I have to say that I was both amazed and dismayed by Transport Secretary Philip Hammond’s recent announcement that the government was considering raising the speed limit on Britain’s motorways to 80 mph.
The trend in all flavours among our governments in recent years has been to focus on taxation measures that will lead to the adoption of greener transport. For example, if you drive a car with low CO2 emissions, you pay lower road tax, with some of the most fuel efficient vehicles actually exempt from road tax. Fuel duties have risen steadily, again supposedly to price people out of using their cars unnecessarily. These measures I agree with.
But if the intention is to reduce car use or to promote the adoption of more fuel efficient cars, then why increase the speed limit? When cars are driven faster, they become less fuel efficient, so an increased speed limit would simply encourage people to drive even faster and become bigger emitters of CO2.
And anyway, if you’ve driven on one of our motorways recently, you’ll know that the majority of drivers already travel at around 10mph in excess of the current speed limit. Surely if the speed limit is raised, the same will happen again, and driving at 90mph will become the norm on our motorways. It’s not just the environment that will suffer. Higher speeds mean more danger and more chance of serious injury or death in the event of an accident.
If the government really cares about our environment and climate change, this is a 80mph dash in the wrong direction.
Driving in the wrong direction
I have to say that I was both amazed and dismayed by Transport Secretary Philip Hammond’s recent announcement that the government was considering raising the speed limit on Britain’s motorways to 80 mph.
The trend in all flavours among our governments in recent years has been to focus on taxation measures that will lead to the adoption of greener transport. For example, if you drive a car with low CO2 emissions, you pay lower road tax, with some of the most fuel efficient vehicles actually exempt from road tax. Fuel duties have risen steadily, again supposedly to price people out of using their cars unnecessarily. These measures I agree with.
But if the intention is to reduce car use or to promote the adoption of more fuel efficient cars, then why increase the speed limit? When cars are driven faster, they become less fuel efficient, so an increased speed limit would simply encourage people to drive even faster and become bigger emitters of CO2.
And anyway, if you’ve driven on one of our motorways recently, you’ll know that the majority of drivers already travel at around 10mph in excess of the current speed limit. Surely if the speed limit is raised, the same will happen again, and driving at 90mph will become the norm on our motorways. It’s not just the environment that will suffer. Higher speeds mean more danger and more chance of serious injury or death in the event of an accident.
If the government really cares about our environment and climate change, this is a 80mph dash in the wrong direction.