Safe Speed Forums

I imagine a lot of the accidents are around the somewhat abrupt sliproads.

dont forget the blowing sand as well, as all the vehicles were stationary when accidents occurred

Director of Planning and Transport services
Bournmouth Borough Council

Dear Sir

I wish to formally object to the reduction to 40 mph in the speed limit along the Wessex Way on the section adjoining Bournemouth Town Centre.

This road was designed – presumably – by qualified traffic engineers, to carry traffic at the national dual carriageway speed limit of 70mph. I have tolerated a 50 limit, though in certain sections it felt a bit slow, but 40mph is utterly inappropriate for this class of road.

Inasmuch as accidents may be caused by excessive speed (and as I’m sure you are aware, by far the majority are not), a reduction from a speed limit lower than the road’s design speed to one even lower is unlikely to make a jot of difference to the number of serious accidents along here. Though by association it will do a great deal to bring more appropriate speed limits elsewhere in the town into disrepute.

Bournemouth Council would be much wiser to spend their finite resources to ‘engineer out’ the accident causations on this road; this layman would suggest starting by looking at the overly abrupt slip roads.

I have come to expect dogma-driven speed limit reductions in Hampshire, but until recently Dorset has been reasonably pragmatic. It makes me sad that a county who once had the illustrious road safety expert Prof JJ Leeming as County Engineer could start to fall down the same route of thinking all road safety issues can be corrected by lower the speed limit.

As this reduction is on a trial basis only, enabling the Council to bypass such niceties as public consultation, I respectfully request that if anything more than a half-hearted attempt to weigh up the success of – and in particular the public’s reaction to – the trial is held, that my objection be taken into account.

Yours faithfully

Johnnytheboy