Police concerns ignored

Road safety campaigners have revealed that a key change to the government’s new speed limit rules was opposed by a majority of the police forces consulted. According to the Association of British Drivers (ABD), a 2-to-1 majority of the police forces that responded to the consultation were against the government’s decision to set speed limits based on average speeds.
Mark McArthur-Christie, ABD Policy Director, commented, “The organisations with arguably the best knowledge of how speed limits work in practice – the police – have voted decisively against a change to mean speeds for speed limit setting. It is another example of the arrogance of this government that it thinks it knows best and has decided to go ahead anyway.”
The group said that changing limits to average speeds will result in lower speeds being set and goes against research that the best speed limits are those set at the 85th percentile, which is the speed that only 15 per cent of drivers would exceed if there were no limit.
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ABD claims that the reason for the police objections is because the new rules will lead to lower speed limits and less compliance by drivers. This creates a greater need for enforcement.
In total, 18 police forces and organisations were consulted by the government with 11 opposed to the change and five in favour of it, according to ABD.