Best ever road deaths figure, but rural speed limits to be cut

In April, I blogged about the UK Government's initiative to cut speed limits in order to reduce the number of road deaths. My objections were:

Restriction of mobility when the UK already has some of the safest roads in the world

The method of enforcement (24x7 cameras) and civil liberties impact - everyone's movements could be logged and traced

The cost of installation and ongoing enforcement, including the possibility of another failed Government IT project

These proposals haven't gone away - they're out to consultation. The open consultation finishes on Tuesday 14th July, so if you have an opinion, you still have a few days to respond.

The Times reported on 25th June that Deaths on UK roads fall to record low.

Lord Adonis, the Transport Minister, says that "Britain now jointly has the safest roads of any major nation in the world".

I agree that every road death is unnecessary, but I disagree with the speed limit proposals. These will have a huge set-up and operating cost, and will restrict mobility outside built-up areas by increasing journey times at all times of day and night.

Some better approaches would be

Harsh penalties for causing death and serious injury; killing someone with a car is manslaughter or murder, and should be treated that way

Better road education: males under the age of 20 seem to be particularly likely to kill themselves, their friends, and innocent third parties

Restrictions on new drivers during the first few months after passing the test; curfews and rules about number of passengers, P plates (showing Passed - but recently)

Invest in better road layouts where these are known to be unsafe

Enforce speed limits in known black spots; this should be far cheaper than country-wide speed restrictions

Brown broke Britain

It's time for blame to be given where it's due. I'm fed up with hearing the spin that "Gordon's done a great job for Britain." Gordon Brown has messed up almost everything he's touched.

On the credit side, he freed the Bank of England in May 1997 to set interest rates. Sadly, quite soon after, in June 1998, he screwed up banking supervision, and that is the root cause of the current financial crisis. The Bank was, at the time, a world-renowned centre of excellence for banking supervision. Famously, a 'raised eyebrow' was all that was needed when supervisors wanted a change made. This was replaced by a rules-based supervisory regime under the Financial Services Authority which had power to penalise and set rules, but lacked the reputation and clout that had enabled the Bank to keep a tight rein. Whenever there's a published set of rules, clever people will find ways to push the envelope - which is what's happened in spades in the sub-prime loans scandal and Credit Default Swaps debacle.

He's also messed up the UK pension system. Our defined benefits system was the best in the world before he and his mate Ed Balls got their dirty fingers into it. They axed the dividend tax credit in 1997. Very few private sector organisations can now afford to offer defined benefits pensions - thanks largely to Brown's pension grab which in March 2007 was already estimated to have taken more than £100 billion out of private sector pensions (Daily Telegraph article).

Finally, he's saddled us with unaffordable obligations that won't go away. Public sector spending has been a diarrhea of give-aways to anyone whose acquiescence needed to be bought, much of it funded by present or future borrowing. Rather than work out a cost-benefit analysis for new initiatives, money has been sprayed into wild ideas that have been more to do with popularity or grabbing headlines than solving the needs of the country. Many Government IT projects have been a complete shambles. Pay settlements have been much more generous than those available to most private sector workers. MPs and many other public sector have defined-benefit pensions, on massively generous terms, that they will go on collecting for the next forty or fifty years.

We'll be paying for Brown for two generations. Brown did a great job for Brown.

Speed limit to be cut

The Times (21 April) reports that the speed limit on many UK A roads will be cut to 50 mph under plans to reduce the number of road deaths by a third. The default limit will be reduced from 60 mph to 50 mph unless the local council gives acceptable reasons to retain the higher limit. It would become easier for councils to reduce the limit on residential roads from 30 mph to 20 mph, and average speed cameras would be introduced to enforce the new limits.

The UK achieved huge improvements in road safety between 1990 and 1995, when the annual death rate fell from over 5000 to under 4000. It's now under 3000, and continuing to improve. This is despite a rising population and hugely increased number of vehicles using the roads. So despite the success of the current measures, our heroic Government has come up with an idea that will restrict everyone who lives outside a built-up area and uses cross-country routes. The unpopular measure can be enforced through the recruitment of thousands of new automated police officers (average speed cameras) that can issue penalties 24 x 7, regardless of the traffic and weather conditions, and into the bargain develop a database to show the vehicle movements of a majority of the population. So useful to maintain public safety.

Of course, in revenue terms, this will be 'free'. The cameras, data network, central fines processing and recovery, repairs, replacement, surveillance database if required, signposting, etc., will cost a few billions per year. But the Government probably reckons that it can get the money back through fines - and if they don't collect enough, keep raising the fines. If all else fails, print a bit more money. Of course, we can be sure that this HM Government IT project will be a glowing success. So important when taxpayers money is involved.

Of course, this may be just another kite-flying initiative either (a) to distract the mob from the appalling Government debt that will be revealed in today's Budget or (b) to allow the spin doctors to say "we've listened" when the whole thing is scrapped. Time will tell...