Drivers urged to ‘GO 20’

A campaign launched at the start of Road Safety Week is appealing to drivers and authorities in Scotland to GO 20, to bring about a 2012 legacy of safe walking and cycling.

Brake, the road safety charity, is appealing to drivers to slow down to 20mph or below in communities, and calling for widespread 20mph limits in built up areas.

According to Brake, children are affected by danger from fast traffic in a number of ways, including:

• four in five (80%) say drivers need to slow down around their home and school,
• two in three (65%) say they would be able to walk and cycle more if roads in their neighbourhood were safer, and
• nearly half (45%) say they have been hit or nearly hit while walking or cycling, and nearly six in 10 (57%) worry about being hurt by traffic when out and about.

While there has been progress in installing 20 limits outside most schools in Scotland, up until now councils have been left to progress more widespread 20 limits on an ad hoc basis. In March this year, the City of Edinburgh Council introduced a pilot scheme of widespread 20mph limits across South Central Edinburgh, the first such scheme in Scotland.