LETTER: 60mph limit shocks me most

I'm pleased to see residents of Priory Street and Southover High Street campaigning to reduce the speed limit in their area but as a rural resident of Plumpton parish what shocks me most is the 60mph national speed limit on country roads.

I’ve seen a horse rider thrown because of a speeding car, (surviving with only a few cuts because she landed in a hedge and a cyclist caught her horse), and a young colleague of mine has been repeatedly knocked off his bike just trying to get to work on dark mornings.

Country people are not born with driving licences, unless the speed limit on country roads is reduced to 40 mph there will continue to be senseless road accidents involving horses and cyclists.

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Do we really want the Sussex countryside denuded of young people who have the motivation to cycle to work? Of pedestrians who find a downland path ends on a road? Of horse riders who only want to exercise their beasts? I think this is a matter of mutual consideration and a reduced speed limit lays down a marker as to what society finds acceptable.

Jerry Gould

(ESCC Prospective Labour Candidate; Ouse Valley West and the Downs)

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