§ 7. Mr. R. Harrisasked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is yet prepared to impose a speed limit of 40 miles per hour on the Great West Road, Middlesex.
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterNo, Sir. I propose to await the Report of the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee, which, as I recently announced, is at my request examining speed-limit questions in the London traffic area.
§ Mr. HarrisWill my right hon. Friend bear in mind that it is very difficult indeed for vehicles to pull up at traffic lights if they are travelling at between 70 and 80 miles an hour? There are frequently the most dreadful accidents on the Great West Road.
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterIt is a difficult road, and that is just the sort of problem 363 which has caused me to put all these difficult questions to my Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee so as to get general proposals for dealing with them.
Dr. BennettWould my right hon. Friend consider the great advantage of keeping the traffic flowing rather than slowing it down, and of expediting it rather than having it coagulating in clots because of traffic lights every few hundred yards, and then being released in a racing, struggling mass? Could he not arrange for the cutting down of the duration or frequency of the time allowed for crossing?
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterThat is just the sort of point one has to consider on this subject.
§ Mr. G. R. StraussIs not the real remedy for these difficulties in traffic flow in and out of London to have a large number of tunnels and overhead bridges for pedestrians, rather than to interfere with the road traffic?
§ Mr. Boyd-CarpenterI agree with the right hon. Gentleman that tunnels can be extremely useful. That is why a certain number of them are proposed in my programme.