Memorandum by Transport 2000 (RTS 08)
THE NATURE AND EFFECTS OF ILLEGAL AND INAPPROPRIATE
ROAD TRAFFIC SPEED IN THE UK
INTRODUCTION
Transport 2000 is an environmental group which
campaigns for sustainable transport policies, including improvements
to alternatives to the car (walking, cycling and public transport)
and measures to restrain the growth of traffic. Our interest in
speed policy is twofold. First, we are concerned at the extent
to which high traffic speeds have led to an epidemic of deaths
and serious injuries on our roads, many times greater than the
number of deaths and injuries caused by other means of transport.
Second, we believe the dominance of speeding traffic deters people
from walking or cycling for short trips, and leads to loss of
independence for the most vulnerable in society, particularly
older people, disabled people and children, and increased car
dependency. This is a problem in both urban and rural areas.
We co-ordinate the Streets for People network
for more than 300 residents groups who are concerned about local
traffic problems. Streets for People provides advice and information
about a range of issues but one of the most frequently raised
concerns is speeding traffic. We also set up the Safe Streets
Coalition, which brought together national organisations representing
the interests of children, older people, disabled people, women
and road safety groups to argue for lower speeds, at the time
of the Government's road safety strategy and speed policy review.
We are founder members of the Slower Speeds Initiative. With the
Children's Play Council, we led the successful campaign for the
introduction of low-speed home zones in the UK. Finally, in 2000
we took legal action to challenge speed enforcement guidelines
issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers, which effectively
raised speed limits set by Parliament. Although our action was
successful in that it led ACPO to rewrite its guidelines, we believe
the situation remains unsatisfactory.
SPEED AND
ROAD SAFETY
There is now plenty of evidence that higher
speeds lead to increased risk of crashes, and more serious injuries
when a crash occurs. A report by TRL for DTLR concluded that for
every 1 mph reduction in average speed, crashes are reduced by
between 2 and 7 per cent, depending on the type of road.[14]
At higher vehicle speeds, the chances of surviving a crash decline
dramatically: a pedestrian hit by a car stands a 95 per cent chance
of surviving if the car is travelling at 20 mph, but this falls
to 55 per cent if the car is travelling at 30 mph, and is only
15 per cent at 40 mph. Even driving at a few miles per hour above
the 30 mph limit greatly increases a vehicle's stopping distance
and the likely severity of a crash. Where speeds have been cut
to 20 mph (for example as part of area-wide traffic calming schemes),
average casualty reductions are 60 per cent, and child pedestrian
casualty reductions are even greater at 70 per cent.[15]
we therefore believe there is a strong argument for maximum speeds
of 20 mph in built-up areas where there are large numbers of pedestrians
and cyclists, including vulnerable road users such as older people
and children. We believe such limits should be applied on busy
multi-functional main roads as well as on quiet residential roads,
and expand on this below.
SPEED AND
QUALITY OF
LIFE
There is also evidence that traffic speeds have
a negative effect on people's quality of life. For example, the
Joint Mobility Unit has reported that 60 per cent of older blind
people do not get out alone, partly because of fear of traffic.
A survey by MORI in Hertfordshire found that 79 per cent of people
regarded dangerous driving and speeding as a problem in their
neighbourhood.[16]
In Shropshire, a survey of parish councils found that 58 per cent
of parishes felt that speeding traffic was a problem most of the
time, and 87 per cent of parishes had sought action from the county
council or police. In half of all cases, no action had resulted.
Research in three areas of Leeds found that 84 per cent of parents
felt the roads were not safe for their children, with the main
single problem (cited by between 39 per cent and 60 per cent)
being traffic speeds. Parents fear of traffic led to children
being escorted to school, which in turn limited the opportunities
for mothers to enter paid employment.[17]
Drivers sometimes assume that it does not matter
how fast you drive so long as you do not crash. But this fails
to take into account the problems for other people even if no-one
is hurt: walking and cycling are less pleasant; noise levels are
much greater; it is harder for pedestrians (especially older or
disabled pedestrians) to cross the road; and cycling feels more
hazardous. It is also commonly believed that traffic speeds on
main roads do not matter as much as those on residential roads
because "people do not live on main roads". But in fact
many people do live, work and shop on main roads. Because they
are unpleasant places to be, people who can afford to do so move
away, and it is people on low incomes who are left to suffer the
danger, noise and intimidation caused by high volumes of speeding
traffic.
