Calls for tougher speed limit enforcement to cut road deaths

Twm Owen, Local Democracy Reporter

Tougher enforcement of speed limits is needed to support a plan to reduce road deaths in one of southeast Wales most rural areas, councillors have said. 

Between 2021 and 2024 there were 425 collisions, 559 casualties and 177 people killed or seriously injured on Monmouthshire’s roads. 

The county council is now preparing a draft road safety strategy that aims to reduce incidents in which people are killed or seriously injured by a minimum 40 per cent over the next 14 years. 

It has highlighted motorcyclists and young people aged 16–25, as “priority groups” to be targeted as ” vulnerable road users”. 

Councillors called for more enforcement of speed limits and improved working with Gwent Police and the Go Safe speed camera safety partnership when they were asked to consider the draft strategy at the place scrutiny committee.  

Conservative councillor for Portskewett Lisa Dymock also claimed the police are failing to record complaints around speeding reported via the 101 non-emergency number and said residents were told they needed to provide video evidence of drivers disobeying traffic regulations rather than photographs. 

She said drivers have been travelling the wrong way down the one way system on Crick Road and while a Police Community Support Officer has since visited the area she said the Go Safe partnership had told residents photographs they supplied couldn’t support prosecution. 

“They’ve said a photograph is not evidence and they now need a video,” said Cllr Dymock. 

Tudor Thomas, Labour councillor for Abergavenny’s Park ward, said he was concerned drivers don’t slow down when entering the town from surrounding higher speed limit roads and said in country lanes “electric vehicles with no particular sound come up on you very, very quickly.” 

He acknowledged enforcement is “very difficult” on unclassified roads but said drivers entering roads subject to the 20 mile per hour limit “carry on at 30 or 40mph as there is no enforcement”. 

He said: “Until we get stronger links with Gwent Police and the speed camera vans I don’t think things are going to improve.” 

Council traffic engineer Gareth Freeman said there are constrains on where speed checks can be conducted as they need to be visible and space is also needed to park a van. 

He said: “In a perfect world there would be speed cameras everywhere and a van parked on every road but one of the main messages police give us is resources are very stretched.” 

Committee chair and Conservative member for Osbaston Jane Lucas, who works as a driving test examiner, said road safety is “close to my heart” and backed the strategy’s focus on education and stressed drivers should “driver to the road and the road conditions prevailing”. 

She also supported a point made by council road safety officer Geraint Roberts that signage and markings can be more effective than a lower speed limit. 

She said repainting of markings at a junction, near the test centre in Monmouth, proved that point: “Since the road markings have been done by the test centre I’ve not had one serious fault at that junction in the last couple of weeks.” 

It was also highlighted police statistics only record a collision where an injury has been caused to a person and a number of councillors said that failed to reflect local knowledge about “near misses” or non-injury accidents. 

In response chief officer Debra Hill-Howells said a new system for councillors to better report such information would be introduced and, at the suggestion of Wyesham independent councillor Emma Bryn, the council will also record damage to infrastructure such as bollards to spot potential clusters or hotspots. 

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