Speed Limit Review announced by Government

4 March 2011

Traffic Technology Today and other media report that, as part of an overall review of speed limits, the UK’s Transport Secretary, Philip Hammond, has indicated that the government could raise motorway speed limits to 129km/h (80mph) in order to shorten journey times and boost the economy, under a radical review of road safety. Hammond will demand that in future, safety alone cannot be the sole determining factor when changing limits and that a thorough cost-benefit analysis, which takes into account the economic impact, must also be carried out when deciding such matters.

RoadSafe believes that an increase in limits on motorways could well lead to more deaths – it has been calculated that these could be up to ten percent – based on 2009 statistics this could be an increase of thirteen.

Meanwhile in at their annual conference in Athens, ASECAP focused on how the motorways will keep working toward a continuous reduction of fatalities and severe injuries on their network until reaching their vision of zero accidents for all users, including the vulnerable ones.