POLICIES TO
TACKLE THE
PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED
WITH SPEEDING
TRAFFIC
Enforcement
Seven out of ten drivers in urban areas break
the speed limit. Although average speed on congested urban roads
may be little more than 10 mph, peak speeds are often well over
the 30 mph limit. A key problem therefore is the inability of
the police to enforce existing limits. On urban main roads, we
would like to see much greater use of fixed and mobile speed cameras.
While we welcomed the introduction of the "netting off"
scheme to fund greater enforcement, we are concerned that the
current rules on the installation and use of speed cameras are
unnecessarily restrictive, and that the threshold speeds at which
cameras are activated are too high. Our specific concerns are
as follows:
— Government guidance says that local
authority/police safety camera partnerships may only install speed
cameras at sites where there is a proven casualty record. The
Home Office has said that if particular cameras do not contribute
to casualty reduction they must be moved to a more appropriate
location or removed altogether. We also understand that the Association
of Chief Police Officers' guidelines for fixed camera locations
require that there should have been five or more fatal or serious
collisions in the previous three years in order for a fixed speed
camera to be installed. In practice this means that communities
which are concerned about speeding traffic will not be able to
get a speed camera installed until there have been several deaths
or serious injuries. On roads where high speeds cause intimidation
and deter pedestrians and cyclists, no action may be possible.
— The requirement that all speed cameras
in areas covered by safety camera partnerships must be signed
and painted bright yellow seems to us akin to telling burglars
that they will only be arrested in areas where signs announce
the presence of police patrols. Elsewhere, motorists (or burglars)
will be free to break the law.
— We understand many police forces
currently set the threshold speed at which cameras are activated
some 10-15 mph above the actual speed limit. This arises partly
from a concern to catch the worst speeders, and a belief that
if the threshold were set at, or marginally above, the actual
limit, the police and legal system would be overwhelmed. However,
we believe that once speed cameras have been introduced the thresholds
should be progressively lowered over a period of, say, six months,
to the point where they are just one or two miles per hour above
the posted speed limit. We have seen no evidence that police forces
are adopting such an approach. Failure to do this, especially
in circumstances where motorists are aware that the threshold
are well above the posted speed limit, effectively means that
police forces are taking it upon themselves to raise the speed
limit set by Parliament.
ROAD DESIGN
We also believe the design of some urban main
roads encourages drivers to treat them as racetracks, even where
they pass through areas where people live and shop. This is a
particular problem on one-way roads. Transport for London recently
found that pedestrian casualty rates on the one-way main roads
are double the level on other main roads.[18]
One possible reason for this is the tendency for traffic speeds
to be higher on such roads: indeed many of them were purposely
designed in the 1960s to speed the flow of traffic. As well as
posing a road safety risk, such high-speed urban roads are intimidating
to pedestrians and cyclists, and damaging to the local economy
as small shopkeepers find it difficult to attract trade in such
a hostile environment. We would like to see highway authorities
reintroducing two-way flow on such roads, and designing them to
producer calmer, steadier traffic flow. We do not believe that
physical separation of pedestrians and traffic is likely to solve
this problem: pedestrian guard rails prevent people crossing the
road where they may wish to do so, forcing unnecessary detours,
and are in any case widely ignored.
