Police commissioner suggests abolishing speed limits

Published: 21 April 2013
By Chris Haycock

Norfolk PCC Stephen Bett told BBC Radio Norfolk that it may be safe for motorists to drive 'flat-out' in some circumstances, and that many speed limits need to be removed as drivers become 'mesmerised' by them. Mr Bett is an independent PCC in Norfolk, and is an advocate of removing speed limits on major roads and motorways, but having a blanket speed limit in villages, according the The BBC. He went on to tell the radio station, "We ought to drive to road conditions rather than set limits. The problem nowadays is there's so many damn signs. You are driving along and you get mesmerised by them and you get situations where you get a 50 to 40 to 30 [mph] and it goes to 20 in the middle and back up again. If we're going to do something about speed and villages, we ought to just take all the signs down and say all villages are 30mph, or whatever it's going to be, and you drive on roads, like they do in Germany and Italy, as road conditions say." However, his statement was dismissed as 'nonsense' by David Williams of the Guild of Experienced Motorists, who said, "Twenty-four per cent of road deaths are caused by inappropriate speed. It's a very important issue. It does need to be enforced clearly and we do need to protect innocent road users from people who think that they can drive faster, like racing drivers, on the highway. That just is nonsense."