im past the point of despair when it comes to this governments schemes, maybe a better idea would be to maintain the roads better. They dont seem to think through the impact of their notions, a reduction in the speed limit of roughly 20% has massive implications on the efficiency of the transport network, for reps this could mean something like one less call in a day, for logistics companies and bus companies it means a dramatic overhaul of their scheduling
it also opens up a grey area, if some a roads are still 60 how do we discern which are if we join after the signs
who decides the category a road falls into, my road home from work is an easy 60 road but a lot of people choose to treat it as a 40mph road as it has corners
with the average speed cameras can we do 90 on our favourite bits, then park up for a fag or read the paper before passing the next camera to keep the average down

it was Hitler that came up with the idea for a fast efficient transport system, that doesnt make it wrong, why after all the improvements in car safety, handling, braking and occupant/pedestrian protection are they proposing a backward step

im not a political person but i just wish they would take holiday to stop them doing anything else until they get voted out

I've just read this headline and I honestly thought it was 1st April. This is such a preposterous suggestion that is (a) going to cost a lot of money to implement (money that would be better spent on mandatory advanced driving courses) and (b) further restrict the freedom of those of us who enjoy our time behind the wheel.

Without the full benefit of the facts, would it be presumptious suggest that most of the deaths they quote for rural roads only involved 1 person and 1 car - if we wish to drive fast and only endanger ourselves, surely that is our perogative? I'm all for speed cameras in built-up areas (eg, near schools, etc) but a blanket limit of 50mph on roads that can accommodate such varying safe speeds from 25mph to 125mph?

Personally, I would prefer to see much more emphasis placed on speed controls in 30mph zones where the potential for endangerment of third parties is massively more. For example, I have lost count of the number of times I have followed a car being driven at 40mph in a comfortable NSL zone, only for same car to continue at 40mph once the road becomes a 30mph limit. Not only has this driver frustrated those of us who have been impatiently following but they have then blatantly ignored a more significant speed limit.

Everybody breaks the speed limit - it's where and when you do it that matters, and that should still be a choice that is not made for you by the government.

Sign the petition at http://tinyurl.com/bxvzg6

It's lucky this crowd won't be in office too much longer, I've had enough of their half-baked schemes based on dubious figures (CCTV, ID cards, internet censorship). It seems they will do anything to divert attention from the sinking economy, but this actually makes it worse - who's going to invest in a country with a dilapidated, slow transport network in future? Its not as if theres a reliable public transport network to fall back on. People will flock to the motorways now in order to get anywhere, making them more congested than ever. Of course this is the plan behind it all, as they will then announce blanket motorway tolls. Also, the clowns who drive at 45 down large, straight A-roads can now rest easy cruising at a mighty 35, frustrating the rest of us into dangerous overtaking maneuvers - how does this lower road deaths?

Didn't the Tories recently say they would raise motorway speed limits to 80mph where appropriate? Probably just an empty election promise, but a step in the right direction and some common sense for once!

petition signed and sent on to all.

i agree with most 30mph limits but cutting 60 to 50 just makes no sense.

in some areas specific limits could surely be rolled out without too much hassle.

This is fantastically stupid. Ridiculous to epic proportions and useless even in its most basic elements.

This government don't let cold hard facts get in the way of "close-the-stable-door" electioneering tactics - carelessness kills, not speed.

My colleague David Betts sat on a scrutiny panel last year, looking at reducing the numbers of killed and seriously injured on West Berkshire roads. They found that the vast majority of accidents are caused by carelessness and inattention.

Nationally, speed is the primary cause of only some 7% of accidents.

David tells me that where local highways authorities have already designated their more dangerous rural roads as 50 mph they would have to remove all the 50 signs and repeaters - at considerable expense - and reinstall the national speed limit signs. This is likely to have the perverse effect of increasing speeds.

As David says "This discredited government just knee-jerks at anything which it thinks might save them a few votes. I've got news for them. It is already much too late. If they really want to do something for rural communities, how about insisting that all villages have 30mph limits. There are still far too many which have no local limit at all."