SPEED LIMITS
IN URBAN
AREAS
At present the usual speed limit on urban main
roads is 30 mph, or in some cases 40 mph. We believe there is
a strong case for urban speed limits to be reduced to 20 mph wherever
main roads are also residential roads, local shopping streets,
or pass close to parks, playgrounds or other destinations to which
people may wish to walk or cycle. The reason for this is twofold:
both that speeds of 20 mph are much less likely to lead to death
or serious injury where there is a collision, and that the resulting
calmer, steadier traffic flow would create a more pleasant street
environment, encouraging people to walk and cycle.
The city of Graz in Austria introduced a 20
mph (30 kph) limit on all roads apart from a few "priority
roads" in 1992. During the first year after introduction
of the lower limits, serious injuries fell by 24 per cent and
pedestrian casualties fell by 17 per cent.[19]
Experience in other European cities has been similar. A recent
report on European best practice for the Commission for Integrated
Transport found that "there are currently no 20 mph zones
in Britain on the scale of those introduced in the [continental]
case study areas".[20]
It contrasts Hull, one of the most traffic-calmed UK cities with
20 mph zones covering about 20 per cent of the city, with Munich,
where 80 per cent of the city has speed limits of 20 mph; Stuttgart,
where 20 mph limits make up 85 per cent of the road network; and
Graz, where they make up 76 per cent.
We would like to see the UK learning from this
experience. We believe the Government should support a major programme
of 20 mph limits on all urban main roads in areas with high flows
of pedestrians and cyclists, and near schools and parks, and monitor
the effects of road casualties and use of the street.
On residential roads, we would like to see far
greater use of traffic-calmed 20 mph zones, and home zones with
still lower speeds. Traffic-calmed 20 mph zones are highly effective
at reducing casualties, and commonly pay for themselves, in terms
of casualties avoided, in under 12 months. However, research suggests
20 mph zones do not of themselves increase social interaction
in the street. In the Netherlands, Germany and other countries,
home zones have transformed the way residents use the space outside
their front doors, as a social space for playing, sitting or chatting
to neighbours. We believe widespread introduction of home zones
in the UK could improve quality of life, and help create more
cohesive communities in which children had more freedom and vulnerable
members of society were better cared for. Transport 2000 organised
a study tour of Dutch and German home zones in 1999, and one of
the comments we frequently heard from home zone residents during
the tour was that home zones were "good places for elderly
people, because their neighbours would look out for them".
The Dutch rule on traffic speeds in home zones is that they should
be no greater than a fast walking pace, which in practice is taken
to mean just under 10 mph. The first home zones now being introduced
in the UK seem likely to achieve similar design speeds: the Northmoor
Manchester home zone, which is the first of the Government's pilot
home zones to be completed, has average speeds of 9.8 mph. Such
speeds are achieved by a combination of traffic calming, staggered
parking to break up driver's sight lines and good design. However,
we are concerned that some local authorities may design home zones
with higher traffic speeds. We believe Government should only
allow use of the term "home zone" and the planned home
zone traffic sign where average post-design traffic speeds are
below 10 mph.
SPEED LIMITS
IN RURAL
AREAS
We support the Government's proposal in its
road safety strategy for a normal speed limit of 30 mph in all
villages, although we would go further and argue that close to
shops, schools and parks, speed limits of 20 mph would be more
appropriate. We also agree with the road safety strategy's conclusion
that on some rural single carriageway roads and country lanes,
vehicle speeds of 60 mph are too fast. We would like to see lower
limits which match the function of the road, and in particular
which recognise the need for pedestrians and cyclists to feel
safe.
SPEED LIMITS
ON MOTORWAYS
There have recently been suggestions in the
press that the Government may be considering raising the speed
limit on uncongested sections of motorway to 80 mph. We would
oppose such a move, both because we are concerned at its possible
safety implications and because higher speeds will result in increased
carbon dioxide emissions, contributing to climate change.
