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The speed limit on some of London’s busiest main roads is to be slashed to 20mph in a radical attempt to save lives.

Transport for London is launching trials in a bid to reduce the number of pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists killed or seriously injured by 40 per cent by 2020.

Eight pilot schemes will be run on Red Routes, the main roads that carry a third of the city’s traffic. Areas such as King’s Cross and Farringdon Road — notorious for cycle deaths nearby — have been chosen because of the greatest potential to reduce casualties.

A total of 132 victims were killed in road collisions across London in 2013, while 27,167 were injured — 2,192 seriously. Drivers risk £100 fines and three points on their licence if they break the new limit, to be enforced by digital speed cameras and random patrols by the Met’s 2,300-officer traffic task force. Traffic lights will be re-phased to make it harder to speed.

The move builds on 20mph zones already imposed in residential areas in Camden, Islington and the City of London. The first pilot scheme road to convert to 20mph will be Commercial Street in Shoreditch next month, linking into plans for Tower Hamlets and Hackney to become 20mph boroughs.

If the 18-month trials are judged a success, 20mph limits will be made permanent and imposed on a further 30 miles of Red Routes seen by TfL as “more local road than motorway”.

Boroughs in each trial area will be encouraged to impose 20mph limits on all roads. Some 175 miles of residential streets, about a quarter of London’s roads, already have 20mph limits.

Mayor Boris Johnson wants 10,000 fewer road casualties by the end of the decade. Deputy mayor for transport Isabel Dedring told the Standard: “Nearly 80 per cent of people killed or badly hurt are vulnerable road users — cyclists, pedestrians or motorcyclists.

“We’re trying to focus much more on this group and what we can do to help them. This doesn’t necessarily have a huge impact on average speeds or journey times through these locations but does have an impact on injury rates.”

THE ROUTES AFFECTED

Commercial Street, Tower Hamlets

Upper Street and Holloway Road (Between Pentonville Road and Seven Sisters Road)

Westminster Bridge, Stamford Street and Southwark Street (Between Victoria Embankment to Borough High Street — This trial would also incorporate the previous 20mph trial at Waterloo Roundabout)

Brixton Town Centre (Between St Matthews Road and Stockwell Park Walk)

Clapham High Street (Between Clapham Park Road and Bedford Road, which forms part of Cycle Superhighway 7)

Earls Court Road and Redcliffe Gardens (Between A4 Cromwell Road and Fulham Road)

King's Cross Road and Farringdon Road (Between Pentonville Road and Charterhouse Road, linking up with the previous 20mph trial along Farringdon Street and Blackfriars Bridge)

Camden Street (Between Camden Road and Crowndale Road)

The number of people killed or seriously injured on London’s roads fell 23 per cent, from 3,018 to 2,324, between 2012 and 2013. Figures for last year are yet to be published.

But 2015 has seen a surge in road deaths, including a man killed by a lorry in Commercial Road yesterday and a motorcyclist — leading organist Nicholas Gale, 39 — in Kensington High Street on Tuesday.

Road safety campaigner and Islington Green councillor Caroline Russell said: “The pilot scheme is a real step forward to reducing road danger.

“Islington already has 20mph limits on all its roads. It makes total sense to include TfL ones. It will make no difference to people’s journey times. The speed you drive between traffic signals has no impact on the number of people who get through the lights.”

Many London drivers backed the idea. Chloe Van Leeuwen, 28, of Newbury Park, said: “The speed limit should be reduced. But I still wouldn’t cycle in London till we have segregated lanes.”

Cabbie Paul Stokes, 50, from Angel, said: “If this saves lives I’m all for it.”

But Kate Cairns, who launched the See Me Save Me campaign after her sister Eilidh, 30, was killed by a lorry in Notting Hill in 2009, said: “Reducing the speed of trucks will not prevent deaths, because we know that a lorry can kill at 2mph.”