ABD - Speed Limits

The Association of British Drivers
Speed Limits

The ABD believes that drivers have a responsibility to travel at a speed that is safe for the prevailing conditions at all times. The misuse of speed, resulting from inexperience or poor hazard perception, is a contributory factor in many accidents. Speed limits, when used correctly, help drivers to recognise changes in the road environment and adjust their speed accordingly.

“An arbitrary limit allows sloppy policing. Officers don't have to determine if there has been dangerous driving, as they just ticket everyone.”

Paul Taggart
Hawke's Bay Today
2006-01-12

In recent years, however, the overuse of speed limits and reductions in existing limits, unsupported by objective analysis, has undermined the credibility and potential benefits of all speed limits. Moreover, speed limit reductions are being used as a panacea for accident prevention instead of (more expensive) engineering solutions. Because exceeding a speed limit is an absolute offence and speed is easy to measure, speed limit enforcement has assumed an importance in road safety policy that is not warranted by objective studies into the effectiveness of speed limits.

It is easy to see why government, both national and local, finds it attractive to give speed limits and their enforcement such a high priority: it gives the impression of taking road safety seriously, while costing very little. Indeed, the introduction of camera partnerships and the cost-recovery system led to funding being released for use elsewhere in the budgets of local authorities and police forces. Although the partnerships are no longer allowed to keep the income from cameras directly, they make exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims for the effectiveness of cameras in order to obtain grants from the government to maintain their empires and continue their enforcement activities.

In order to maintain public support for current speed limit policies, the government and local councils must continue to assert that breaking speed limits (as opposed to travelling too fast for the prevailing conditions) is a major cause of road accidents. The links on this page give access to studies and analyses that take a closer look at the claims made. As a first step, the first link below sets out the ABD's views on the correct use, setting and enforcement of speed limits.

Speed Limits: their correct use, setting, and enforcement
Discusses the long-established 85th percentile concept for setting speed limits.
Speed Limits, How they are set and your Right to Object 2006-09-17
An ABD Action Pack.
Includes a copy of the DoT's Appendix C to Circular Roads 1/2006
Speed Limit Signing Requirements 2003-04-02
Detailed information on the legal requirements for speed limit signs, including street lighting issues.
Motorway speed limit 2005-11-06
The ABD's Submission for the raising of the motorway speed limit
Speed Limit Notices
Pending speed limit notices from around the country.

Does a 1mph reduction in speed really reduce accidents by 5%?
A comprehensive analysis of this patently absurd claim.

In 1995 most US states raised their speed limits from 55mph to 65, 70 or even 75 mph. (The 55 limit had been brought in by Nixon as a fuel conservation measure in c.1974 after Middle East hostilities).
Two years later, the national highway fatality rate reached an all-time record low of 1.64 per 100 million VMT (vehicle miles travelled).

Intelligent Speed Adaption
The government's insane plan to take speed control away from drivers.
Intelligent Speed Adaption — Letter 2009-02-24
Letter exposing the false claims ISA advocates make about casualty reduction.
Know Your Speed Limits 2006-03-19
Some drivers are confused about the difference between single and dual carriageways.

One Third = 7%
The government's claim that 'one third of accidents are caused by speed' is a blatant lie.

"Exceeding the speed limit related to just 60 collisions per year out of a total of 1,900 collisions in the Durham area — that’s about 3%."

Paul Garvin
Chief Constable of Durham Constabulary
Sunday Times 2003-11-23

TRL511
Our analysis of a flawed government report used to justify reduced speed limits.
Speed Surveys
What are those mystery padlocked boxes that appear beside roads?
Suffolk Accident Trends
An analysis of accident trends in Suffolk before and after the introduction of 450 new 30mph limits.

Response to Public Consultation on Updating Circular Roads 1/93
Our response to the DfT's irrational plans to use mean speeds as the basis for setting speed limits.

Majority continue to regard many speed limits as too low.
On Motorways, 57% of cars exceed the 70mph limit, 20% exceed 80mph.
On 30mph roads, 58% of cars exceeed the 30mph limit, 25% exceed 35mph.
On single carraigeway roads, 70% of HGVs exceed the 40mph HGV limit.

Department for Transport figures for 2003

"The normally careful and competent actions of a reasonable individual should be considered legal."

'Establishing Speed Limits - A Case of Majority Rule', Arizona Department of Transportation, 1999

55mph speed limit video
A team of students from Georgia State University in the USA made this video to demonstrate the stupidity of unreasonably low speed limits.
The Question of Speed
Former police motorcycle instructor Mike Waite gives his view on speed limits.
Transport 2000's Motoring ‘Myths’
Our response to Transport 2000's ‘Activists Briefing’ about speed and road safety.
The Truth About Speed
Speed does not kill; it is only the incorrect and irresponsible misuse of speed which can kill.
ABD's response to 20mph speed limit consultation April 1999
20 mph limits scrapped in Weston-Super-Mare
Local campaigners sent this letter to the ABD after successfully getting some 20 mph limits scrapped.
The ABD's response to the Government's Speed Review consultation October 1999
Correspondence with Suffolk County Council

"speed limits should be made very low and rigidly enforced to take all the glamour out of motoring"
Friends of the Earth, 1995

Archive Documents

The original content of these pages should be read in the context of later events.

Unlawful 30MPH speed limits
Action to take if prosecuted in an illegal 30MPH speed limit
Speed Limits, How they are set and your Right to Object
An ABD Action Pack to print and use.
Includes a copy of DoT Circular — Roads 1/80 — Annex E — Effect of Altering Speed Limits

Speed Doesn't Kill
Stephen Moore of the National Review reports on how raising US speed lmits has not led to the increase in accidents that was foretold by the doom-mongers.

3D Animated Flags courtesy of 3DFlags.com