Time to bring back the Red Flag for cars in the UK

News today that reducing the speed limit in UK cities to 20mph saves 42% of casualties and that this should be rolled out forthwith - BBC.

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine study estimates 20mph zones have the potential to prevent up to 700 casualties in London alone.

Now, some people are very grumpy and feel that this would spoil the ability of cars to move on roads and thus fulfil their purpose, and others feel that the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine should carry on working in Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, not Traffic managment, But we feel they haven't gone far enough.

Why stop at 20mph? Surely every life is sacred? For example, if we can save 42% ( 700 lives in London - pop 11mn ) then if we went down to 10mph we could save say 66%!. In fact, why not go back to the Locomotive Act of 1865 - having a man with a red flag walk in front at 4 mph, as they did a hundred years ago. That's bound to get to 90% + saved.

And it would of course ensure that the country was totally green and we hit our emission reduction targets as no one would really use a car anymore, plus if we put up the price of public transport by 500% we could repay the national debt in just a few years. Bonus!

Now we would not propose that it goes to 0 mph and 100% lives saved, as that means no one would buy cars anymore, and that is bad for the economy