News from Caroline Russell: Reduce speeds now to support NHS and save lives

Caroline Russell AM has today called on the Government to introduce new emergency speed limits to save lives and reduce demand on the NHS.

Caroline has written to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps after police were forced to respond to excessive speeds over the Easter weekend. [1]

Caroline echoes calls from public health experts and road safety campaigners to bring the national default speed limit in England down to 20 mph in urban areas to improve safety for people making their essential journeys by walking or cycling. [2]

This is especially useful in London which already boasted the country’s highest proportion of people taking walkable journeys on foot rather than other means, and has seen a shift in the way people, including key workers and NHS staff, are travelling during the coronavirus crisis. [3]

Caroline Russell says:

We are seeing a massive change in the way people are travelling because they are rightly avoiding public transport except for essential journeys.

Londoners are doing their best to protect those key workers who have to take public transport by staying away wherever possible and making their own essential journeys on foot or by bike.

They are doing their bit and it is the Government’s duty to make these journeys safer – we must have a lower default speed limit to protect people walking and cycling.

This will have threefold benefits, protecting key workers making essential journeys on public transport, reducing the number of collisions and therefore pressure on our already pressured emergency services AND crucially protecting people walking and cycling.

Now is the time for national action to reduce the dangers we know so desperately need to be tackled in London.

The proposed emergency speed limits would see the default national speed limit cut to 50mph and the default urban speed limit cut to 20mph.

These changes are possible as emergency national legislation and similar measures have been adopted previously in response to shortages of fuel.

No further road signage should be necessary, but Caroline also supports a public information campaign to make road users aware of changes, and enforcement of new speed limits, in her letter.