Rural limit rubbished

Road safety groups have slammed calls from Direct Line for a lower rural speed limit.

The Insurance firm has concluded that because 26 per cent of the drivers it surveyed admitted driving over the 60mph limit on rural roads, speeding must be the biggest causes of accidents.

The Association of British Drivers disagrees. Mark McArthur-Christie, the ABD’s Director of Policy commented, “It’s difficult to see the road safety logic behind Direct Line’s rather confused argument. They don’t offer any evidence that the fatal crashes are related to people breaking the 60mph limit -because there is none. And if breaking the 60 limit were the problem, where is the sense in reducing that limit to 40mph? This reads more like a PR-driven survey than serious road safety.”
Quality bikes for sale: Click here.

MCN and user bike reviews: Click here.

Browse over 2000 product reviews: Click here.
And Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign agrees: “A 40mph blanket rural speed limit is neither necessary nor desirable. Unnecessarily slow speed limits reduce respect for worthwhile speed limits, de-skill driving and can cause dangerous frustration and inattention.

“We have had ‘speed kills’ road safety policy for over a decade with widespread speed limit reductions and mushrooming speed cameras. Despite the self- congratulatory claims from Department for Transport and the camera partnerships, these policies are an abject failure with road deaths and road crash hospitalisations stubbornly failing to fall.

“The system is only supported by tortured statistics and oversimplified arguments. The ‘slower is safer brigade’ have yet to explain why it isn’t working after over a decade.”