Britain thinking of raising speed limit

Press, 8 March 1984, Page 6

Britain thinking of raising speed limit

NZPA staff correspondent London

A case for raising the speed limit to 80 miles an hour (128km/h)- on British motorways has been put by senior police officers. The Association of Chief Police Officers told the House of Commons transport select committee that speed limits were “in a mess” and many totally “unrealistic.”

“The proliferation of unnecessary and unenforceable speed limits is not only an unacceptable burden on Solice resources but it also rings other perfectly proper speed limits into disrepute/ the association said. “There is a strong case for a total reappraisal of all speed limits, to make them

more understandable and acceptable to the community at large, and therefore more likely to be obeyed and enforced. “There is also a case for raising the speed limit on motorways,” the committee said.

The two main motorists’ organisations — the Royal Automobile Club and the Automobile Association — seem likely to support the recommendation. A Ministry of Transport spokesman said that both were “pushing” for higher speed limits. He said that the Secretary of State for Transport, Mr Nicholas Ridley, would not make any recommendation until he had considered the results of a recent speed survey.

If the motorway limits were raised, restrictions for coaches were likely to be introduced because of the number of serious coach accidents, the spokesman said.

Britain has the lowest speed limit on motorways in Europe, of 70 miles an hour (112km/h), except for the Netherlands, which restricts speed to lOOkm/h. The British limit was introduced on trial in 1964. Before then there had been no limit after the first motorway in Britain was built in 1959. In 1960 a trial run of an over-all 40 miles an hour limit was tried in an attempt to save fuel during the first fuel crisis, but it was discarded.