Villagers reveal renewed drive to clampdown on speeding, as 50mph trial extended
Last updated 9th Nov 2026
Road safety campaigners from a community in the Scottish Borders want to create an offenders register for speeding motorists, in a effort to shame companies whose drivers repeatedly ignore the speed limit.
Stow Community Trust is asking locals to report commercial vehicles travelling too fast through the village, which straddles the A7, with the information used to build a list of the worst offending companies.
It's hoped the campaign will embarrass firms into warning their drivers to slow down.
Grace Murray, from Stow Community Trust, told Greatest Hits Radio: “If we're going to make any change, we have to have information.”
She said residents would be encouraged to contact companies when their vehicles were seen speeding, and then let the trust know when they had done so.
“We're going to start keeping a register of which particular companies are particularly bad,” she said.
"We need to embarrass these companies so that they actually do something and speak to their drivers and try and slow things down. Hopefully, as well, that information will help the council when they come to making decisions too."
Grace said the problem was particularly concerning for people living along the village's main road, despite the 20mph limit.
“It's quite intimidating to even walk through our own village with the speed of some of the vehicles, especially the commercial vehicles,” she said.
"Legally, every commercial vehicle over three-and-a-half tons has to have a tachograph so all of those companies know what speeds the drivers are doing, and they're actually making folk in the village frightened to walk along the street. That's not right."
WATCH: Click on the link below to view our video report...
The trust chairwoman revealed she ultimately wants to see average speed cameras installed.
"If you sit in somebody's sitting room along the main road, you sometimes feel the building moving because the traffic is going so fast," she explained.
"Very often that's at night when the roads are quieter and folk think: 'Well, it doesn't matter, because it's at night."
But she added: "It does matter. There could still be people walking about with families and so on, and they're in danger at the speed that people are driving; and we've got to stop that and we've got to take control."
Her comments come as it emerged a 50-mile-an-hour speed-limit trial on four roads in the Borders, which previously had a 60 limit - including the A7 north of Galashiels - is being extended for another 18 months.
An independent evaluation by Edinburgh Napier University's Transport Research Institute found that the number of casualties across all road user groups fell from 22 in 2024 to 8 in 2025. On the A6088, there were three motorcycle fatalities in 2024, compared with no casualties involving any road user group in 2025. On the A7, casualties fell from 15 in 2024 to five in 2025.
READ MORE: £315,000 improvements create 'safer bus stop' at Borders General Hospital
As well as the A7 north of Galashiels to the Midlothian border, the trial covers three other routes with a history of casualties, which are popular with motorcyclists: the B6357 from Carter Bar, the A708 between Moffat and Selkirk, and the A6088 between Kielder and Bonchester Bridge.
The scheme has been funded through Transport Scotland’s Road Safety Improvement Fund.
But researchers say more time is needed to establish whether that's linked to the lower limits, which were introduced in April 2025 at the request of Police Scotland amid concerns over the number of motorcycle crashes on rural roads in the Scottish Borders.
Fraser Brydon, from the Borders Group of Advanced Motorists, said any reduction in casualties was welcome, but believes more education is also needed.
He said: "On one of the roads they've got casualties in the cars down from two to one, is that a real justification for hammering the motorists and reducing speed?
"We've also got to consider the road surface which is deteriorating and not getting any better, and we've got another winter coming along.
"They're extending it for a further 18 months as they want to get some more statistics to back up the information they've got. I find that odd because there's nothing on those roads to suggest anything's being counted, the volume (of traffic) is being counted.
"Add to that roads policing has been withdrawn in the Scottish Borders so drivers, motorbikers know the chances of them being caught for speeding has been reduced quite dramatically."
For more stories from the Scottish Borders and North Northumberland, bookmark our home page - https://hellorayo.co.uk/greatest-hits/borders/news/