4. SET SPEED LIMITS RATIONALLY AGAIN
Restore Sensible Speed Limit Setting Using The 85th Percentile Rule
This rational approach to speed limit setting optimises safe traffic flow and allows meaningful thresholds to be set for advice, enforcement and prosecution to facilitate mainly voluntary lifelong learning and re-training in the spirit of ‘Policing by Consent’
- Roads are at their safest when TRAFFIC FLOW is optimised and dangerous when it is not. The mandating of rigid speed limits present a risk to safety when they disrupt the natural flow of traffic. This leads to drivers becoming impatient, tailgating and doing other bad things up to and including road rage.
- The majority of drivers can be relied upon to recognise for themselves when their speed is either too fast or too slow for the unique set of road conditions they continuously face. Only the driver can make this ‘on the spot’ assessment of what a safe speed actually is and only when they can demonstrate this skill should they be awarded a full licence. No driver should have to become unduly fixated on their speedometer for fear of being caught exceeding an arbitrary speed limit.
- Safety must therefore be primarily a matter of personal responsibility and it cannot be delegated to a speed limit. Attempting to micro-manage a driver’s choice of speed infantilises them and works against their taking responsibility for choosing the right speed for the conditions through application of the Risk Model. Even when not explicitly trained in applying the Risk Model, an experienced driver’s intuitive judgement will keep people safe most of the time. Most do not need a working speedometer to tell them that they are going too fast or too slow.
- In recognition of the above, speed limits used to be set rationally using something called the 85th Percentile Rule or Principle. This acknowledged what the majority of drivers on an unrestricted stretch of road considered to be a safe speed. Coupled with discretion in enforcement (Reform 1) safer roads were achieved by this sensible approach to speed limit setting and enforcement. Regrettably, authorities now seek to micro-manage and rigidly control peoples’ driving, placing ideological considerations above safety to justify a flawed quest so far as safety is concerned to continuously lower speed limits across the board.
- In summary, a driver fully trained in the Risk Model will understand that they are expected to take personal responsibility for choosing a safe speed at all times by balancing speed with surprise and space. Outsourcing safety to a speed limit is simply wrong. Traffic flow is dangerously compromised when an interfering nanny State sets speed limits unreasonably low as, for example, with the blanket 20mph limits in Wales. This has led to drivers becoming fixated on their speedometers at the expense of properly observing the road ahead and then planning their driving for possible surprises. This reform is intended to rectify these issues.