Devon County Council is hoping to pilot a ‘green speed’ rural zone to encourage greater driver awareness of vulnerable road users. The council plans to eschew a prescriptive speed limit in favour of a green-coloured de-restricted ‘shared road’ sign accompanied by a pictogram depicting vulnerable users. The scheme would apply to unclassified and some C roads, often characterised by mixed usage and high hedge banks. The scheme is part of Devon’s country mile project, funded by the Department for Transport’s £8M rural road safety demonstration project. The other three rural road safety beacon authorities – Lincolnshire, Norfolk (Surveyor 21 August 2008) and Northamptonshire county councils – are also participating. Peter Gimber, Devon’s road safety manager, said the ‘green zone’ would reduce signage, road clutter and maintenance costs, while increasing mixed use of the road. He said it was a rebranding exercise on how to approach rural roads and would not require a change in speed limit, as it works on the basis of a rural rebrand of an existing limit. ‘I think the intention of green zones, if successful, would be to roll them out systematically to all that part of an authority’s unclassified and possibly some C road rural network,’ he added. ‘We would not expect the green zone to result in drivers lowering their speeds dramatically, but rather lead to a culture of greater awareness of others, more caution and more restraint.’ By and large, Gimber said, a 30mph zone in a village is unenforceable. ‘We couldn’t possibly engineer a shared space philosophy on 12,000 km of rural roads, like in home zones’. The trial would take place in a village near Exeter but the residents don’t know about it yet. A DfT spokesman said it would consider the scheme for wider application depending on its success. Experimental approval is expected within the next few months. The areas chosen for the overall project include 10km of dual carriageway, 293km of other A-class roads and 880km of unclassified roads. Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire said their demonstration projects would be data-led and would combine the three ‘E’s’ of education, engineering and enforcement.