SPEED limits are to be cut further in some parts of the country as part of a Government strategy to reduce deaths and injury caused by road accidents.

The strategy will see 20mph speed limits recommended “in all streets which are primarily residential in nature”, Transport Minister Jim Fitzpatrick said yesterday.

The 60mph limit could also be lowered to 50mph on single-carriage rural roads – although it will be up to council highway authorities to show evidence that this could significantly reduce casualties.

Opinion is divided over the proposals –which also include changes to the driving test – which aim to cut annual road death tolls across Britain by a third by 2020.

North Yorkshire county councillor John Blackie, who represents the Upper Dales, said he believed reducing the speed limit on rural roads would make no difference to people who use them as racetracks.

“What we need is robust, rigid speed enforcement to catch these maniacs,”

he said.

Coun Blackie said speed limit reductions could also affect law-abiding motorists in the remote parts of the Dales.

He said: “If you are going to extend already very long journey times by having people go slower on open roads and also having every single village you reach going down to 20mph, you are going to make us even more remote to the services we need to keep going.”

Teesside-based Brian Gregory, of the Association of British Drivers, said: “On the longer rural routes, where there is only single carriageway, this will increase journey times and that will increase fatigue and increase accidents.” He said that in 20mph zones drivers are fixated by how fast they are travelling at and are more easily distracted if driving at a lower speed.

Mr Gregory said: “Groups like (road safety charity) Brake and others would like to take us back to a horse and cart economy. I would like to see road safety policy driven by sound road safety principles.”

But David Frost, of the Local Authority Road Safety Officers’ Association, which represents councils in this region, welcomed the proposals.

He said: “Any real measures that can be taken to reduce the number of people killed or injured on Britain’s roads should be welcomed. It is a fact that injury severities are much reduced in collisions at slower speeds. A life lost on the roads is one too many.”