Vehicle speed compliance statistics for Great Britain: 2019
Estimates on vehicle compliance with speed limits on roads in Great Britain during 2019.
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These statistics provide insight into the speeds at which drivers choose to travel and their compliance with speed limits under free flow conditions but should not be taken as estimates of actual compliance or actual average speed across the wider road network.
Long-term trends in vehicle speed compliance show consistent compliance with speed limits across road and vehicle classes.
In 2019:
- 50% of cars exceeded the speed limit on motorways
- 9% of cars exceeded the speed limit on national speed limit single carriageways
- 54% of cars exceeded the speed limit on 30mph roads
Similar relative patterns were seen for most vehicle types across all road types.
Vehicle Headway shows a lower proportion of cars and vans (75%) and motorcycles (64%) were observed leaving the minimum recommended two second gap between themselves and the vehicle in front than articulated Heavy Goods Vehicles (88%), rigid HGVs (82%) or buses (84%).
For all vehicle types, average free flow speeds were very close to the appropriate speed limits on 30mph roads (28-33mph) and under or near to the speed limit for all vehicles types on motorways and national speed limit single carriageways.
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