Petition against speed limit cut

A MOTORING group has launched a petition against plans to cut speed limits on secondary roads to 80kph.

The group 40 millions d'automobilistes, which has 320,000 members, said the main causes of accidents are alcohol and fatigue, not speed.

It has written to the Ministry of the Interior and launched a petition online, just hours after a pre-report by the transport safety group CNSR recommended cutting speed limits from 90kph to 80kph on secondary, usually departmental, roads.

The CNSR claims the cut could save 450 lives a year, a claim disputed by 40 millions d’automobilistes which says it ignores advances in technology such as airbags, ABS and better vehicle designs.

“If we followed this ridiculous theory, then we would see the most accidents in the places where the speed limit is highest. Evidently this is not the case, far from it,” said the letter.

The president of the Ligue contre la violence routière, Chantal Perrichon, said that the measure did not go far enough and that the “bravest” option would be to cut the speed limit by 10kph across the whole network to save thousands of lives.

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