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Currently the speed limit on the vast majority of single carriageway roads outside towns and cities is 60mph, although some local authorities have imposed lower limits on sections with particularly bad collision records. Ministers have been struck by figures, which have shown that a higher proportion of collisions happen on single carriageway A roads in the countryside than on other parts of the network. In 2007 there were 2,946 deaths and 30,000 serious injuries on British roads, with speed being a factor in 29 per cent of them. Some years ago Britain was top of the world league on road safety but has slipped down the chart recently. Jim Fitzpatrick, the road safety minister, is understood to want to get the UK back to the top of the league and to believe that a cut from 60mph to 50mph for rural single carriageways would help achieve this target. Such a move would come in addition to a swathe of other proposals unveiled by the government last year, including a new penalty of six points on a driving licence for motorists who broke speed limits "excessively", meaning they could receive a driving ban after two such offences.