Top Ten Tips To Stay Within The Limit

Many car drivers unintentionally exceed the speed limit, often without realising it.

Modern cars are so powerful and comfortable they give drivers little sensation of their speed. It is too easy to creep above the limit, and in particular, many drivers believe it is difficult to drive a modern car at no more than 30 mph on a road with a 30 mph limit.

Drivers are responsible for the speeds at which they choose to drive, but there are some simple and practical things drivers who find it difficult to stay with speed limits can do to help themselves.

1	Check your speedometer regularly, especially when leaving high speed roads
2	Know the limits – look for signs, especially at junctions
3	Assume lamp posts mean 30 mph, until signs say otherwise, but remember it could be 20 mph
4	Remember, speed limits are a maximum, not a target
5	20’s plenty when kids are about – and may even be too fast
6	Try no higher than 3rd gear in a 30 mph limit
7	Recognise what makes you speed - keeping up with traffic, overtaking or being tailgated
8	Concentrate – distracted drivers speed
9	Slow down when entering villages
10	Give yourself time – there’s no need to speed and you won’t get there quicker

	Even a small amount above the limit makes a big difference

	Refresh your skills on a refresher driver training course

Drivers who travel at higher speeds have less time to identify and react to what is happening around them. It takes them longer to stop. And if there is a crash, it is more severe, causing greater injury to the occupants and any pedestrian or rider they hit.

Excessive speed contributes to 28% of collisions in which someone is killed, 18% of crashes resulting in a serious injury and 12% of all injury collisions. This means that around 1,000 people are killed each year on Britain’s roads because drivers and riders travel too fast, and over 6,000 are seriously injured.

Approximately two-thirds of all crashes in which people are killed or injured happen on roads with a speed limit of 30 mph or less. At 35 mph a driver is twice as likely to kill someone as they are at 30 mph.

At 30 mph, vehicles travel 44 feet (about 3 car lengths) every second.

Even in good conditions, the difference in stopping distance between 30 mph and 35 mph is an extra 21 feet, more than 2 car lengths.

Hit by a car at 20 mph, 1 out of 40 pedestrian will be killed
97% will survive

Hit by a car at 30 mph, 2 out of 10 pedestrians will be killed
80% will survive

Hit by a car at 35 mph, 5 out of 10 pedestrians will be killed
50% will survive

Hit by a car at 40 mph, 9 out of 10 pedestrians will be killed
10% will survive

Even a small amount above the limit makes a big difference.

For longer journeys, use RoSPA’s Safer Journey Planner, to help make sure you plan the journey safely. ( PDF format 162 kb)

If you drive for work, or manage staff who drive, for work, use RoSPA’s “Driving for Work: Safer Journey Planner”. ( PDF format 280 kb)

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