Drivers demand higher speed limits

10th June 2011

Outdated speed limits and unfair road taxes are the motoring laws that bug drivers most, according to a poll on www.autoexpress.co.uk last week. And we’ve passed your views on to the Government as a contribution to the Cabinet Office’s Red Tape Challenge for Transport.

Auto Express readers’ priority is for higher motorway speed limits. Website user redcell51 posted: “The current limit is too low these days, and should be increased to 80mph – this has been mulled over for too long.” Readers have also called for vehicle excise duty to be incorporated into fuel tax, so that motorists pay per mile.

Website member ‘scoob’ claimed: “Many cars with high CO2 ratings are not driven as many miles as environmentally friendly cars, so emissions can’t be quantified in this way.” You were also keen for insurance to apply to vehicles, not drivers.

The Government is taking its pledge to axe unnecessary rules seriously. The first sector to undergo the Red Tape Challenge – retail – attracted around 9,000 suggestions, from which nearly 200 rule changes will be made.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Transport said new comments were being read every day. “The DfT will be going through the suggestions to pick out the regulations that could feasibly be scrapped. Those will then be considered by ministers. But we are working on a policy of ‘any rules that can be scrapped, will be scrapped’,” she told us.