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Introduction
Too many people take a cavalier attitude to speed. Yet research has shown that speed is a major contributory factor in about one-third of all road accidents. This means that each year excessive and inappropriate speed helps to kill around 1,200 people and to injure over 100,000 more. This is far more than any other single contributor to casualties on our roads.
Background
Research has confirmed a strong link between vehicle speeds and the risk and severity of collisions. If a pedestrian is hit by a moving car, the likelihood of being killed rises dramatically with a small increase in impact speed. It has also been found that the risk of collisions increases significantly when some drivers go much faster than the majority of others on the same road.
In urban areas, pedestrians and cyclists are the majority of speed casualties, but the largest group overall is car passengers and drivers themselves, especially on rural roads.
It is in everyone's interests not to exceed the appropriate speed for the conditions.
Yet surveys show that almost all drivers and riders exceed speed limits at some time. Observation of vehicle speeds in Great Britain in 1998 showed that 69% of cars exceeded the 30mph limit and 29% exceeded the 40mph limit in free flowing traffic. Car drivers are not the only culprits. Offenders include a large proportion of all other vehicle drivers.
Speed limits are a maximum, not a target. Even speeds within the limits can be too fast and lead to crashes, especially when driving conditions are not perfect.
Drivers often do not take notice of what the limit is, understand the reasons for it, or respect it anyway. They will drive faster down a clear straight road even where limits are set to protect pedestrians and cyclists, especially children. Opinion polls show that causing death by drinking and driving is now regarded as a serious crime, but many people do not regard breaking the speed limit as a criminal act at all.
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Facts
Around 10 people are killed on Britain's road every day
By far the biggest single cause is driving too fast for the conditions.
About two thirds of all accidents in which people are killed or injured happen on roads where the speed limit is 30mph or less.
70% of people break the speed limit on these roads, though usually not by more than five or six miles an hour. That doesn't feel like much when you are inside the car, but for people outside it makes a huge difference.
Even in good conditions, the difference between 30mph and 35mph is an extra stopping distance of around six and a half metres, longer than two Minis.
Should a pedestrian or cyclist be hit at that extra speed, the force of the impact increases by over a third, making injuries far more serious and death more likely.
At 35mph you are twice as likely to kill someone as you are at 30mph. |