I hope it is too late for them but I'm not certain that it is. Brown seems to be able to fill the electorate full of crap and they keep looking for seconds.

I'm furious at the mess they've made and the regularity of the ridiculous 'solutions' that they subject us to. I've already got real problems with a multitude a knee-jerk policies including their astonishing Scrappage nonsense to 'kick-start demand for new cars' and one of their latest ideas - their fiscal policy of printing more money to stave off the impending economic armageddon...

30 MPH is a key factor - the statistics on pedestrian fatality and serious injury speak volumes - excessive speed of even an extra 10MPH in areas of pedestrian activity makes a huge difference to who lives and who dies. Thankfully most of the villages in Northern Ireland have 30 MPH limits and traffic calming measures already in place and I'm a huge advocate of this but the problem is enforcement.

Here's just one example - I followed a stupid old biddy today that was causing a huge tail-back on a national speed limit section of road doing 40 MPH but when she entered a series of 30 MPH sections she maintained the same speed. This made her 50% more likely to kill a pedestrian if she hit them and increased her stopping distance by 30%.

I've signed this petition and have advised everyone on my email address book to do the same.

Petition signed and passed on to other's

Thanks Stuart!

My usual thoughts when it comes to anything the Government introduces with regards to motoring. This is just another means to criminalise the motorist, the more motorists they can catch for so-called speeding - the more money they make, safety does not come into it. By lowering the national limit to 50mph it will result in more fines and that is all they are concerned about - raising more revenue. I would go a stage further and suggest that a campaign be introduced to increase the limit on our motorways to 80mph instead of 70, this would speed up efficiency and get the country moving at a more effective pace. It is time the Government got off the backs of the mostly law-abiding motorists and started to concentrate on the real criminals, the thugs, robbers, drug addicts etc

I'm glad to see so many valid and excellent comments about this issue. This is a thorny subject - not least because it makes so little sense.

However, let's take a step back and to to gather a bit of perspective. A friend of mine (who actually whole-heartedly agrees with us on the subject) provided a 'Devil's Advocate' approach to the commentary.

"Readers of and commentators associated with a car magazine are always going to say NO to matters such as a reduction in any speed limit. By definition a car enthusiast is generally someone who likes cars, likes speed and fancies themselves as a great driver. It therefore follows that someone who is over-confident in their abilities as a driver will drive too fast to alow for conditions and other road users and is at increased chance of causing or being involved in a fatal accident."

So instead of simply answering "NO!" - what's solutions should we be providing?

Now it should be emphasised that these are purely invented thoughts of someone who perhaps feels strongly that speed limits should be heavily reduced and enforced across the board. Maybe they've lost a loved one through reckless driving...

I've spent a good part of today thinking about this and ended up researching the subject in depth. I think that this imaginary person, as a member of the public has every right to disagree with us.

This is my argument against an opposer:

I know that 7% of ALL fatalities are proven to be directly attributable to excessive speed. That does not mean that an element of the balance is not attributable to excessive speed it simply means that it hasn't been proven beyond reasonable doubt upon investigation by a specialist accident investigation unit of the traffic police in every road policing area of the UK.

However the great majority of the balance has been proven to be driver error without a proven element of excessive speed.

Mechanical failure accounts for less than 1% and is therefore deemed negligible for the purposes of this argument.

My take on this is that the government has identified a "flavour of the month", having been lobbied by pressure groups. They have attempted to turn it to their advantage by spinning a zero-tolerance-type approach to speeding. The general public does not realise that speeding in areas of non-pedestrian activity (NSL areas) does not account for a substantial percentage of accidents.

What DOES matter is anything over 30MPH in areas of pedestrian activity.

In short a pedestrian/vehicle collision at 10MPH in excess of a 30MPH limit is 60% more likely to KILL the pedestrian. In order to change all areas of pedestrian activity (villages and shopping areas to 30 MPH in extra-suburban locations) in the UK, the government would have to spend billions. To tell everyone that the NSL was
now 50 would cost quite a bit less.

