Edinburgh is to roll out a 20mph speed limit across 80% of its roads by April 2016 in a bid to reduce the number of fatal road traffic accidents.
More than 80% of all the roads in the city will comply with the lower speed limits with drivers given the option to use faster roads outwith the city centre. Roads with the highest number of accidents, collisions, and roads that are most common to use for cyclists and pedestrians are being dealt with as a priority in order to reduce the number of fatalities.
Scheme Unveiled
The scheme was announced by the city council. The implementation of the plan has been delayed by three months in order to give those against the changing speed limit a chance to complain via the right channels.
Lesley Hinds, Edinburgh's transport convener, said: "We're now on to the next stage in our journey towards making Edinburgh's residential and shopping streets a lot safer and more liveable.
"Once people have had the chance to feed in any comments about specific streets as part of the speed limit order process, we can move ahead with our phased plan of rolling out the new speed limits from early 2016."
Scheme Praised
The scheme has been praised by many road safety campaigners and been greeted by the vast majority of those in the city because it will reduce the number of fatal accidents. Rob King, director of the organisation 20’s Plenty For Us, said: “There are benefits in terms of road safety - particularly to cyclists, children, the elderly and disabled people.
It also makes the area much more pleasant to be in, and the consequences to drivers are minimal because journey time in cities is dictated by how often you stop rather than the speed you travel at.”
He added: “Edinburgh’s plans are ambitious in terms of the size of the area affected, but if you look at some of the UK’s iconic cities, London, Manchester, Liverpool, York, Oxford, Bath and others have all rejected the idea of default 30mph limit.
“There’s a growing consensus that 30mph just isn’t fit for purpose in a built-up area.”
The council changes were influenced by a 2010 study by the Department for Transport, which found that 5.5% of accidents at 30mph resulted in pedestrian fatalities, compared with less than 1% of accidents at 20mph.
Opposition
Despite the praise from road traffic safety groups and others, the move has been met with opposition from taxi drivers and environmentalists. Under the proposals, they believe that the incentive to take a taxi will be reduced and that there will be a greater number of road traffic emissions as a result of lower speed.
Danger Of Speeding
Sadly accidents are much more common when speeding, with more than a third of all accidents involving one driver going over the limit. Speeding can result in more serious injuries with some often proving to be fatal. If you have been involved in an accident with a driver that was speeding, or injured as a result of negligence, you will be able to make a compensation claim.
Contact Us
To make a personal injury claim, or to find out if you could be entitled to damages, contact us today using our online contact form.