jpsellars.co.uk

Getting up at dawn and driving up to Lates in Rugby at the weekend it didn’t take me long to get bored with the monotony of the motorway network, and before I knew it I’d reverted to my usual inclination when I’m in no particular hurry of turning off onto ever more minor roads following signs to place names just because they look interesting and they’re vaguely north of wherever I am at that particular moment. You might have been to every corner of Britian, but if you only ever use the motorways you’ve barely seen any of it. And what’s more you’re missing some truly fantastic roads. Apart from the lack of traffic, rural roads offer so much more to stimulate the driver. Dare I say it, they may even be enjoyable at times.

But they’ve also got the potential to be dangerous, and clearly something needs to be done about this. So we’ve now got a goverment department proposing to take the serious issue of road safety and tackle it with a blanket 50mph National Speed Limit and even more speed cameras. Come on, it’s hardly revolutionary is it?

I’m all for speed limits where they’re genuinely needed, but what we’re doing now is actually going to reduce road safety. We’ve already created a mindset that almost abdicates the driver from responsibility by implying that all one needs to do to remain safe is to stick to a speed limit, such is the constant emphasis on speed alone. Lowering the national limit across the board will create monotony and frustration on every piece of road, and it’ll only serve to encourage further disrespect for the law. It seems we’re always feeling sorry for ourselves and I often switch off when I hear people whinging continually about nanny states and speed cameras (the latter have never bothered me particularly), but this did leave me wondering where we’re really going now. Probably nowhere fast.