If speeders are the issue tackle them
WITH a bit more gumption, the opportunity was there for a truly radical report from the speed limit working party.
WITH a bit more gumption, the opportunity was there for a truly radical report from the speed limit working party.
After a bit of historical preamble the report starts: 'The speed survey results do not indicate a widespread speeding problem in the island based on the existing limits.'
And that, really, should have been that. End of report. Let's get back to the real issues.
Instead, having been tasked with preparing a report, the working party felt obliged to produce one anyway.
They must wish they hadn't.
The problems start early on. What, for example, is the central problem it is trying to address? Answer: speeding motorists who present a danger to others.
Yet there is not one piece of evidence to support that premise. Not one accident statistic, not one idea for stopping speeders. Nowhere does it establish that the island even has a speeding problem.
In fact, it shows the reverse. Given a speed limit so low it leaves visitors aghast, it is to the island's great credit that so little evidence can be found of speeding islanders.
Of more than 100 roads surveyed, just five show most drivers regularly nearing 40mph. It will come as a surprise to no one that they are among the largest, straightest, safest roads in the island.
For the rest, islanders driving cars easily capable of tripling the 35mph limit show remarkable restraint. Generally, they are either well within the limit or adopting the Guernsey way of adding enough miles per hour to get there quicker without risk of being nicked.
Of course, there are nonsensical anomalies in current limits – Le Vauquiedor's 25/35 mix would be top of many people's list – but, as we highlight in our stories today, at least as many would be introduced by this review.
The island has a problem with a few idiotic drivers who refuse to keep to current limits and are a menace on the roads. This report will not change their behaviour one iota.
Instead, it will frustrate and criminalise law-abiding motorists in perfect control of their cars who are at no risk of causing an accident.