INTELLIGENT SPEED
ADAPTATION
We believe that technology, and in particular
the use of speed limiters, offers great potential for effective
speed management and could save many lives. Research on Intelligent
Speed Adaptation by Leeds Institute of Transport Studies suggests
that mandatory use of speed limiters could cut road deaths by
up to 59 per cent.[21]
We believe the Government should press for all vehicles sold in
Europe to be fitted with speed limiters, initially for voluntary
use. Once a sufficient proportion of the vehicle fleet is fitted
with limiters, we believe their use should be mandatory. We also
suggest that the Government could encourage the voluntary fitting
of speed limiters through reductions in vehicle excise duty.
EDUCATION
Some motoring groups argue that policies such
as those described above are unnecessarily restrictive, and that
society should instead be educating drivers to make better judgements
about what speed is safe under the particular road conditions.
While we recognise the importance of better education and awareness
raising, we are sceptical that education alone will have any discernible
effect on speed and road safety. We do, however, believe that
education about the effects of speeding could help increase the
public acceptability of tougher enforcement. In the State of Victoria,
Australia, public opinion was initially hostile to increased speed
enforcement, but this attitude changed to support once it became
apparent that the Victoria speed enforcement experiment was saving
many lives. Part of the reason for the shift in public attitudes
may have been the clear evidence of lives saved, but is also seems
likely that Victoria's hard-hitting advertising campaigns played
an important role.
Are the relevant bodies taking the right actions?
We believe the Government should continue to
take action to cut speeds, and have strongly supported the recent
roll-out of the "netting off" arrangements for wider
use of speed cameras, although as we explain above we have concerns
about the restrictions placed on their use. However, we have been
dismayed at the extent to which the Home Office appears to have
sought to delay or limit this policy, and at the public comments
by some senior police officers suggesting that greater use of
speed cameras is "anti-motorist". For example, the police
officer responsible for the Metropolitan Police's operational
traffic policy was quoted as saying: "We are not going to
have speed cameras sprouting up all over London. We have more
important things to do and we risk alienating the vast majority
of London's law-abiding motorists".[22]
We believe that the expression of views such as this by some police
forces is counter-productive to building public support for better
speed enforcement.
We are also concerned at the police's approach
of setting enforcement thresholds well in excess of the speed
limit. Guidelines from the Association of Chief Police Officers
suggest that motorists driving over the 30 mph speed limit should
not be issued with a fixed penalty notice unless they are driving
faster than 35 mph. In a 60 mph limit, the guidelines suggest
a fixed penalty should not be issued unless the motorist exceeds
68 mph. Following a legal challenge by Transport 2000 in 2000,
ACPO modified the guidance to say that individual police officers
should have discretion to issue a fixed penalty below these thresholds,
particularly in circumstances where very small exceedances of
the speed limit might be dangerous, such as near a school. However,
in practice we doubt this discretion to charge motorists below
the enforcement thresholds is much exercised. The effect is that
the police have modified upwards the speed limits set by Parliament,
from 30 mph to 35 mph; 40 mph to 46 mph, and so on. This is particularly
disturbing on roads with a 30 mph limit, where an increase in
vehicle speeds from 30 mph to 35 mph can make the difference between
life and death: a pedestrian hit at 30 mph is twice as likely
to survive as one hit at 35 mph.
As discussed above, the Government and local
authorities have so far failed to implement traffic calming and
20 mph speed limits to the extent seen elsewhere in Europe. We
believe this is partly due to a failure of imagination, and nervousness
at public reaction to 20 mph limits on main roads, but also because
insufficient funding has been made available. While a few local
authorities, such as Hull, have implemented extensive 20 mph zones,
others have made relatively little progress and in some cases
are overwhelmed by community demand for lower speed limits which
they have no hope of meeting. For example, Stoke on Trent City
Council estimated to us that they receive four or five new requests
for traffic calming every week (that is, about 260 per year).
A more rural authority, Northamptonshire County Council, estimated
they received 150 requests for traffic calming between 1993 and
1995. We understand they have since stopped recording requests.
With this level of community demand, the current scheme-by-scheme
response seems to us utterly inadequate, and we believe Government
and local authorities need to look at ways of scaling up the delivery
of 20 mph zones to something closer to the continental pattern.