However they are now backing up this policy with a "promise" that they will police these areas with average speed cameras. Massive expense if they actually do this but as we all know this is a revenue-generation scheme.

Now down to the matter of safe driving. You are quite right - tougher driving tests.

Scandanavian countries have much poorer driving conditions than most os the rest of the world. Conversely they have the least fatal accidents per head of capita than the rest of Europe. The reason? A stringent two-year student driving programme including skid control, tough exams and first aid. Interestingly they also turn out more international rally drivers per head of captita than anywhere on the planet.

And excellent ones at that.

They also have a side argument that it will help reduce emissions. Modern car engines are
more efficient at nearer 60 MPH that they are 50 - FACT.

It's all down to carelessness and lack of skill - this is the key point and has been proven bugbear is that the government KNOW this yet they are filling us full of s*** as usual. Interestingly my source material is available government statistics website.

That's my problem and that's why I'm so wound up.

However my "being wound up" is just not enough for Joe Opposer - he or she wants us to profer a solution.

More stringent driver training and properly enforced 30 MPH zones. Hell, in areas of heavy pedestrian activity reduce the speed limit to 15 MPH - I'd be happy with that, I never do much more than that driving in the city centre anyway.

Source: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/da ... accidents/

Another person that I was talking to offered this:

"They (the government) will do it anyway (reduce the NSL to 50MPH). The 60 limit isn't enforceable, what makes you think they will enforce the new one any more effectively. The nannies will simply assume all the petitioners are Clarksonite boy racers and ignore it. Buy a motorcycle - with no forward facing plate the average cameras don't register you. Also, the average cameras only recognise areg plate as vehicle. If no plate is recognised they treat you as part of the scenery and you aren't even recorded. Who cares - we don't live in a democracy, just a dictatorship of petty gaulieters. It's time to undermine the system, not to influence it."

There's a valid point in our favour but for God's sake don't buy a motorcycle and break the speed limit.

Blimey Bob, are you doing a thesis on this?! :lol:

IMO, it goes a bit like this:

People are told that speed kills. Therefore, they think that speed kills. Then the government suggests reducing the speed limit to save lives. Abiding public accepts it as a great idea as it will save lives.

Of course, we know it's not as simple as that, but the government likes short messages, sound bites and such. People like short messages and sound bites and such as they're simple to understand. This is why presenting a complex argument against reducing speed is difficult - it involves thinking too much.

What annoys me is that the government is capable of constructing genuinely useful policy, but I get the feeling they're just after votes on this one. Sad really...

I can understand how someone who has lost someone to a road accident/incident could support this. However, I just think it's scape-goating, even if it is from genuine concern.

No one wants to see deaths on the road, but I don't believe that decreasing the speed limit from 60 to 50 will make any perceivable difference. Instead, it will just annoy drivers trying to get to where they want to arrive at efficiently.

To re-enforce my point, I'd happily see the speed limit decreased to 20mph within housing estates. With parked cars and kids everywhere, 30mph is probably too fast. However, on empty country roads, I can't see 60mph being any more risky for lives than 50mph.

Seems like we're all singing from the same hymn sheet.

a) Tougher driving tests - unlikely happen as it will reduce the number of people contributing to the government's funds each year through the multitude of taxes they collect from road users;
b) Reduce speed limits in areas of identified significant pedestrian activity;
c) Leave the NSL at 60mph and don't waste huge amounts of our money trying to enforce this.

No arguments to all the above from me!

How about this one for an added option...drivers with less than 5 year's experience are only allowed 3rd party insurance. This might make them think twice about risking their own car through 'enthusiatic' driving. Discuss.

It's something that I've often thought about - ever since all the car dealers offered free comprehensive insurance to 17-year-olds when they bought a car. More often than not the car was binned within a short period of time and the driver just claimed off the insurance and got a new car. If young drivers had to fork out for any damage to their own vehicle they might not be so care free about their antics.