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Road Safety Bill [HL]

The variable speed limits have a lot to recommend them in controlling traffic flow, etc, and that is very good. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, mentioned distances between cars. How many people know the correct distance between them and the car ahead at a certain speed? Not many—and not many can actually judge it. An experiment has concluded that that is correct; they do not know what the correct distance is. Although I understand what the noble Lord said, it would not work in practice. Not only that, but the noble Lord stated in great detail the advances in vehicle design, braking, etc. Yet he has not told us how the human body has evolved. The frontal lobes of our brains would still hit the front bones of our heads at the same speed as they did 200 years ago when we are involved in a crash, although we would not have had a crash at that speed on a motorway 200 years ago. Yet the psychology of the modern human is also unchanged. Those two things go against 80 miles per hour, but I do agree with the noble Lord’s variable speed limits. Finally, the noble Lord quoted the Association of British Drivers. That is a very vocal body, with a membership of less than 3,000.