A and B road Speed limit review

[cuneus]

"MOST main rural roads throughout Suffolk could be subjected to a compulsory 50mph speed limit in a bid to cut accidents.

Results of a pilot study on all A and B classified roads in Mid Suffolk indicate that the cost to council tax payers of reducing the limit from the current national maximum 60mph would be £340,000.

The county council is following a Government directive which ordered all highways authorities to review speed limits on its A and B roads and to evaluate the likely impact.

In a report to next month's meeting of the Cabinet, the county council's director of environment and transport Lucy Robinson admits that imposing lower speed limits will not substantially reduce casualties on our roads.

But she added: “There is good evidence that the adherence to appropriate speed limits will reduce the severity of casualties in accidents and slightly reduce the occurrence of accidents overall.

“There is little doubt that reduced speeds will improve the quality of life for those living alongside the road.”

Altering speed limits in Mid-Suffolk has been estimated at £85,000, including the cost of statutory orders and advertisements. A Suffolk-wide scheme, excluding Ipswich and other urban centres, would be £340,000."

[fatboy b]

Unless the limits get enforced, then there's no need spending any money reducing them.

[supermono]

Sounds expensive. Are we abreast of the figures from the past 5-10 years? Because Suffolk have been following this strategy for a while now with speed limit reductions everywhere. Has it worked?

I guess it hasn't or they'd be quoting the figures here.

Is it a case of "We keep cutting speed limits yet accident figures don't improve so we'd better cut limits even more to see if that works."

The A12 has been systematically vandalised with the most absurd collection of speed limits, yet 5 people were killed there in 2006 in a pileup caused by a drink driver. What action have they taken against drink driving? Does anyone address the ACTUAL causes of accidents in Suffolk?

SM

[WildCat]

supermono said:

Sounds expensive. Are we abreast of the figures from the past 5-10 years? Because Suffolk have been following this strategy for a while now with speed limit reductions everywhere. Has it worked?

I guess it hasn't or they'd be quoting the figures here.

Is it a case of "We keep cutting speed limits yet accident figures don't improve so we'd better cut limits even more to see if that works."

The A12 has been systematically vandalised with the most absurd collection of speed limits, yet 5 people were killed there in 2006 in a pileup caused by a drink driver. What action have they taken against drink driving? Does anyone address the ACTUAL causes of accidents in Suffolk?

SM

That money would go a long way towards putting a real cop on the roads You can kill at any darned speed .. even a low one if the person you hit ist frail.

Why do they not focus on COAST und raising standards?

Ach.. sorry I forget .. I have wildest logic und they have the brain of a amoeba with "learning difficulties"

[supermono]

fatboy b said:

Unless the limits get enforced, then there's no need spending any money reducing them.

Oh they enforce them alright -- kerching.

But are you suggesting that a campaign of reducing speed limits even more will improve accident figures provided they're enforced?

I don't think there's any evidence to back up that position.

As someone who occasionally has to drive in Suffolk (but only when I have no alternative) I can tell you that this obsession with speed limits has created traffic chaos like you wouldn't believe -- especially on that A12, a major trunk route. In the 30 limits -- both those near houses and those new out of town political ones -- traffic comes to a complete standstill very often. Trucks clanking down and up, compression of traffic without doubt resulting in tail ending and concertina accidents (ok not life threatening but causing even more delay and of course increased insurance premiums for people who choose to buy insurance). There is frustration of people who used to happily waft along safely at 50/60 now being slowed down to <30mph by Guardians of the Speed Limit (self appointed slowsters who take a pride in causing traffic jams). Often this frustration in susceptible subjects results in dangerous overtaking manouvres and doubtless accidents "caused by speed".

I'll bet if you look deeply enough in the chain of command you'll find a speed camera businessman behind this. I've had numerous reports of people getting tickets through the post for like 36mph in a 30 where they can distinctly remember the journey in question and they were in a huge convoy and there was no sign of the van and everyone would have got a ticket.

There's something rotten in news reports like this one about Suffolk -- and it's starting to smell really bad.

