ABD Launches Campaign Against 20mph Speed Limits
The Alliance of British Drivers (ABD) has launched a campaign against blanket 20mph speed limits under the name "20s Senseless". The ABD say the reason for doing this is that there is much misinformation being spread by campaigners for such speed limits.
An ABD spokesperson said in a recent statement: “What has been happening is that the anti-car activists encouraged by such organisations as "20s Plenty" are now wasting millions of pounds nationwide when that money would have been better spent on other road safety measures - such as road engineering and education of younger drivers. “The Department for Transport (DfT) published the most authoritative study to date on the impact of wide-area signed-only 20 mph speed limits last year. It showed that there is no road safety benefit whatsoever from such schemes. In addition they have negligible impact on modal shift or on traffic speeds.” The ABD has long called for "evidence-based" road safety policies. They argue that the evidence on 20mph schemes should not be ignored. The spokesperson added: “This was the long-awaited evidence that enormous amounts of money are being wasted on implementing 20mph schemes which could have been spent instead on more effective road safety measures. In London alone, it is estimated that tens of millions of pounds have been spent on 20mph signed-only schemes to no effect and nationwide it must run into hundreds of millions of pounds. “Note that the ABD is not opposed to the use of 20mph speed limits where it might be of benefit or where compliance will be high but it is not the solution to all road safety problems and simply sticking up signs is a waste of money. The simplistic solutions proposed by advocates of wide area signed-only 20mph schemes do not work to reduce the Killed and Seriously Injured (KSIs) on our roads to any significant extent. “Money is being wasted on them that could be better used to reduce KSIs in other ways.”
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