Since Wales entered lockdown and begun its fight against Covid-19, we have seen a drop of over 70% in the volume of traffic on our roads. People have been listening to the Government advice and staying home to protect the NHS and to save lives.

Of course key workers must use the roads to get to work and essential travel to shop for food, for medical reasons or to care for a vulnerable person is permitted; and these road users have the right to travel safely on our roads.

Over the last few weeks we have seen more vehicles exceeding the speed limits to a higher extent. This not only increases the risk of collision and injury to the speeding motorists, but also to the other road users around them.

Our Casualty Reduction Officers have been deployed to numerous locations following concerns about speeding being reported to us from members of the public, concerned about the safety of their communities. They are there to protect, not target, key workers.

We are seeing more people walking and cycling during the Pandemic to get daily exercise within close proximity of the roads and therefore we have a duty to protect them as vulnerable road users.

Our deployment of casualty reduction vehicles across the four Welsh forces is based on emerging community concerns, specific intelligence of an individual or group of motorists causing anti-social behaviour on our roads as well as continuing to serve the locations with collision histories.

Even driving at 1mph over the limit increases the risk of collision and injury, but we are seeing speeds of sometimes double the speed limit which massively increases the risk. We enforce at the right place, at the right time, for the right reason – which is to protect all road users, to encourage compliance with the speed limit and to reduce collisions and casualties on our road network.

Our most successful sites are those which record zero offences as this shows compliance with the speed limit and that our enforcement has had the desired effect of reducing casualties and keeping communities safe.

Our lives have changed dramatically over the last few months, a short time for a “new normal” to emerge, where 2 meter social distancing, working from home, the closure of bars and restaurants and daily exercise with our households is now our way of life. But, one part of the “old normal” has remained the same – the speed limits, these have not changed.

Higher speeds on our roads will lead to more collisions, which leads to more casualties which will put more pressure on our NHS.

Please, play your part in keeping our communities safe, to reduce the risk of collisions and injuries and reduce the pressure on our NHS. We enforce to ensure compliance with the speed limit.

Remember – the world may have changed, but the speed limits have not.