Publications

This is an archive of SSI briefings, consultation responses and campaigning resources which still have relevance. They are organised under the following headings:

• Appropriate speed limits
• Speed management
• Securing compliance
  • Enforcement
  • Penalties & Sentencing
  • Vehicle design

APPROPRIATE SPEED LIMITS

'Killer Roads' or Killer Speed Limits? (2007) The Government has abundant evidence that the national speed limit is too high. There is good evidence to suggest that the gap between the speed limit and actual speeds could be encouraging drivers to take risks which lead to death and serious injury. The 60mph national speed limit gives the wrong message to drivers about appropriate speeds on the majority of our single carriageway network. The review of speed limits which local highway authorities are now undertaking provides an opportunity to introduce a new system of speed limits which would give better information to drivers about appropriate speed choice. At the very least the current campaign should be revised to tell drivers what research has shown about rural road quality, speed choice and crashes.

Getting the Genie Back in the Bottle (2006) Joint research undertaken by the Slower Speeds Initiative and the UK Energy Research Centre shows that a lower top speed limit would be the most ‘significant, certain, immediate, equitable and cost-effective’ way to reduce carbon emissions from road transport.

Enforcing the 70mph limit would reduce emissions by nearly 1 million tonnes of carbon (MtC) a year. A new 60mph limit, properly enforced, would reduce annual emissions by an average 1.88MtC, equivalent to between 15% and 30% of those expected by 2010 from the transport sector according to the UK Climate Change Programme (UKCCP). Unlike the other transport measures in the UKCCP, lower speed limits could be introduced almost immediately and have the advantage of being certain and requiring no technological innovation.

SSI response to the Government consultation on new guidance for setting speed limits (2005) Practically all significant impacts of road traffic, e.g., various cost components and safety, depend on driving speeds. Speed limits should be primary indicators of how the road network is to be used and the desired pattern of impacts of that use. Speed management is highly relevant to the wider policy spectrum of sustainable development and land use, public health, social inclusion, community safety and improving the public realm.

Speed management must ensure equitable access to the road network. Explicit guidance and information will help to reduce controversy around speed limits and their enforcement. Speed management strategies will then be able to play a full role in reducing the impacts of the transport system and indicate the direction that should be taken by vehicle design.

Road Traffic Speed (2002) SSI Memorandum for the Environment, Transport and the Regions Select Committee: People who contact the Initiative for information and advice cannot understand why serious road casualties must occur before their local authorities and local police forces will intervene to control traffic speeds (and in many cases, not even after serious crashes have occurred). We cannot understand it either. We, like them, would like to see a complete change in the basis for speed control. The emphasis must be on reducing danger and preventing casualties, rather than literally waiting for them to happen. Awareness of the wider impacts of traffic speeds on quality of life would place speed control at the heart of all initiatives, national and local, to restore "liveability" to our streets. (ETR Committee full report)

Speed Assessment Framework, Supplementary Memorandum to Road Traffic Speed Inquiry (2002): "Driving speeds significantly affect practically all key attributes of road transport. Therefore, in pursuit of a more efficient, safe and environmentally acceptable road transport system, we must be able to assess and predict the various effects of changes in driving speeds."

SPEED KILLS (2000) (164kb pdf): Clarion call for government action on speed. 'SPEED KILLS: individuals and neighbourhoods, freedom of movement for millions, freedom of choice of transport, respect for the law. The Government wants to run away from the problem of speed. Most of us won't be able to. It's time for the Government to choose between communities and cars.'

SPEED MANAGEMENT

Rural Speed Management - Looking Ahead (2004) (376kb pdf) Policies to manage speed have the potential to curb the growth in rural traffic, improve the road environment for short journeys by foot, bicycle and horse, and direct traffic to appropriate routes. If and when road user charging is introduced for urban networks and fast roads, the need for speed management to constrain rural traffic growth and impacts will become even more pressing.

While speed management strategies are needed to protect the countryside, their implementation poses its own special threats to countryside character. Conventional means of controlling traffic, through signing and traffic calming, are generally highly conspicuous and thus automatically out of place. Even worse, rural communities are faced with the choice of traffic intimidation or destruction of treasured local features. This feeds the vicious spiral of rural traffic growth as car use becomes the only protection against the dangers arising from car use.

