West Bengal government has notified new speed limits for vehicles, ranging from 10 km to 50 km per hour depending on school and market areas, across the state to reduce road accidents. The speed limit on all urban and non-urban roads passing through market and residential areas with significant interactions between motor vehicles and people has been restricted to 30 km/hour to keep the risk of fatality within 10 per cent only, they said. In school zones, the same has been restricted to 25 km/hour. The maximum speed limit in urban areas has been capped at 50 km/hour, following the “global best practices factoring the situation in the country and the state”, an official said.
The speed limit for buses has been confined to 20 km/hour, which can be reduced to 10 km/hour in certain pockets of the city. The state adopted a scientific speed management policy, which was prepared after getting the technical guidance of IIT Kharagpur, he said.
