The numbers are unmistakable. The Danes generally sing more slowly. But especially the people of Jutland find it difficult to slow down, new figures show.
Although the trend is clear – Danish drivers drive more slowly – there is a difference in how fast you drive in different parts of the country.
The people of Jutland have acquired a higher speed on the country roads than motorists on the islands. But the Road Directorate's measurements show that the average speed is falling throughout the country.
In 2017, the average speed on the country roads east of the Little Belt reached the permitted 80 km/h.
Now it appears that the Jutlands are also on their way to achieving this goal in 2024. For the first nine months of 2024, the average speed of the Jutlands is 79.8 km/h.
This is a drop of over 3 km/h over the past five years. In comparison, drivers on the islands drive at an average speed of 77.3 km/h during the same period – a drop of over 2 km/h.
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– High speed on the country roads costs approximately 30 people their lives every year. Therefore, we must maintain efforts to get more people to comply with the speed limits, because even small excesses can be read in the accident statistics.
– You cannot argue with the laws of physics, and therefore it is of great importance that more people comply with the speed limit.
– We must have even more – not least Judiciary – to take their foot off the accelerator and always obey the conditions for their own sake and that of others," says Jakob Boving Arendt, managing director of the Council for Safe Traffic, in a press release .
The decrease in speed has a positive effect on road safety. From 2017 to 2022, the number of people killed in speeding accidents on country roads fell by more than 40 percent.
In addition to lower speeds, safer roads and better technology in cars also play a role in reducing the number of traffic fatalities.
Assistant systems such as automatic emergency braking and lane assist help prevent accidents. But it is still decisive that the speed limits are observed. According to accident figures from 2018-2022, around 48 people lose their lives in traffic every year due to excessive speed, of which 30 on the country roads.
Marianne Foldberg Steffensen, department head for road safety in the Road Directorate, points to several reasons why motorists choose to slow down.
– For some drivers, the argument seems to be that it benefits road safety, while others have an economic incentive to lower the speed.
– We know from our surveys that almost half of the drivers on city and country roads have chosen to drive more slowly than they usually do within the last few years.
– It is especially a desire to save on fuel that motivates them. But even before fuel and energy prices rose, the average speed was falling. And it is good for road safety, she says.
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