This briefing addresses the role of rural speed management, new tools for speed policy and practice, the speed crash relationship, a new basis for setting rural speed limits, a framework for determining appropriate speeds, and various approaches to reducing rural traffic speed

Cutting Speed in the Countryside (2003) (276kb pdf) Speed management measures that work well in urban areas often don't work in a rural setting. Fewer vehicles spread over a wide area make traditional enforcement by traffic police difficult. On many roads, the majority of vehicles may be driven within the legal limit — it’s just that limits have historically been set too high for the type of road. Where efforts are made to reduce speeds, the obvious methods rely on signs, lighting, road marking and humps — all of which can be unwelcome and look out of place. However, with some innovative thinking and community action, the challenge of rural speed management can be met. This briefing is a guide to how it can be done.

SECURING COMPLIANCE

Enforcement

How cameras can reduce speeding (2005)(155kb pdf): An information pack produced by RoadPeace and the SSI to rebut anti-speed-camera stories in the media. How cameras can reduce speeding - Summary. (html page)

Are there speed cameras on Britain's most high risk roads? (2004)(61kb pdf): One frequently recycled speed camera myth is the claim that there are few speed cameras sited on Britain’s 'most dangerous roads'. The supposed absence of cameras has been treated as evidence that most speed cameras are either badly sited or that their true purpose must be to raise revenue. The survey found that not only was this not the case, but that the criteria for siting cameras were even tougher than those used by EuroRAP to identify roads as the most high risk.

Traffic Law and Its Enforcement, SSI Memorandum to the Transport Select Committee (2003): We discuss four areas where changes in the law are needed: lower and properly enforced speed limits, road danger reduction, driver and employer responsibility and vehicle construction and use regulations.

Speed Cameras: 10 Criticisms and Why They Are Flawed (2003)(76kb pdf): A joint briefing by the Slower Speeds Initiative and the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety examining some of the most popular misconceptions about the dangers of speed and the effectiveness of speed cameras.

Penalties & Sentencing

Prosecuting Bad Driving: The Need for Evidence-based Policy and Practice (SSI response to the Crown Prosecution Service consultation) (2007)(1.7Mb pdf): Speed is the most common factor in driving that causes death and serious injury. But current practice in setting and enforcing speed limits and prosecuting speeding and bad driving offences is grossly insensitive to the dangers of speed. When considering charges, the established evidence on the dangers of speed and speeding should be used to evaluate the risks imposed by a driver’s behaviour, including the serious risk of causing death.

In the absence of crashes involving death and serious injury only speeding so excessive or persistent as to certainly constitute dangerous driving is likely to come before the courts. The Crown Prosecution Service should carry out its duty to ensure that the evidence obtained from the investigation of injury collisions supports fair trials.

The standard of driving should be evaluated with reference to the dangers of speed and the contributory factors system. Positive and objective standards for
the ‘reasonable, competent and prudent driver’, based on the Highway Code, should be adopted

Supplementary Evidence on Graduated Fixed Penalties to Transport Select Committee Inquiry on Roads Policing and Technology (2006) (228Kb pdf) Speeding penalties should reflect the seriousness of an offence which is the leading cause of violent death and which intimidates and endangers all road users and roadside communities. The Department has provided no evidence to support its proposal to reduce penalties and has offered no evaluation of the likely effect on road danger and casualties, notwithstanding the fact that the change is proposed under road safety legislation.

In this response we examine the fairness of reducing penalties (since this is the ostensible purpose of the proposal), what the evidence suggests the impacts will be and why the evidence does not support reduced penalties for any speeding offences

SSI Response to Government Discussion Paper on Graduated Fixed Penalties for Speeding Offences (2004) (44Kb pdf): Appropriate speed limits and vehicle design should be the means of controlling danger and all the other adverse impacts of speed. Reliance on enforcement and highway engineering measures are indicators of failures in system design. These failures impose avoidable burdens on society in general and on the police and local authorities in particular. Although some penalties for unacceptable driver behaviour will always be necessary, they become very much more important in the absence of the reforms we advocate. In answering the Department's discussion paper we describe a developmental framework for securing acceptance of and compliance with appropriate speed limits.

Vehicle Design

Event Data Recorders — Briefing for Rob Marris MP (2005)(24kb pdf): Electronic ‘black boxes’ are increasingly common in many vehicles, being used to deploy air bags and control advanced braking systems (ABS). This technology also records the way in which a vehicle was driven - for example, its speed at impact. In March 2005 Rob Marris MP (Labour, Wolverhampton South West) proposed an amendment to the Road Safety Bill to enable access to this information under strict conditions.

Taxing Vehicle Weight & Speed (2003)(67kb pdf) Danger is one of the costliest aspects of car use but is ignored by the Treasury. This paper proposes a logical extension of the current vehicle tax system to reduce danger by encouraging slower and lighter vehicles and the voluntary adoption of speed limiters.