Members of the UK Parliament's cross-party Transport Select Committee are scheduled to convene this week to discuss the potential widespread implementation of 20mph speed limits. The committee will examine expert evidence on the benefits of reducing existing 30mph limits by 10mph, a move that aligns with Labour's broader Road Safety Strategy announced in January.
A panel of five experts, including Transport for London's chief safety officer and the former chair of the Welsh Government's 20mph Task Force Group, will present findings and answer questions from parliamentarians. This session comes as the government prepares to release new guidance for setting local speed limits, which may propose a blanket 20mph restriction in place of 30mph zones in urban areas.
Significant progress has already been made in adopting lower speed limits across Britain. Currently, 62 out of 153 local authorities in England have reduced their 30mph limits. Wales has established 20mph as the default speed limit in built-up areas, and the Scottish Government applies 20mph limits where deemed appropriate. Collectively, approximately one-third of roads in British towns and cities are already subject to 20mph restrictions.
Adrian Berendt, director of the '20's Plenty for Us' road safety campaign, and Lilli Matson, chief safety, health and environment officer at TfL, are among the experts expected to advocate for the expanded use of 20mph limits. Matson previously led Wales' transition to standardized 20mph roads.
The government has set ambitious targets to improve road safety, aiming for a 65% reduction in people killed or seriously injured (KSI) and a 70% reduction in child KSIs by 2035. The current framework places the primary responsibility for setting safe speed limits on local authorities and National Highways in England. However, the proposed strategy includes specific rules for determining local speed limits, drawing inspiration from Sweden's 'Safe System' approach. This system mandates that road and speed limit designs should align with the human body's capacity to survive a crash, accounting for physics and road design to minimize the impact of human error.
The Transport Select Committee's session will specifically address whether the strategy's speed commitments are adequate to meet these casualty reduction targets. Parliamentarians will consider evidence from Wales and London, and will explore whether England should adopt a national default 20mph limit. The discussion will also encompass driver behavior, public attitudes towards speeding, and the role of education and technology in accident prevention.
Furthermore, the committee will review the management of speed policy across national and local government, assessing whether current arrangements provide local authorities with the appropriate balance of responsibility, guidance, and support. The independent Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety has previously recommended a blanket 20mph limit in built-up areas to alleviate the administrative and signage burden on local authorities.
This parliamentary discussion follows recent reports highlighting issues with excessive speeding. An investigation by the RAC revealed that over 30,000 motorists were recorded traveling at 30mph or faster on 20mph roads in 2025. Additionally, more than 275,000 were recorded exceeding 30mph limits by at least 10mph in the same year. Extreme cases include a motorist traveling at 89mph on a 20mph road in North Wales and another caught at 114mph in a 30mph zone near a primary school in Leicestershire.
Data from 22 police forces in England and Wales indicates a significant increase in speed camera detections following the wider introduction of 20mph zones. The number of drivers caught exceeding 20mph limits by roadside cameras rose from 21,125 in 2023 to 127,915 in the following year across the analyzed areas.
Provisional data from the Department for Transport suggests that the total number of people killed or seriously injured on Britain's roads in 2025 increased by 4% compared to 2024, reaching 29,911. However, the number of deaths alone saw a decrease of 3% in the same period.