The road safety charity Brake campaigns for safer roads to stop the tragedy of road deaths and injuries. Brake's Safe Not 60: Rural Roads campaign aims to raise awareness of the dangers on rural roads, assess and improve rural road safety, and change the national default speed limit on these types of roads.
Rural roads are statistically the most dangerous roads in the UK. There are more road traffic collisions per mile travelled on rural single carriageways than on motorways or dual carriageways. In addition to the increased number of collisions, they also carry the highest fatality risk, with 50% of fatal crashes occurring on rural roads.
In the UK, whilst the default national speed limit on rural single carriageways is 60mph, Brake is campaigning for speed limits which are based on the design of the individual road. Brake argues it is seldom safe to travel at 60mph on these types of roads, given they are often narrow, winding, and can have poor visibility. For this reason, they are campaigning for the Government to investigate the safety benefits of lowering the default speed limit, and to introduce safe speed limits as opposed to a default speed limit of 60mph. Instead of a default limit, they propose higher speed limits should only be allowed on rural roads which have passed a safety assessment.
Another key aim of the Safe Not 60 campaign is to encourage the Government to assess the safety infrastructure in place on these roads to determine where the speed limit should be set and identify areas where infrastructure should be improved.
Morton Fraser MacRoberts is a proud member of Brake's Scottish legal panel. If you or a loved one is involved in a road traffic collision or cycling accident on a rural road, you may be entitled to make a claim for compensation to recover your losses and assist with your recovery.
At Morton Fraser MacRoberts, our experienced team will take the time to assess your claim and help you get the compensation you are entitled to. Contact us today on 0131 247 1000 for a free, confidential chat.
