Road safety – How Haute-Marne and Seine-et-Marne are attempting a timid return to 90 km-h … –

How Haute-Marne and Seine-et-Marne attempt a timid return to 90 km / h…

Road safety - How Haute-Marne and Seine-et-Marne are attempting a timid return to 90 km-h ... -

Haute-Marne (52) and Seine-et-Marne (77) are the first two departments in France to return to 90 km / h on a – small – part of their secondary network, in accordance with the relaxation of the speed limit of 80 km / h voted by the deputies. Explanations.

Nearly 500 km of roads have again been limited to 90 km / h since January 9 in Haute-Marne, a year and a half after the entry into force of the reduction to 80 km / h on two-way roads without central divider. This department of the Grand Est region – and its long flat and rectilinear axes – is the French pioneer in this "return" to the 90.

  • MNC special file : 

"Here, the car is life", explains the president of the Haute-Marne departmental council. "Losing your license means risking losing your job", pleads Nicolas Lacroix (52), assuring that he has seen no "improvement in terms of accidents since returning to 80 km / h".

Showdown between the government and the departments

Let us recall that if the limitation to 80 km / h remains the rule in force throughout the national territory, a "relaxation" of this contested measure was voted by the National Assembly in order to leave the departments which wish it the freedom to restore the 90 km / h on some of their sections. When this decision was announced last June, 48 departments were in favor. !

Road safety - How Haute-Marne and Seine-et-Marne are attempting a timid return to 90 km-h ... -

Since then, many of them have however become more hesitant about the procedure to follow: local elected officials fear being designated as responsible in the event of accidents, as government officials cleverly imply, including Prime Minister Edouard Philipe. – Advocate General of the 80 – and the Minister of the Interior.

  • MNC of July 11, 2019 : 206 lives saved thanks to 80 km / h according to the Minister of the Interior 

In July 2019, Christophe Castaner warned that the choice of the departments to return to 90 km / h entailed in his eyes "the responsibility of deciding on this speed increase which will certainly please some, will save one second per kilometer. , but could also cause the death of someone "… The stage was set !

The labors of Hercules-recule of the CNSR

Another reason for hesitation: the list of invented this summer by the National Road Safety Council (CNSR) for the attention of department presidents wishing to return to normal at 90 km / h…

  • MNC of August 22, 2019 :

Among them, the limitation of this increase in speed only to axes of 10 km minimum, without stopping public transport or houses on the side or crossings of municipalities. In addition, agricultural machinery must not circulate there, which deliberately complicates things in rural areas where tractors and small close villages are part of the landscape. !

This is the reason why Haute-Marne is re-establishing 90 km / h over only 476 km, while its network has 4000 km: the rest is not eligible! And to say that the replacement of the panels already reached alone "100,000 euros", at the expense of the department, reveals its president. All that for this…

Abandonment of the 80 km / h planned for March in Seine-et-Marne

Seine-et-Marne is the second department to have announced at the start of 2020 the increase in speed on part of its roads, which will come into force in the spring for an estimated cost of "500,000 euros" – still at the expense of the department … and therefore of its inhabitants !

Road safety - How Haute-Marne and Seine-et-Marne are attempting a timid return to 90 km-h ... -

Before deciding, this department of the Parisian suburbs explains having carried out a study on "the accidentology, the type of traffic, the observed speeds, the configuration of the roadway, the environment" – as required by the legislator – to identify "490 km of roads which will be able to return to 90 km / h from the end of March in complete safety".

According to Patrick Septiers, president (UDI) of the departmental council, lowering the speed to 80 km / h "penalized road users, in particular the Seine-et-Marnais who do not benefit from a public transport network dense".

As provided by law, the Seine-et-Marne community will now refer the matter to the departmental road safety commission which will issue a simply "advisory" opinion. In the case of Haute-Marne, the department returned to 90 km / h without even waiting for the delivery of the commission’s opinion. !

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