How did the UK get the 30mph limit?

Back in 1934, just prior to the introduction of the 30mph speed limit, there were only around one-tenth of the cars on the road today, but four times as many associated deaths.

There had previously been a blanket 20mph speed limit, set in the 1903 Motor Car Act, but it was repealed for light vehicles in 1930. The spate of deaths caused a change of heart in government in 1934 and 1935, with 30mph brought in for built-up areas.

You might think that 30mph was chosen using scientific evidence but you would be wrong....

"It was pulled out of a hat," says Rod King, founder of the 20's Plenty for Us campaign, which believes that the 30mph limit today is no longer appropriate, credible or acceptable.

"The 30mph limit is compromised beyond belief," says King. Cities including London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Bath, Cambridge, Liverpool, Oxford, Brighton, Newcastle and Edinburgh, have introduced 20mph limits on some roads in their jurisdiction. The Lib Dems have even considered 10mph limits in some areas.

While motoring organisations the RAC and the AA have expressed support for 20mph limits outside schools, they oppose a blanket change from 30 to 20.

Today there are three typical speed limits across the UK:

• a 30mph limit on roads with street lighting (which is taken to indicate a built-up area)
• a 60mph national speed limit on single carriageways
• and a 70mph top speed on dual carriageways and motorways

The limits are meant to keep everybody safe. The Department for Transport (DfT) says that for every 1mph the average speed of vehicles reduces on roads, there are 6% fewer accidents.
Speed limits should be "evidence-led and self-explaining", the DfT explains, and "should be seen by drivers as the maximum speed rather than as a target speed at which to drive irrespective of conditions". Road safety in the UK is relatively good, with one death on the roads for every 20,000 cars.

£15bn plan to speed up Britain's busiest A-roads including banning slow-moving vehicles on up to 18 routes

Motorists will get new ‘mini-motorways’ as part of a £15billion overhaul of the nation’s highways.

Busy A-roads will be revamped – with roundabouts and traffic lights stripped out – to cut delays and transform them into ‘mile-a-minute expressways’.

Details, included in a strategy by the Highways Agency presented to Parliament, also include new slip roads to make the roads flow and banning slow moving vehicles such as tractors and bicycles.

There are up to 18 A-roads that are likely to be transformed in the first tranche with seven more to follow. The strategy document says: ‘Our ambition for the next 25 years is to revolutionise our roads.

’Our busiest A-Roads will become expressways, providing improved standards of performance, with technology to manage traffic and mile-a-minute speeds.

‘Users of motorways know they can expect a broadly consistent standard from the whole of their road, and that this ensures they have a safe, free-moving journey.’

But it notes: ‘The same is not true of A-roads, where piecemeal upgrades have often resulted in inconsistency and substandard stretches of the road that are often less safe and a regular cause of congestion.

‘By 2040, we want to have transformed the most important of these routes into expressways: A-roads that can be relied upon to be as well-designed as motorways and which are able to offer the same standard of journey to users.’

These will be ‘largely or entirely dual carriageway roads’ that are ‘safe, well-built and resilient to delay.

They will be built so that ‘traffic on the main road can pass over or under roundabouts without stopping’.

The strategy document seen by the Daily Mail says: ‘An expressway will be able to provide a high-quality journey to its users.

‘Most expressways should be able to offer mile a minute journeys throughout the day, particularly outside of urban areas.’

The Highways Agency has presented the Road Investment Strategy to Parliament ahead of it being transformed on April 1 into the new private sector roads operator called Highways England.

WHERE THE CHANGES WILL HAPPEN

The first group of nine expressways is expected to include the A303 and A30 from the junction with the M3 in Hampshire to Exeter.

The A1 north of Newcastle, which motorists have long campaigned to be made into a motorway, is another, as is the A14 from Huntingdon to Cambridgeshire.

These will also link with up to 400 miles of ‘smart motorways’ where hard shoulders are used at peak times to reduce jams.

A dual carriageway is planned for ‘the entire A303 from the M3 to the M5 at Taunton’, as well as building a tunnel as the road passes Stonehenge.

There will also be a new bypass on the A27 at Arundel together with improvements at Worthing and Lancing in West Sussex.

Also featuring will be construction of the Mottram Moor link road together with overtaking and safety improvements and duelling the A61 to improve Trans-Pennine connectivity.

A range of duelling and junction improvement schemes on the A47/A12 corridor supporting growth at Peterborough, Norwich, Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft is also planned.

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