A proposal for a new initiative to tackle excessive speed in urban areas will be debated at a council meeting later this week. Adding to a motion calling for proper consultation on 20mph speed limits and the extension of the ‘Made you look' road safety education programme, Coun. Ruth Potter is calling for the Ecuadorian ‘blue hearts' initiative to be introduced in York.

She says:

"The corazones azules (blue hearts) campaign in Ecuador involves the painting of blue hearts on roads at points where people have died or been seriously injured at road traffic incident hot spots. It is a simple and I believe effective way of alerting drivers to the dangers of excessive speed. It is also very cheap.

"Labour has been campaigning for reducing the speed limit in residential areas to 20mph for over 2 years now, as we believe it will have a positive impact on those killed and seriously injured in the city. A speed limit reduction is just one of the measures that we should be taking to improve road safety, and there are others measures within this motion that are necessary and worthy of our support.

"There is a groundswell of support for a 20mph speed limit in particular and the Liberal Democrats will simply find themselves playing catch up if they don't listen to public opinion and get on board with this policy now".