Call for more camera-enforced 20mph zone

• Government advisers want more 20mph zones
• Cameras to track average speed
• Measures intended to cut urban road deaths

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A team of Government advisers has called for more 20mph limits in towns in order to cut the number of road deaths.

PACTS, the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, has said to the Department for Transport that a default speed of 20mph in town centres could halve the number of deaths on Britain's roads within the next few years.

It also said that the zones should be enforced with a new generation of cameras that track a car's average speed, and that these cameras should be a priority for the Home Office.

Cameras are seen as more car-friendly than speed bumps, which, along with chicanes, are expensive to build and maintain, and are unpopular, PACTS says.

Speed bumps also cause an increase in vehicle noise and emissions, and the London Ambulance Service estimates that speed bumps claim up to 500 lives a year because crews are delayed in reaching cardiac arrest victims.