Government nixes speed limit hike
No chance of 80mph on motorways, says department
80mph would surely be safe here?
This follows PH's report on 10 May (see link below) that most people believe the motorway speed limit should be raised. As we promised in that story, we asked the newly-re-elected Secretary of State for his views on motorway speed limits.
This is the full correspondence:
As editor of a motoring Web site, I'd be keen to hear your views on motorway speed limits. If you take a look our story (link included in original email) you’ll see that it’s an issue that exercises most motorists.
Surveys show that most now believe that road safety would not be compromised by lifting the now 30+-year-old limit, which was designed for 1960s Ford Anglias with poor grip and braking capabilities, to at least 80mph. Motorways are after all Britain’s safest roads.
Raising the speed limit to accompany today’s increased pace of life and much improved safety technology in modern cars would go some way towards ameliorating the problem of getting around, universally acknowledged to be a major problem in the UK from a personal and economic/commercial perspective.
I look forward to hearing your views and to a constructive debate over road safety policy.
The response was:
Thank you for your email of 10 May addressed to Alistair Darling concerning the motorway speed limit. This has been passed to the Driver Safety Division for reply.
As you may be aware, motorways are some of our safest roads. There are several reasons why this is the case. Firstly, the motorway network is specifically designed to allow for higher speeds. Secondly vehicles travelling in opposite directions are separated by a physical barrier. In addition there are no junctions and vulnerable road users such as pedestrians are prohibited.
The Department has no desire to see the comparatively good motorway road safety record compromised by increasing the speed limit without full consideration of the potential benefits and dis-benefits of such a move. That said the Department keeps all speed limits, including that for motorways, under review to ensure they remain appropriate.
In the meantime, the Department believes it more important in road safety terms to increase compliance with the current motorway speed limit, particularly in those areas where we know excessive speed is a problem as opposed to increasing the speed limit.
I hope this is helpful.
What's clear is that there appears no chance of a review of limits resulting in upwards movement. That said, we plan to continue pressuring the Government to take a sensible real-world view of the issue.
To that end, PistonHeads has also written to Stephen Ladyman, the minister directly responsible, and received a personal reply saying that he'd be glad to talk to PistonHeads. We'll be bringing you a report of that conversation as soon as possible.
Why don't they - and without a view to a fine so no scameras - find out how fast people [i]safely[/i] travel down motorways and adjust the limit accordingly?
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