Speed Limit on Rural Roads
It was revealed tonight, on local television news in East Anglia, that the regions rural roads are the most dangerous in the country, having the highest crash rate with the highest fatalities. A call has been made for the speed limit on rural roads to be drastically reduced in order to lower these casualty figures.
We do not believe that this will have the desired effect since policing of it would be almost impossible and it is highly unlikely rural communities will welcome additional roadside ‘furniture’ in the form of speed cameras. Therefore, the only use speed limits would have would be when apportioning blame, which is exactly what happens now since most of these crashes occur at speeds in excess of the 60mph limit.
In other words, the current speed limit fails to prevent drivers from driving at much higher speeds than this. Drivers need to take responsibility for their own actions, and recognise the potential dangers around - it is sheer folly to drive at speed on a single track road around a blind bend! But this is what happens. More than a decade of relying on speed cameras to do the work of traffic police has led people to the belief that the speed limit is the ultimate goal - if 60 is the limit, then 60 is safe! On many stretches of our rural roads it may well be safe, but on many others it is far too high, so drivers need to adjust their speed accordingly. If we were to try to fix a ’safe’ limit on all 6500 miles of rural roads in Norfolk alone, the countryside would be littered with speed limit signs. Do we really want that?
The answer to the problem has to lie in driver education. If we are to influence a lot of people, there needs to be an advertising campaign, such as those for driving at 30mph, to educate drivers about driving in the countryside. Perhaps help could be enlisted from horse-riding groups,
cycling clubs, farmers, ramblers, as well as the various motoring groups, to get the message across that the countryside is to be respected, when driving on its roads as well as walking its lanes. For the unsuspecting, unthinking driver, it’s a very dangerous place!
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