Last night's episode of Top Gear reminded me of the Government's latest plans to restrict motorway driving.
At the time of the 2010 General Election, the Conservatives made out that they were the motorists' friend. Before the election they talked about raising the motorway speed limit to 80mph and after the election one of the first things they did was to remove funding for speed cameras.
But now all that has changed. Flying in the face of the fact that it is slow moving traffic that has the most carbon emissions, what are they proposing? On certain stretches of motorway: Reduce the speed limit to INCREASE carbon emissions, of course!!!
To enforce this they will install average speed cameras painted grey so they won't be visible until drivers are almost upon them, which will obviously cause drivers to brake and, given the high incidence of tail-gating, high speed shunts will occur.
And to make matters even worse, over the next few years all hard shoulders will be removed to make an extra lane!!! So what happens when a car breaks down? It'll have nowhere safe to go!
We also mustn't forget that the number of police is being reduced all the time, with the result that there are now very few patrol cars to catch the increasing numbers of bad drivers. So it is inevitable that accidents - and particularly fatalities will rise quite steeply as a result of these poorly thought out government policies. And with the lower speed limits carbon emissions will rise.
The EU has also had the idea of putting a controlling device into all cars so police - a control room somewhere - will be able to stop cars at will. Just how many deaths will that cause?
The Alliance of British Drivers makes a compelling case for raising the speed limit to 80mph:
The 70 mph speed limit on motorways has been in force since December 1965. It was introduced as an illogical reaction to a series of multiple accidents in poor weather conditions. That such accidents occurred and continue to occur is not surprising, since drivers have never been offered effective training in judging speed and distance within the unique visual environment of a motorway.
A 70 mph speed limit imposed in good conditions could not and has not prevented these accidents. The report on the 70 mph 'experiment' attempted to justify its continuation but provided no valid evidence that accidents had reduced.
In the last 35 years, substantial improvements have been made in vehicle and highway engineering. Drivers have become much more accustomed to motorway driving, even though training is still inadequate. In 1965, 70 mph represented more than 80% of the maximum speed of average cars. Now it represents only 60%. The result is that 56% of car drivers exceed the motorway speed limit.
The widespread lack of compliance with the 70 mph speed limit is an indication of its irrelevance to modern conditions and is detrimental to respect for speed limits in general. Other adverse effects of the outdated speed limit are the creation of traffic bunching, poor lane discipline and lack of driver concentration. It is also preventing the full economic benefits being achieved from the nation's investment in a high-standard motorway network.
This paper assesses the consequences of raising the motorway speed limit to 80 mph or removing it altogether. It looks at the likely effects on actual speeds, safety, the environment and the economy.
The measure of speed generally used when setting speed limits is the 85th percentile speed. This is the speed at or below which 85% of vehicles travel. On motorways in the UK, the 85th percentile speed for cars is approximately 85 mph, i.e. 15 mph above the current limit. An increase in the speed limit to 80 mph would be expected to lead to a rise in the 85th percentile speed of around 2.5 mph, to 87.5 mph. This would mean a greatly reduced percentage of drivers exceeding the speed limit and the majority would be below the Association of Chief Police Officers' guideline level for prosecution. Removal of the speed limit altogether would be expected to lead to an increase in the 85th percentile speed to no more than 95 mph (10 mph more than today), which is the current level on those autobahns in Germany that are unrestricted.
The impact on safety is the most obvious area of concern and there will be those who find it hard to accept that raising the speed limit would not have a detrimental effect. International comparisons, however, show no correlation between motorway speed limits and accident rates. Evidence from the United States indicates that overall accident rates and insurance claims fell when freeway speed limits were raised, contrary to the predictions of many. There is no reason to believe, therefore, that an increase in the motorway speed limit in the UK would result in a higher accident rate and it is possible that it could reduce. The most cautious estimate is that an increased motorway speed limit would be neutral in safety terms.
The impact of a raised motorway speed limit on the environment has been assessed in terms of the emissions of toxic pollutants, carbon dioxide and noise.
Most of the toxic emissions covered by the National Air Quality Strategy (NAQS) are within their target levels or are set to meet them, as emission controls improve. The increases arising from small changes in actual speeds would be insignificant. Levels of only two pollutants, nitrogen dioxide and particulates, are forecast to exceed their NAQS targets under any foreseeable circumstances. In the case of nitrogen dioxide, the target is likely to be exceeded only in the centres of the largest cities. There will not be a problem along sections of motorway where traffic is flowing freely enough to permit a higher speed limit to be exploited.
Transport contributes only a quarter of airborne particulates and most of that comes from the large diesel engines of buses and heavy goods vehicles, which would not be affected by a change in speed limit.
The ABD does not accept that global climate change is caused by human activity and emissions of carbon dioxide (CO
2) from the burning of fossil fuels. Nevertheless, even if the gas were accepted to be a 'pollutant', an increase in the motorway speed limit would have a negligible effect on its concentration in the atmosphere. It is calculated that removal of the motorway speed limit altogether would increase man-made emissions in the UK by only 0.4% and all CO
2 emissions by just 0.016%.
Higher speeds would have a small effect on the frequency of traffic noise, most of which is generated between a vehicle's tyres and the road surface. The high proportion of heavy goods vehicles on motorways contributes significantly to overall noise levels and will largely mask any change in the component from cars and other light vehicles. Any increases in noise will be much less than the reductions to be achieved from the Government's programme for resurfacing the motorway and trunk road network.
Increasing the motorway speed limit would result in significant economic benefits from time savings and these would greatly outweigh the additional costs of resources consumed, even assuming the high, pre-tax fuel prices which prevailed in 2000. It is estimated that an increase to 80 mph would lead to net savings of around £50 million per year. If the limit were removed altogether, the savings would increase to around £130 million per year. In addition, there would be a significant increase in tax revenue to the Treasury due to increased fuel consumption. This could be as much as £840 million per year if the speed limit were removed altogether.
The ABD recommends, therefore, that there should be an immediate increase in the motorway speed limit to 80 mph. After a suitable period of acclimatisation to a higher speed limit, possibly three years, consideration should be given to a further increase or removal of the limit altogether. Training and testing of drivers must be improved in motorway driving skills, particularly judgement of speed and distance in conditions of restricted visibility. The anomaly under which exceeding the speed limit on motorways is punished more severely than on other roads should be removed.
We do NOT want a nanny state, but rather a policy of educating drivers and giving them the freedom to make their own decisions. Where people are told what to do all the time they lose the ability to improve their skills and, in fact, lose them altogether, something that Conservative governments used to understand before Cameron moved sharply to the left. They even want to reduce the national speed limit on country roads from 60 to 40mph.
So we MUST NOT let this happen.
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