April 2016 will see Edinburgh introduce a 20mph speed limit across 80% of the roads in a bid to cut down on speeding and the number of the fatal road traffic accidents.
The proposals come following a 2010 study by the Department for Transport, which found that 5.5% of accidents at 30mph resulted in pedestrian fatalities, compared with less than 1% of accidents at 20mph.
The new system, which will take just over a year to implement is expected to reduce the number of fatal accidents in the UK.
Lesley Hinds, Edinburgh’s transport convener, said: “We’re now on to the next stage in our journey towards making Edinburgh’s residential and shopping streets a lot safer and more liveable.
“Once people have had the chance to feed in any comments about specific streets as part of the speed limit order process, we can move ahead with our phased plan of rolling out the new speed limits from early 2016.”
Dangers Of Speeding
The Scottish capital is following numerous other cities in the UK and Europe by lowering the speed limit.
More than a third of all serious road traffic accidents involve one driver speeding, with rash decisions often being made, and a car being more difficult to control when travelling at high speeds. Speeding can cause more serious accidents especially in urban areas. Edinburgh is one of the most populated areas in Scotland, and like Glasgow is open to numerous cyclists and pedestrians. By introducing the new rules, the council are hoping to reduce the number of fatal accidents
Rob King, director of the organisation 20’s Plenty For Us, praised the move by the Edinburgh Council to reduce the speed limit. He said: “The thing that makes it attractive is the number of boxes it ticks.
“Of course, there are benefits in terms of road safety – particularly to cyclists, children, the elderly and disabled people.
“I also makes the area much more pleasant to be in, and the consequences to drivers are minimal because journey time in cities is dictated by how often you stop rather than the speed you travel at.”
He added: “Edinburgh’s plans are ambitious in terms of the size of the area affected, but if you look at some of the UK’s iconic cities, London, Manchester, Liverpool, York, Oxford, Bath and others have all rejected the idea of default 30mph limit.
“There’s a growing consensus that 30mph just isn’t fit for purpose in a built-up area.”
Implementation of the Scheme
The installation of the new speed zone has been delayed by three months in order to allow those opposed to the new scheme time to raise objections to the correct channels. The move has been opposed by taxi drivers as they believe it will remove any incentive to get a taxi, with environmental groups also opposing the move due to the higher number of carbon emissions.
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