Cycling UK’s campaigns manager Kier Gallagher said motorists should “give plenty of space when overtaking walkers, cyclists and horse riders”. Brake’s director of campaigns Joshua Harris added that dangerous blind bends that can hide people walking or cycling ahead.

Both charities also warn motorists to be aware of pedestrians who move out into the road in built up areas when following social distancing guidance.

In the capital, London Assembly transport member Caroline Russell called on the Government to introduce new emergency speed limits to save lives and reduce demand on the health service. She says the national default speed limit in England should be reduced to 20mph in urban areas and 50mph elsewhere during the Coronavirus crisis.

In a letter to the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps she said that no further road signage should be necessary, but added that a public information campaign could be introduced to make road users aware of new speed limits.

“Now is the time for national action to reduce the dangers we know so desperately need to be tackled,” she said. “These changes are possible as emergency national legislation and similar measures have been adopted previously in response to shortages of fuel.”

Also this week, road safety charity IAM RoadSmart called for roads policing efforts to be maintained during the lockdown. Policy and research director Neil Greig said it is important “to ensure that a selfish minority do not taint the vast majority of law abiding drivers who are behaving responsibly”.

He added: “Dealing with avoidable crashes is a huge and unnecessary burden on the emergency services at the moment and while we expect overall crash numbers to fall, this makes the targeting of excessive speeding related activity even more important than ever.”

(Photograph: Dariusz Gora – Shutterstock)