Scottish Government

THE SPEEDING DRIVER: WHO, HOW AND WHY?

CHAPTER SEVEN SPEED CHOICES

7.1 This Chapter reports material from the household survey on respondents' speed choices. It covers:

• their knowledge of speed limits on each of the seven different road types;
• their reported 'normal' and 'preferred' speeds on each of the seven different road types;
• how these compare with the actual and their own estimates of the speed limits for the different roads;
• what factors affect whether they speed up or slow down whilst on a journey;
• whether they or significant others feel they should drive more slowly;
• how often they commit a range of speeding and other driving infringements;
• how serious or minor they judge each of those infringements to be;
• how likely they think they are to get caught if speeding on the different types of roads; and
• whether likelihood of detection deters speeding.

Knowledge of speed limits

7.2 Respondents were asked what they thought was the speed limit for each of the roads pictured in P1 to P7 (the photographs are reproduced in Appendix D). Table 7.1 gives the distribution of responses.

Table 7.1: Respondents' estimate of speed limit for each photographed road

7.3 Overall, 4 out of 5 (80%) or more of Scottish drivers were accurate in their knowledge of the speed limit on 3 typical types of urban road, and on the motorway photograph. But only around half were correct in the case of the dual carriageway (P2: 42% thinking it 50 mph or 60 mph), the single carriageway rural road (P7: one third - 34% - thinking it 40 mph or 50 mph), and the wide suburban 4-lane road (P3: one third - 31% - thinking it 30 mph and 1 in 6 - 16% - selecting a limit above its actual limit of 40 mph). P2, P3 and P7 are not 'self-explaining', the prevailing speed limit is not readily apparent to many motorists from the appearance of the road.

7.4 Statistically, male and female drivers different in accuracy only on P1, Motorway, with 92% on males and 85% of females correctly choosing 70 mph as the limit. As seen in Table 6.16, this is the type of road on which male and female drivers differ most in their frequency of usage.

Reported 'normal' speed for different road types

7.5 Respondents were shown the photographs of the seven different types of road and asked 'At what speed would you normally drive on a road like this?. In each case, as noted, the photographs show no or little moving traffic on the roads, the daylight visibility was good and the weather clear. Thus respondents could make a choice of speed unconstrained by congested traffic, reduced visibility or inclement weather.

7.6 For each road type respondents selected a speed range from a set of alternatives and Table 7.2 gives the distribution of chosen speed bands. It shows the range of 'normal' speeds reported for these roads and also shows the percentage of drivers who, on the basis of their 'normal' speed would, thus, normally be exceeding the speed limit on a road of that type and how many would be 'excessive speeders' - driving at 10mph or more above the speed limit.

Table 7.2: Drivers' normal speeds for each road type showing percentage for which normal speed exceeds speed limit

7.7 Around 1 in 3 motorists reported a normal speed above the actual speed limit for the motorway (35%), for the wide suburban road (31%), for the main road in town (30%) and for the wide residential street (32%). The proportion of normal speeders was lower, at around 1 in 5 (18%) for the dual carriageway and the narrow residential street, and lowest - 1 in 10 (10%) - for the rural A road.

7.8 The number of roads on which their nominated normal speed exceeded the speed limit was counted for each respondent. Figure 7.1 shows the percentage of drivers obtaining each score. Only 2% said they would speed on all seven roads. 1 in 10 (5+3+2=10%) drivers would, however, exceed the speed limit on five or more of the roads. Above a third (37%) indicated complete compliance, with none of their nominated normal speeds exceeding the posted limits.

Figure 7.1: Percentage of drivers for each number of road types on which normal speed exceeded speed limit

7.9 Approaching one fifth (18%) indicated speeding on only one of the roads pictured. The road most commonly mentioned was P3 - the four lane suburban residential road, which was mentioned by 40% of those who would only speed on one road as shown in Table 7.3.

7.10 Across all the roads P6 - the narrow residential road - presents perhaps the most worrying findings in that in the picture it is clearly very narrow with no centre markings and with cars parked on both sides ( see Appendix E). It also clearly leads to a T-junction. Yet 18% of drivers indicated they would 'normally drive' at above 30mph on this road. And Table 7.3 shows that among those who would speed on three roads this figure rises to 42%. Indeed among drivers whose normal speed would exceed the speed limit on three or four or five or six roads, a greater percentage selected P6 as a speeding site than P7 - the open country road.

Table 7.3: Road types by number of roads on which drivers' normal speed exceeded speed limit

REPORTED 'PREFERRED' SPEED FOR DIFFERENT ROAD TYPES

7.11 As well as being asked their normal speed for each type of road, respondents were asked their preferred speed for each - 'At what speed would you prefer to drive on a road like this?'. Table 7.4 gives the distribution of responses for each of the road types and also shows the percentage of drivers whose preferred speed would be above, 10mph or more above, and below the speed limit for each road.

Table 7.4: Drivers' preferred speeds for each road type showing percentage for which speeds exceeded or were below speed limit

* this percentage is the total in the speed bands below that containing the speed limit. Some people in the band containing the speed limit might also prefer to drive below the speed limit e.g. 65mph on a 70mph road.

7.12 For the motorway, dual carriageway and wide suburban road, the proportion of drivers who would prefer to drive above the speed limit exceeded the number who 'normally' do, suggesting that some - but only some - drivers are restraining their speed on those types of roads, with their 'normal' speed below their 'preferred' speed.

7.13 However, there are also substantial proportions of Scottish drivers whose preferred speeds on these three road types is well below the actual speed limit. 1 in 5 (22%) would prefer to drive at 60mph or below on motorways; 2 in 5 (41%) would prefer to drive at 60 mph or less on dual carriageways; 1 in 5 (19%) at under 30 mph on the wide suburban road. And over half (54%) indicated that their preferred speed on the single carriageway rural A road was below 51mph. If substantial numbers had indicated that their preferred speeds were above the current speed limits then some popular support for raising speed limits could have been adduced. Instead, the percentage of drivers whose preferred speed was below the current limit substantially exceeded the percentage whose preferred speed was 10mph or more above the limit. There is little evidence in this data for popular support amongst Scottish drivers for raising speed limits, neither on motorways nor elsewhere.