Some of you may be aware of The official site of the Prime Minister’s Office. If you’re politically minded, there’s a range of e-petitions that you can make your views known on by putting your name to all manner of petitions, or indeed start your own.
Some time ago, there was talk of reducing the National Speed Limit to 50mph. This sounded like a not-so-good idea to me, our roads are quite slow enough most of the time thank you very much. It’s also another example of nimbyism in our culture today – “let’s not bother letting people drive safely on their own, we’ll instead put in numerous ways in which we can govern behaviour”.
Maybe it’s just me, but if a road isn’t safe to drive at 60 on, then I’m normally able to make that judgement for myself. Hence the fact that I put my name to that very petition – I would quite like to make expedient progress if I am able, thank you very much.
Naturally, the government’s response was to confirm they weren’t going to reduce the national speed limit, but to assess road speed reduction based on whether a lower limit would in fact reduce the number of casualties on any given road. Sound good? Well yes, in principle. I guess the thing that concerns me is though that it doesn’t necessarily work the other way. Does the government have evidence to suggest that increasing the speed limit on motorways to 75 or even 80mph would act to increase the number of road casualties?
Leave a Reply