Road Safety Week is here, so what better time to slow things down and talk about speed limits – or rather, the importance of sticking to speed limits. Across the UK, we have a range of speed limits that help us navigate the roads and help keep both ourselves and those around us safe.
But, especially if it’s been a little while since passing your driving test, it can be easy to start trickling over the speed limits during our daily commutes. It’s important to remember that those limits are not recommendations, they are there for a reason and there can be serious consequences if they are not adhered to, especially in residential areas.
So here is a quick refresher on the speed limits in the UK, where you will find them, and why they are there in the first place.
Speed limits around the UK
20mph
The Welsh Government recently introduced a national speed limit of 20mph in urban areas as opposed to the rest of the UK that has it at 30mph. The new speed limit, which only came into effect on 17th September 2023, aims to reduce deaths (campaigners stated that someone was seven times more likely to survive being hit by a car at 20mph compared to 30mph), accidents, and even help reduce emissions.
Outside of Wales, 20mph can be found on restricted roads, usually outside schools or other important areas, but these are designated by local councils and are always clearly signposted.
30mph
This is the national speed limit for built-up areas in the rest the UK, so you’re most likely to see this around towns. This is arguably the most important speed limit, as even going minorly above 30mph can drastically reduce the survival rate of any pedestrians hit in an accident. As was mentioned in the ad campaign ‘It’s 30 for a reason’ from 2001, a pedestrian hit at 40mph has an 80% chance of dying, while one hit at 30 has an 80% of surviving.
60mph
This is speed limit for single-lane carriageways, and also the maximum speed allowed for lorries and motorhomes. For more information on the different speed limits for each type of vehicle, check out the government’s page explaining it all in detail here.
70mph
As the national speed limit for motorways and dual carriageways, this is the maximum speed limit in the UK.
Why is it important to stick to the limit?
There is an abundance of very obvious reasons why it’s important to follow the speed limit on any given road, common sense not least among them (and fear of fines being another), but the absolute paramount reason is that it simply saves lives. Firstly, as mentioned before, the survival rate for pedestrians hit by vehicles exponentially increases the slower you are going.
Roadwise.co.uk, a York and North Yorkshire Partnership initiative created to educate road users, revealed the following stats:
- At 40mph, a pedestrian only has a 10% chance of surviving.
- At 35mph, it’s a 50% chance.
- At 30mph, it’s an 80% chance.
- At 20mph, it’s 97.5% chance of surviving.
And this is just in the event of there actually being an accident! The slower you drive, the less likely that accident will ever happen, as you’ll be able to stop much much faster. For example, the stopping distance for 30mph is double the distance (23m) compared to 20mph (12m).
However, despite ad campaigns and informative initiatives like Roadwise educating the public for literal decades, five people are still killed on UK roads every day, and the chief contributing factor to these fatalities is speed. So please keep your speed in check, even if you think the road is safe and clear; there may be factors you don’t know about, such as blind corners, cars joining the road at junctions, or even pedestrians crossing.
For more information about Road Safety Week, check out Brake, the road safety charity.
If you enjoyed this blog, you might also like to read:
- A guide to stopping distances and how to drive safely in adverse conditions
- Ways to improve your vehicle's fuel economy
- A guide to driving in dark nights
Image credit: Janis Fasel via unsplash.com