SM

Edited by supermono on Wednesday 30th January 07:57

[Lostusernamedamn]

They pretend to believe slower = safer, but they know slower = more revenue. Simple, a tired old cliche, sad, but true.

[Puggit]

My dad is a local councillor in Suffolk, I'll see what he knows

[NobleGuy]

supermono said:

fatboy b said:

Unless the limits get enforced, then there's no need spending any money reducing them.

Oh they enforce them alright -- kerching.

But are you suggesting that a campaign of reducing speed limits even more will improve accident figures provided they're enforced?

I think he's saying that if there is no enforcement then there may as well be no limit at all.

[RNN14]

Consider yourself fortunate - over here in South Bucks it's 40...

[fatboy b]

supermono said:

fatboy b said:

Unless the limits get enforced, then there's no need spending any money reducing them.

Oh they enforce them alright -- kerching.

Not around Warwickshire. Many at time I've had to swerve out of the way as a Corsa/Clio or the like has whizzed past at ~70mph.

supermono said:

But are you suggesting that a campaign of reducing speed limits even more will improve accident figures provided they're enforced?.

No. I'm saying that unless limits are enforced in the coutryside, then there's no reason to have limits. Out of villages they're generally 60. People do in excess of that because they are not enforced. Making the limit 40 will do nothing, so why pay out all that money?

supermono said:

As someone who occasionally has to drive in Suffolk (but only when I have no alternative) I can tell you that this obsession with speed limits has created traffic chaos like you wouldn't believe -- especially on that A12, a major trunk route. In the 30 limits -- both those near houses and those new out of town political ones -- traffic comes to a complete standstill very often. Trucks clanking down and up, compression of traffic without doubt resulting in tail ending and concertina accidents (ok not life threatening but causing even more delay and of course increased insurance premiums for people who choose to buy insurance). There is frustration of people who used to happily waft along safely at 50/60 now being slowed down to <30mph by Guardians of the Speed Limit (self appointed slowsters who take a pride in causing traffic jams). Often this frustration in susceptible subjects results in dangerous overtaking manouvres and doubtless accidents "caused by speed".

So are you saying that it's OK to do over the limit to keep traffic moving?

supermono said:

I'll bet if you look deeply enough in the chain of command you'll find a speed camera businessman behind this. I've had numerous reports of people getting tickets through the post for like 36mph in a 30 where they can distinctly remember the journey in question and they were in a huge convoy and there was no sign of the van and everyone would have got a ticket.

36 is surely an indicated 40 on the speedo?

[supermono]

fatboy b said:

Many at time I've had to swerve out of the way as a Corsa/Clio or the like has whizzed past at ~70mph.

How so? Are they kamikazee drivers trying to actually drive right into you!? I've never seen this. You actually HAVE to swerve out of their way. Please go on and explain the circumstances when this last happened. Did you get his number?

fatboy b said:

So are you saying that it's OK to do over the limit to keep traffic moving?

That's not the point I'm making -- read what I said. These 30 limits on the A12 which used to be 60 are causing traffic to come to a standstill -- zero miles per hour. And that's costly for business (time) and causes accidents with daydreamers which costs insurance premiums to everyone. The 30 limits have appeared for no good reason, probably by residents who bought houses cheap because they were close to a major trunk route then relentlessly campaigned for a 30 limit ("think of the children" ) to sort out the traffic drone and bolster their house price.

The dimwitted councils attuned to the "speed kills" nonsense and greedy with the possibility of running speed tax collection businesses are easily lead and thus you get ludicrous peppering of speed limits and no improvement in road safety.

fatboy b said:

36 is surely an indicated 40 on the speedo?

Very true. And gravity is less strong on the moon than on the earth.

SM

Edited by supermono on Thursday 31st January 08:11

[fatboy b]

supermono said:

boring stuff

Edited by fatboy b on Thursday 31st January 10:04

[Bing o]

Looking at it from a wider perspective, all the councils we say "It costs a lot of money to change the signing" so the Government will reduce the NSL on a SC to 50mph.

