Speed

Speed kills. That's not just a headline, it's a fact.

Severity is linked to impact speed, as the faster you hit, the more damage you will do.

Speed is the single most influential factor in road crashes. In a sense, all crashes are due to speed.

• If you crash, it's because you couldn't stop in time
• If you cannot stop in time, for whatever reason, you are travelling too fast for the conditions.

You can be travelling too fast at any speed - even below the speed limit.

Consider driving past a school at 7am on a glorious summer morning in August, 30mph could be quite safe. However, now think of driving past that same school at 3.15pm on a cold and damp December afternoon when the school is closing, even 25mph could be too fast.

To improve safety for all, the issue of driving speed needs to be tackled using a combination of education and enforcement.

Drivers who exceed the posted limit need to be made aware of the importance of limits, and why they are there. Most reasonable thinking drivers will accept a sensible message around the importance of limits, and adjust their behaviour in the future. 

However, someone who knows the limit for the area they are in and makes a conscious decision to exceed it 'because they can', (known as a high end violator), is displaying clear anti-social behaviour, and ignoring the rights of other road users to travel safely.

Such drivers will only adjust their behaviour following a speeding prosecution, or indeed when the reality of speed related crashes affects them directly, or the people they value most.

We need to be tough with drivers who drive too fast, and we also need to change drivers' attitudes to speed and increase awareness of the consequences of driving too fast.

What are we doing to tackle speeding?

We want fewer people to be killed and injured on Kent's roads, so we put a lot of our resources towards tackling the issue of speed.

Factors we have identified as important include:

• challenging the existing speed culture
• identifying and addressing factors relating to the road environment
• increasing public awareness of speed related issues
• encouraging local communities and employers to get involved
• contributing to speed enforcement activities inspired by local information
• developing and maintaining high-quality crash and casualty data and intelligence.