WE drive the route regularly and know every bend and dip. The roads are quieter than in town, there has never been a cyclist around the bend before and so it seems safe to put our foot down.

The truth is, it is rarely more dangerous with motorists three-and-a-half times more likely to die driving in the countryside than in towns.

And soon the brakes could be on with the speed limits on all rural roads being reviewed in the light of such statistics.

Three in four motorists think the current 60mph speed limit on rural roads is too high.

And more than 60 per cent believe the driving test should include tuition on how to drive on country routes, a Direct Line poll this week revealed.

Two in three motorists did not know the rural road speed limit and more than half called for more speed signs.

A quarter admitted speeding with some 38 per cent citing less traffic and 33 per cent fewer pedestrians as excuses.

Figures from the Department of Transport show that out of 1,663 car drivers and passengers killed in 2004, 1,133 lost their lives on rural roads.

Concerned, the insurance company has called for the speed limit to be reduced from 60mph to 40mph. But leader of the road safety team for Dorset County Council Rob Smith, who is looking at the issue locally and consulting all necessary parties including the police and fire service, is unconvinced a blanket rule would work.

"We have rural roads that are straight with good visibility, those that are straight but undulate, some have bends, some are wide, some narrow. There is no one size fits all," he said.

And you cannot always engineer the problem out, he added.

Engineering, education and enforcement are needed. Reducing the speed limit on its own is not enough, he explained.

The A35 between Bere Regis and the Bakers Arms roundabout at Lytchett Minster has been identified as one stretch that would benefit from a series of measures, including offering regular users and local people opportunities to drive the route with an instructor to refresh their skills.

"People don't expect the unexpected around a bend on a rural road. This is their regular route and there hasn't been a cyclist, pedestrian, horse-rider or wild animal every time they have driven it. But just because there wasn't that situation yesterday or today doesn't mean there won't be tomorrow.

"The worst case scenario if you are driving too fast on a rural road, one you drive on regularly on auto-pilot, is for you to face yourself coming the other way. Neither driver is expecting the other one to be there."

Pip Finucane, who now lives in Bournemouth, lost her husband when a car hit him just a few minutes from their home in Surrey nearly 11 years ago.

She since joined RoadPeace, a charity formed in 1992 to represent and support victims of road death and injury.

"Speed is a factor in an enormous number of accidents. The higher the speed the more likely there are to be fatalities and very serious injuries," she said.

"Rural roads are a nightmare. People are driving at speed where there are a lot of bends and you haven't got the line of sight far enough ahead to be able to stop in time if something is coming.

"You do see such a poor standard of driving generally on our roads. There still needs to be a much greater understanding of the risks involved. When young people get their licence, further training should be mandatory. The basic training really isn't sufficient."

This month is National Road Victim Month. It was chosen because anniversaries of the deaths of the first person in Britain to be killed by a car Bridget Driscoll on August 17 1896 and Diana, Princess of Wales, who died in Paris on August 31 1997, fall during the month.

It is also a time holidaymakers are out and about on roads they do not necessarily know.

One of the charity's trustees Rita Taylor added: "Rural roads must be treated with respect. People look at them and think there is not much traffic so they can put their foot down and go. But you don't know what's coming."

Dorset figures show a more even balance between deaths on urban and rural roads, but still two people on average lose their life on our country roads every month.

Of all the accidents on rural roads (speed limit of 50mph or over) over the past three years in Dorset, 16 per cent resulted in death or serious injury. The figure was 12 per cent for urban roads.

In 2003, 2004 and 2005, 74 people were killed on the county's rural roads.

Some 403 were seriously injured over that time and 2,549 were slightly injured.