Road Safety Strategy must focus more on speeding, Transport Committee finds

Adrian Berendt said: "There is not enough mention of speed, as the only mentions of speed in the strategy are about the risk of speed."

M By Milly Standing

15 July 2026 2 min read

The Government’s Road Safety Strategy, released in January 2026, needs a closer focus on speeding, the Transport Committee meeting has heard.

Adrian Berendt, director and community champion at 20s Plenty for Us, said: “The current regulations are out of date, so the Road Safety Strategy is welcome.

“However, there is not enough mention of speed, as the only mentions of speed in the strategy are about the risk of speed.”

Lilli Matson, chief safety, health and environment officer at Transport for London, added that the strategy could be more thorough, showing the benefits of reducing speed in towns and cities to make these places areas that people want to use.

Berendt explained that not only does the 20mph zone stop casualties in and of itself, but it also allows the Government to implement other safety measures more cheaply.

There was a focus on the 20mph zones and their impact on the reduction in killed or seriously injured (KSI) cases; however, Dr Rob Török, doctor in pre-hospital emergency medicine at Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance, emphasised the effects on road safety from incremental reduction in speed.

He said that there are a number of papers showing how even a 1% or 2% reduction in speed is massively reducing the number of KSIs.

Török said: “We need to come back towards the realities of safety, understanding why a driver chooses to put other people’s lives at risk by speeding.”