor to road safety. In a context it obviously does contribute but generically they are a damage limitation exercise and, secondly, they generally only temporarily change behaviour. They do not change the underlying mindset which is the prime source of crashes . How can anyone disagree with the simple equation that reducing speed reduces impact force reduces resultant damage? It’s ‘semple’ as the meerkat said. Making a seemingly intellectual argument about it only confuses the issue. I am sorry but, to me that has a tone of arm-chair logic.
The important point which seems to be missed in some comments is that if you really want to improve safety on the roads that comes down to avoiding having crashes in the first place. There will never be zero crashes but a lot more can be done to significantly reduce them and the first line of attack (or approach!) is to get drivers and riders to take responsibility for their own behaviour, aka actions. The more that happens the less will be the need for speed limits. If people are involved in crashes generally they either caused it or, unwittingly got involved in it. Again there are skills, competencies and strategies for dealing with this. Problem is people won’t take up on them, get involved in crashes and then shout they were unavoidable when they could have been prevented.
Nigel ALBRIGHT, Taunton
--1
Nigel is not against 20mph zones where appropriate. Here in Wales we have a blanket 20mph limit where all 30mph and many 40mph limits previously were. Not discussed with relevant road safety groups, just implemented on a whim from politicians. The point Nigel is trying to get over is regardless of speed limits, if you have the wrong mindset towards vulnerability of not only yourself but other road users, which drivers who speed are the problem when it comes to collisions. Most of deaths, serious injuries and damage are caused by excessive speed for the environment that the vehicle is driven in. The DOT driving test is not fit for purpose. To drive around for 45 minutes in mostly built up areas doesn’t show a true reflection of the learner driver’s ability or lack of it. The sooner we have attitude & behaviour training built into learning to drive and for driver awareness courses I’m sure we’ll see less crashes. Before the keyboard warriors have a rant, I’m a retired Advanced Police Instructor.
Clive Jones, Bridgend
0
Having now read Rod’s response, his last six points are spot-on and are key to understanding why a vehicle’s speed is such an imnportant factor in avoiding (or not) a road collision and is particularly relevant on country lanes. Just wish more drivers were aware of this.
Hugh Jones, South Wirral
+7
As far as I know, there is no suggestion that 20mph limits should be put on rural roads. These limits are needed for villages and towns. Not only do they reduce the severity and likelihood of crashes, but they reduce the noise and stress of streams of vehicles rushing through the heart of communities.
Here in Curry Rivel, the traffic on the A378 that passes through the middle of the village is the thing that people complain about most.
Of course there are other ways of reducing the problems caused by traffic; it isn’t an either-or.
The writer’s comment: “I can’t remember the last time I saw a child … on a rural road” made me sad. Why does he think that is? When I was a child growing up in rural Somerset, we could play tennis on the lane outside the house. Nowadays, the same lane is a rat-run, with many cars passing at speed.
Matt Geen, Langport
+5
There is good sense in this article but where did the suggestion of a blanket 20mph limit come from? The research reported elsewhere on this website suggests that the public favour 30 mph on “single-lane rural roads that pass through villages and hamlets”.
Joshua Schwieso, Bridgwater, Somerset
+1
Nigel’s argument is very sound and I find it impossible to counter it, even if I wished to. Most of us are very well aware of the disproportionate risk presented by rural roads, yet despite that learners spend very little time on them, even if they live in the countryside. I live in a small town with easy access to rural areas, and the learners are brought into town to spend their lessons endlessly driving around the test routes. Their risk of being involved in a fatal crash when driving in town (if adhering to speed limits) are very low in a car that meets modern safety standards. Place them on a rural road where they might meet an oncoming vehicle travelling at speed, overtake in challenging circumstances, or assess the safe speed at which to negotiate either a bend, or narrow road, and their risk rises exponentially. The large agricultural vehicles I see on rural roads near me are remarkably short on crumple zones, leading me to believe that colliding with one would be a bad move.
How they are supposed to develop the correct mindset required to drive safely on rural roads when so little of their instruction takes place on them is beyond me. This brings me around to my long-held view that the vast majority of learners are taught simply to pass a test, and not taught how to drive safely on roads that may well lead to them crashing. They are very much left to their own devices after being successful at test, and we know how many of them come to grief within next to no time.
A knee-jerk blanket lowering of speed limits on rural roads, or indeed in built-up areas, will not in my opinion produce much, if anything, in the way of tangible benefits.
Mr David V Daw, Bury St Edmunds
+4
I believe some drivers of Royal Mail and other parcel delivery companies’ vehicles are actually exempt from complying with any motoring laws and rules of the road anyway, so any lowering of speed limits won’t affect them.
Apart from M-ways and dual c/ways perhaps, journey times aren’t generally affected by speed limits anyway.
Hugh Jones, South Wirral
--2
Hmm
It would be useful if you could say exactly who is calling for 20mph for most rural roads Nigel.
It may be that you are alluding to the Active Travel England Rural Design Guide where it does advocate 20mph where appropriate for “country lanes”, but to me this does not call for 20mph as any default.
And may I take exception to one of your final comments where you say :
“Lowering speed limits only reduces the amount of damage in a crash.”
This is patently untrue.
It is the speed of vehicles which determines the time and space for those involved in an incident to avoid a crash.
It is the speed of a vehicle which impacts the ability of the driver to judge the distance and speed of other vehicles.
It is the speed of a vehicle which impacts the field of vision of a driver.
It is the speed of a vehicle which impacts the handling, braking and control of a vehicle prior to a crash.
It is the speed of a vehicle which impacts the response of non-human road users such as horses.
Hence speed is a primary factor in the pre-crash dynamics as well as post-crash damage and survivability. It is not an “innocent by-stander”.
Rod King, Lymm
+6