Hundreds of people living in Royston and the surrounding areas have signed a petition for the speed limit to be reduced on the A505.
The petition calls for a reduced speed limit between Odsey and Slip End - the site of numerous road incidents - and has been signed by 549 people, with an additional 150 or so who live outside the administrative boundary.
Royston Liberal Democrat Cllr Ruth Brown presented the petition to Herts County Council's Highways and Transport Panel on Wednesday, September 13.
She said: "I explained the history of the road, the problems with traffic going the wrong way and the many accidents at the junctions but the highway officers said that there hadn’t been enough accidents close together and that the traffic was going too fast for the speed limit to be reduced.
"Everyone I have spoken to thinks it’s crazy to say that the speed limit should just be set to whatever speed traffic is travelling at. The whole point of speed limits is to slow down traffic."
Herts County Council has previously said that the speed limit should be in keeping with the road's environment, and that on rural dual carriageways such as the A505 the National Speed Limit of 70mph is generally appropriate.
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Cllr Steve Jarvis, Lib Dem county councillor for Royston West and Rural, said: "There has been a long battle to get something done to make this section of the A505 safer.
"The ideal solution would be to redesign the junctions but obviously this would be expensive and take time.
"Reducing the speed limit past the junctions where most accidents occur would be a simple, quick and cheap way to improve things.
"There are already speed cameras so there would be no problem in enforcing the new limit.
"I have started the process to get the extra data that the Highways Panel wanted. Hopefully we can get this before too long and persuade them that not reducing the speed limit because the traffic is going too fast is just ridiculous."
Campaigners anticipate it will take "some months" for the panel to consider the petition.
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