What change do you want to make now to address the climate change crisis? Reduce the national speed limit in rural areas to 40mph. This will reduce the frequency and severity of road collisions, as well as enabling more people to cycle on country roads. Major roads, such as "A" roads and motorways could still have higher speed limits, but the majority of rural roads in Scotland are minor roads where 40mph is a sensible speed limit, and the default speed limit should reflect this. What do you need to make this change? Political will.
Like the 20mph suggestion, this would likely make no difference as these roads won't be policed, the public won't support or respect it, it will make people resent the law and other laws to address climate change and isn't actually evidence based (e.g. if it was, surely it would only apply to petrol/diesel cars...)
Doctors from Lower the Baseline are calling for slower speeds to protect the NHS from having to deal with crash victims. Slower is not only less polluting its also a great deal safer. Particuarly important as survival rates of cyclists at higher speeds are so low that few cyclists would dare use roads post lockdown with fast traffic.
What rubbish is this? Most of the road from Glasgow to Fort William is a rural area. I'm sure the people of the Highlands will be thrilled their normally 2hr 30min journey will now take 5+ hours. Typical trash written by people who have no experience of life outside cities.
wont be respected and also pointless. 40mph is stupidly slow on wide, straight rural roads.
This will reduce emissions and improve safety for cyclists and pedestrians.
Most rural roads in Scotland don't have footpaths or bike lanes. Lower speed limit would make them enormously safer so people can use bikes for shopping, to visit friends etc.; this is normal in rural areas in Netherlands, Denmark, even Austria, we should follow best examples. Higher speed limits should only be allowed on rural roads that have separate good quality bike/foot paths.
This content is created by the open source Your Priorities citizen engagement platform designed by the non profit Citizens Foundation