|
18/01/2010, Euro Weekly News
A WEBSITE has gathered more than 85,000 signatures which support the proposal of increasing the legal speed limit on Spanish motorways and duel carriageways to 140kph. The site, www.movimiento140.com has been promoted by company Dvuelta, which negotiates fines, began in October 2009, and is also present on Facebook and Twitter.
They argue that 140kph is the legal limit in many European countries, and support their claims that it is a much more adequate speed with data from the Spanish Traffic Department (DGT). They include reasons such as:
- 140kph is a more reasonable speed for the current roads and vehicle capacities
- 72.8 per cent of death occur on secondary roads, not motorways
- Three out of four radars are on motorways
- Inappropriate speed is the reason behind less than 10 per cent of motorway accident, whereas distractions at the wheel account for 42 per cent
- The current limits were set in 1972 and were decided for energy, not safety, reasons
In Germany, 140kph is allowed because there is no limit on some motorways, but the recommended speed is 130kph, the limit in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Poland, Austria, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, as well as France and Luxembourg, where the limit drops to 110kph when it is raining, and Lithuanian, where is drops to 110kph from November 1 to March 31. In Belgium, Spain, Holland and Portugal the limit is 120kph, and in Cyprus, Sweden and the UK it is 100kph, 112kph and 110kph respectively. In Finland, the limit is also 120kph in the summer, and drops to 100kph the rest of the year.
In 2009, the number of deaths on Spanish roads fell for the sixth year running, to 1,897 people.
|