Have motor manufacturers, the media and advertisers
shown an appropriate attitude to speed?
We have long been concerned at the extent to
which advertising promotes the thrill of fast driving, and the
motor industry's practice of designing and selling cars which
are capable of speeds greatly in excess of the speed limit. More
recently, we have been particularly dismayed by the negative influence
of certain parts of the media on road safety policy. The tabloid
press and some individual motoring correspondents have waged a
vigorous campaign for reduced speed enforcement on the grounds
that compliance with the law constitutes an unacceptable constraint
on motorists' freedom. Most recently, campaigning by some tabloid
newspapers led to Ministers' decision that all speed cameras should
be painted a highly visible yellow, and, even more worryingly,
that cameras should only be permitted in places where crashes
have already occurred. Tabloid press coverage has also created
a climate in which it is more difficult for the Government to
reduce speed limits, and in some cases has constrained the ability
of local authorities to introduce traffic calming. However, we
note that local media coverage is generally very supportive of
speed enforcement and traffic calming, and indeed local newspapers
often play an important part in campaigns for action to cut speeds
outside schools and in similar locations. We do not believe that
the pro-speed views expressed by tabloid newspapers are representative
of views in society as a whole, but we are concerned that their
repetition may make them widespread. We believe that the often
one-sided coverage of this issue is highly irresponsible, and
we do not believe Ministers should be swayed by it.
THE ROLE
OF SPEED
MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
We would like the Government to develop guidelines
that enabled local authorities to set appropriate speed limits
as part of speed management strategies.
The current approach of local authorities to
the setting of speed limits is unsatisfactory. The limit is determined
largely by the speed at which motorists are driving, so that,
for example, a wide straight road may have a limit of 50 mph even
where it passes a school if the local authority and police judge
that lower speed limits would to be complied with. Requests from
residents or lower limits are frequently met with the response
that a lower limit cannot be introduced because the current 85th
percentile speed is too high.
Such a rationale for setting speed limits fails
to take account of the needs of road users other than motorists.
Guidelines (for both urban and rural areas) should provide a framework
for local authorities to set limits taking full account of road
safety and quality of life. We note that some motoring groups
have argued that "unnecessarily" low speed limits bring
the law into disrepute and lead drivers to ignore otherwise reasonable
limits. But in fact we believe the problem of inappropriately
high speed limits is much more significant. These encourage drivers
to travel at speeds that are intimidating and dangerous to pedestrian
and cyclists. A framework for setting speed limits should ensure
the needs of pedestrians and cyclists are considered first. This
would mean that any road with shops, a school, people's homes,
or a park, or any other destination to which people might reasonably
wish to walk or cycle, had a "default" speed limit of
20 mph, with a higher limit only being introduced where it could
be clearly justified. On roads predominantly used by through traffic,
limits of between 30 mph and 50 mph might be appropriate, but
design guidelines should ensure adequate provision was still made
for cyclists and pedestrians.
Transport 2000
January 2002
14 Taylor, M, Lynam D, and Baruya, A. The effects
of drivers' speed on the frequency of road accidents, TRL report
421,2000. Back
15
Encouraging walking: advice to local authorities, DETR 2000. Back
16
The 10 year transport plan and social exclusion: a briefing from
the Safe Streets Coalition, 2000. Back
17
Rachael Dixey, Leeds Metropolitan University "Research from
Leeds shows the problem of speed" article for Slower Speeds
Initiative newsletter. Back
18
personal communication from Transport for London, based on surveys
of one-way and two-way roads. Back
19
General 30 kph speed limit in the city of Graz, Honig and Sammer,
undated. Back
20
Study of European best practice in the delivery of integrated
transport. Report on stage 3: transferability. Commission for
Integrated Transport 2001. Back
21
ISA-debunking some of the popular myths, Traffic Engineering
and Control February 2001. Back
22
Superintendent Paul Clulow, quoted in "Yard revolt on speed
cameras", Evening Standard, 20 August 2001. Back
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