Speed limits

Speed limits are introduced to ensure greater road safety.

There are two types of measures for influencing the speed of vehicles: legislative and physical. Speed limit is a legislative form and traffic calming devices are of a physical measure.

For speed limits on different road categories, refer to The Highway Code.

Lowering speed limits
If the prevailing vehicle speed on a road is significantly higher than a proposed lower speed limit, then simply changing speed limits is unlikely to reduce vehicle speeds.

We usually do not lower speed limits if we cannot, at the same time, also introduce measures to encourage traffic to slow down. For instance, a 20 mph-speed limit is usually not introduced unless traffic calming measures can also be added to make vehicles slow down to the new speed limit.

Introducing such measures is expensive, not always desirable, and would be subject to availability of funding.

Request change to speed limits

Requests for speed limits to be lowered, raised or extended will be assessed. We will consider:

• The police's opinion
• Characteristics of the road (e.g. its alignment, the level of activity beside the road, the accident record)
• Degree of severance caused to a community by the speed of vehicles

In urban areas, speed limits should fit into a rational and easily understood hierarchy so that drivers would observe them.

If a change is warranted, a new Speed limit Order has to be made. The statutory legal process for this takes about nine months.

Requests that cannot be met with current funding are retained on a database. When funding is available for speed limit changes, we can reconsider the requests.

To request changes to a speed limits, you can call, visit, email us, or write to us.