The set up has started...

[cuneus]

Bing o said:

Looking at it from a wider perspective, all the councils we say "It costs a lot of money to change the signing" so the Government will reduce the NSL on a SC to 50mph.

The set up has started...

You should be goverment

[Bing o]

cuneus said:

Bing o said:

Looking at it from a wider perspective, all the councils we say "It costs a lot of money to change the signing" so the Government will reduce the NSL on a SC to 50mph.

The set up has started...

You should be goverment

After 11 years of this shower, their tactics are becoming obvious.

Derestrict non-urban roads - job done.

[cuneus]

http://www.eadt.co.uk/content/eadt/default/Default...

get voting

[supermono]

Good work. My vote is cast. See they're diluting the "leave it alone" bridage by giving them a "no limit" option which I considered. Their propaganda won't add no limit to 60 limit votes meaning their preferred 50mph will look less unpopular.

SM

[Bing o]

supermono said:

Good work. My vote is cast. See they're diluting the "leave it alone" bridage by giving them a "no limit" option which I considered. Their propaganda won't add no limit to 60 limit votes meaning their preferred 50mph will look less unpopular.

SM

Voted and Posted in GG as well

[corozin]

article said:

"MOST main rural roads throughout Suffolk could be subjected to a compulsory 50mph speed limit in a bid to cut accidents.

So... they don't actually know if reducing the limits will work or not, but they're just going to try. Of course if it doesn't reduce accidents, or makes no difference, the original limits won't be restored will they? Of course not, but we'll be able to tag more motorists for speeding by using a lower target speed.

article said:

Results of a pilot study on all A and B classified roads in Mid Suffolk indicate that the cost to council tax payers of reducing the limit from the current national maximum 60mph would be £340,000.

That does sound like an awful lot of money to me, to spend on 'guessing' that a reduction in the limit will reduce accidents. Of course once the money is spent, if the 'guess' fails it will be even harder to justify spending a further £340k to restore the original signage, which kinda reinforces my first point.

article said:

The county council is following a Government directive which ordered all highways authorities to review speed limits on its A and B roads and to evaluate the likely impact.

And thats the point right there that's been missed. The Government only demanded a review. There is no obligation to commit hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money to changing anything, and certainly not when the change is based on a 'guess' rather than any real review of data (which would indicate that more accidents are caused by failure to look & failure to judge speed/distance - the two main recorded causes of accidents)

article said:

In a report to next month's meeting of the Cabinet, the county council's director of environment and transport Lucy Robinson admits that imposing lower speed limits will not substantially reduce casualties on our roads.

Which kind of reinforces the point about why are these limits being reduced at such great expense?

article said:

But she added: “There is good evidence that the adherence to appropriate speed limits will reduce the severity of casualties in accidents and slightly reduce the occurrence of accidents overall.

Which would infer that enforecement of the existing limits might be a preferable and cheaper option than irrevesably changing the county's roadsigns wouldn't it?

article said:

“There is little doubt that reduced speeds will improve the quality of life for those living alongside the road.”

Well that's a purely subjective statement isn't it, especially since residential areas (including even villages) already have 30mph & 40mph limits - lower than the blanket which has been proposed

article said:

Altering speed limits in Mid-Suffolk has been estimated at £85,000, including the cost of statutory orders and advertisements. A Suffolk-wide scheme, excluding Ipswich and other urban centres, would be £340,000."

Nice work if you can get it. The boys in legal, marketing and signeage now have budgeted work for a few months. Of course the county's potholes and worn out roads won't be getting fixed instead but that is missing the point really isn't it (which is to be SEEN to be doing something rather than actually fixiing something)

Edited by corozin on Thursday 31st January 12:58

[supermono]

corozin said:

Of course if it doesn't reduce accidents, or makes no difference, the original limits won't be restored will they?

No they'll reduce them some more if when it doesn't work because they're imbeciles.

SM

edited for accuracy

Edited by supermono on Thursday 31st January 13:02