The coronavirus we will have at least learned one thing : to evaluate the efficacy of a treatment, there must be measures scientifically rigorous. And a context unchanged throughout the experiment to draw conclusions indisputable. The 80 km/h, even more than the hydroxychloroquine, has suffered the vagaries of context and the approximations of the measures. Two years after the beginning of the experience given to regret by Édouard Philippe, to the origin of the initiative, it is the great failure.
it All really began a few weeks after the start of the experiment, in the fall of 2018. The province soon realized that the measure decreed at Paris directly, and penalize while the capital is not affected. The yellow Vests are born in particular to this hiatus, with the support, dams, and destruction of radars. The strikes in the transport will follow, and then two months of confinement, which will let the cars in the garage.
At the end of this phase of the experiment, only two years, while the statisticians advocate five years, the limitation to 80 km/h speed on certain roads to two-way without centre divider has a record truncated by the crises faced by the executive. Since July 1, 2018, are 400 000 km of roads, 40% of the road network that are affected by the objective of the Prime minister : save ” 300 to 400 lives per year “.
double up
The date of 1 July 2020 is critical, because, before the outcry, a clause revoyure was introduced to this deadline. Double-or-nothing in terms of outcomes, that is the question. It probed to the approach of the term in a political context between imminence of a government reshuffle which could make the charge Édouard Philippe, socio-economic crisis and health and in the possibility of lowering it to 110 km/h over the speed limit on the highways, Matignon says that ” the Prime minister will speak when he will have work for the conclusion of two years of experimentation “.
Gold those, entrusted to us by the road Safety Cerema (Center of studies and expertise on risks, environment, mobility and planning), are still in progress, has one learned from source close to the dossier, because they must take into account the sharp fall in the number of road deaths linked to the containment (- 39.6% in march, – 55.8% in April, -15,6 % in may).
” Should we neutralize the two months of confinement ? If yes, how ? Otherwise, how to pass the induced effect on mortality ? This is in reflection to propose the balance sheet as honestly as possible, knowing that it is a matter of controversy “, adds the same source.
Stone Chasseray, general delegate of the association 40 Million motorists, as opposed to a general limit of 80 km/h, balance between ” pragmatism and common sense “.
” The pragmatism insists that we extend the experiment, so that good sense makes you say that the measure does not market, because we have not had the economy of the 400 or 450 lives promised by year “, develop.
A balance sheet, what is balance sheet ?
In the camp in front, Anne Lavaud, general delegate of road safety, believes that the only balance sheet ” that has demonstrated its effectiveness is the one in the second half of 2018, in which 127 lives were saved, in metropolitan France, out-of-town and off-highway, compared to the average for the second six months of 2013 to 2017. A little lean, the six months studied, while the experts are calling for a period ten times longer.
According to the road Safety, roads where the speed has been lowered to 80 km/h contribute to 90 % mortality out-of-town and off-highway. And they had focused, in 2017, 55% of fatal accidents.
For Anne Lavaud, any balance after that date to 2017 “has no meaning because all parameters from device” then changed with first, from December 2018, the destruction of radars linked to the crisis of the yellow Vests.
and Then, in the face of violent reactions, deputies have eased the device in June 2019, by offering an opportunity for departments to raise the maximum speed to 90 km/h. A little more than a third have done so, the vast majority of these on a small portion of their routes, especially due to severe conditions recommended.
Iron at 90 km/h has been made possible that, once enacted, at the end of December 2019, the law of orientation of mobility (LOM), “but many of French thought since the summer of 2019 that we could again driving 90 km/h,” according to Anne Lavaud. This truncates also the balance sheet.
Finally, from December 2019, the strike against the pension reform has changed the travel habits, before, therefore, the containment.
“It is clear that it has not benefited from the best conditions to prove, if need was, that lowering the maximum speed was equivalent to reducing the number of deaths,” says Chantal Perrichon, president of the League against road violence, which ” do not imagine for one moment that the eventual new government to come back on the 80 km/h “. A prognosis is pretty hard to find then that, in diplomatic terms, the president Macron just return the 110 km/h to the dustbin. A crisis of yellow Vests is enough, no need to add more.
Consult our folder : 80 km/h on roads : the brake does not pass
