Cut speeds to just 10MPH on thousands of miles of roads in towns and cities, safety charity demands

Road speeds in cities should be cut to 10mph to prevent deaths and reduce serious injuries, a leading road safety charity has said, but critics have called the proposal 'laughable'

Road speeds in cities should be cut to 10mph to prevent deaths and reduce serious injuries, a leading road safety charity has said.

This limit should be applied specifically around all schools, hospitals, as well as sporting, social and cultural venues.

But critics have said the proposals are 'so ridiculous it is simply laughable'. 

The suggested areas have been targeted because they tend to have a 'particular prevalence of pedestrians and/or bicyclists and/or motorcyclists' as well as 'a heightened vulnerability of pedestrians to impact and injury', the Road Safety Foundation (RSF) said.

Single carriageways and country roads must also stick to a 20mph limit, a third of current road speeds, the charity added.

Areas where pedestrians and cyclists or motorcyclists mix vehicles should also take up this rule. 

These proposals would help achieve 'vision zero' which is the long-term goal of no deaths or serious injuries and are 'evidence-based given the laws of physics and the fragility of the human body'.

The charity argued that these recommendations are due to 'the moral position that no death or serious injury should be considered an acceptable by-product of mobility'.

Travelling at 10mph is roughly equivalent to a fast jogger, leaving journey times tripled if some of these restrictions came in to place.

Hugh Bladon from the Alliance of British Driver called the proposals 'laughable' and claimed the RSF 'is clearly not fit for purpose'.

'If you ban all motorised transport you might reduce deaths and injury a bit, but we should remember that more people were being killed and injured, in the days before motorised transport, by horses and their carriages. It might be better to ban people from walking or cycling where there is any form of motorised transport,' he said. 

A 30mph speed limit would be allowed on roads where there are no cyclists or pedestrians. 

Even faster speeds are also acceptable and result in no deaths where the road has 'fully segregated facilities for any pedestrians or bicyclists' and those with no T-junctions or crossroads.

For these dual carriageways and motorways the priority would then be to 'provide adequate roadside infrastructure measures to ensure that road users are suitably protected if they run off the road at current operating speeds'. 

The charity admitted that 'translating these findings into policy and practice is complex'. 

Wales has already taken up the 20mph rule as the default speed limit but a poll revealed that nearly two thirds of the country objected to the change. 

Only a few studies have researched the effects of the reduced speed limits with mixed results, parliamentary briefing papers allegedly said earlier this year.

Some pollutants were released in higher concentrations under 20mph the paper added but a study by Imperial College said there was 'no net negative impact on exhaust emissions' from those speeds.