New 20mph limit definitely not a waste of time
From next year, all urban Welsh roads will likely go from a 30mph speed limit to 20mph. Spiffing
Have you driven at 20mph past a school or hospital recently? Well done you. This is an appropriate speed for avoiding the precious baby children or a chap on crutches. You might have been minded to go slower still, in fact. Tremendous. This is all part and parcel of what’s known as ‘adapting to the road conditions’, and it shows you are a sensible, considerate human being. What you will probably not have done before is drive at 20mph along what is clearly a main road that just so happens to be going through a town. You will have not done this because there is no earthly reason for doing so. Unless you happen to be in Wales from September 2023, that is.
Because from then on - assuming the Welsh parliament votes in the legislation’s favour today - any road that was previously a 30mph stretch in Wales will automatically adopt the lower 20mph limit. Which, if nothing else, is going to make some journeys excruciatingly slow. As any PHer living in Wales will tell you - particularly in the more heavily populated south - Welsh towns and villages are often not strung together on majestic stretches of national limit B road, they are situated along minor roads snaking their way up and down valleys. Getting between them at 30mph is not the work of a moment now. In the future it will likely take up all the time you’ve got.
Naturally the Welsh government think this is a splendid way of encouraging people to walk or bicycle, which is terrific news for young families or the elderly or for anyone with anything larger than a wallet to take somewhere or for anyone with somewhere to go that isn’t within a three-mile radius of their house. Of course, driving at 20mph, there is less chance they might greviously injure a precious baby child or a chap on crutches along the way - except the chances of that happening were already infinitesimally small because, as some opponents adroitly pointed out, people generally don’t let their precious baby children walk along main roads. And chaps on crutches don’t want to. They want to go in a car or on the bus. Because it used to be quicker.
Thankfully this nationwide wheeze - said to be the first of its kind in the world - will only cost the taxpayer £33m to adopt, money that definitely couldn’t have been better spent up upgrading the country’s woeful charging infrastructure or its public transport network. And, better yet, an even bigger made-up number says that it will only take a trifling 30 years to recoup that money (or better it) thanks to the savings achieved on projected (i.e. imaginary) hospital treatment. Also, the local population is totally behind it. Or a minority are, at least. The majority, perhaps sensing the massive imposition on their time for little to no tangible gain, voiced their opposition in the government-commissioned consultation.
Accordingly, and presumably begrudgingly, local authorities will be handed the power to make exceptions to the 20mph limit where it is not considered appropriate - a policy endorsed just last year by Neil Greig, the Director of Policy & Research at IAM RoadSmart, the UK’s largest independent road safety charity. “Improving road safety is key but a blanket ban on reducing 30mph speed limits to 20mph speed limits isn’t necessarily the best route,” he said, presciently. “Each situation needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis, with local considerations and consultation playing an important role.”
Of course, that loophole won’t mean every road not directly adjacent to a school or library or hospital or else in a legitimately built-up residential area will automatically remain 30mph. Each local authority - always a bastion of well-thought out and timely proposals - will want to be absolutely sure that its exception to the blanket rule is not in fact a meeting place for precious baby children or chaps on crutches. Obviously you should expect that process to be totally seamless and fast moving. Much like the rest of the future Welsh road network.
In my view blanket 20mph speed limits are dangerous - as most drivers will ignore them, and specific areas that are higher risk (i.e. outside schools) no longer have a dedicated lower speed limit (that is largely adhered to) to protect the vulnerable.
It will be interesting to see what the public reaction to this is...
I always think back to the 70 limit on Motorways at a time when most vehicles could hardly get there. I understand it was done to be seeing to be doing something rather than that any evidence existed to back its introduction and the government didn't want to spend on central reservations.
As I said I may be wrong on both counts, but I suspect a lot of government legislation is done for show rather than for real reasons, yes i know, I'm a cynical old git!
The UK DfT guidance says that there should be no additional expectation of enforcement by the Police, and the Police that actually sign off the traffic orders expect the 20mph limits to be self enforcing (by means of physical measures in rare circumstances, or more commonly simply by putting additional signing in/road markings down). If you don't see Plod regularly enforcing 30mph limits along a particular stretch of road, then it is very unlikely that you will see them enforcing 20mph limits. So removing front number plates is a bit of an over-reaction.
I know because (today, as it happens) I have made (or, helped make) large areas of my home town 20mph, and in a previous life I made the entire of a local City centre 20mph. The world didn't end. Traffic still goes in and out. It takes roughly the same amount of time to get from one side of the City to the other. And the 20's plenty/local
I always think back to the 70 limit on Motorways at a time when most vehicles could hardly get there. I understand it was done to be seeing to be doing something rather than that any evidence existed to back its introduction and the government didn't want to spend on central reservations.
As I said I may be wrong on both counts, but I suspect a lot of government legislation is done for show rather than for real reasons, yes i know, I'm a cynical old git!
(Edit to say, I've just checked my most reccent traffic survey - across 7 days, a 30mph road had 175k cars, and the 85%ile speed was 35.6mph, with 9 x vehicles doing 60mph+ and 4 x vehicles doing 70mph+)
So by using a similar logic, signing everything at 20 means that the roads will tend to see speeds down nearer 30mph again, which is the speed they were originally designed for, and don't need speed bumps, chicanes, etc putting in.
As I have said above, you will very rarely see any 20mph enforcement. Not saying it won't happen, but it won't be a man in a van on every street corner.
The older middle class Micra owner was never the danger in the first place. The more affluent middle class driven new Honda isn't the emission factory that needs curbing.
IMO - This would be easier to accept if it was a bit of "Give & Take", rather than simply "Take... Take... Take...". If you're going to drop the limits in one area, raise them in others.
Drop the urban limits to 20mph but please raise the limits on the main through/trunk routes.
M
t when you get over taken by a cyclistThere seems to be no correlation to it either, there’s a road that is now 20 past a housing estate, then it goes to 60 as it’s into the country but that part of the road is also lined with houses either side (more so than the estste) it then for some reason goes down to 40 around a bend and then it’s 20 again past the back of a housing estate?
There’s another one though magor and undy which goes 20, 40,20,60,20 and this is a bloody A road!
You spend longer on the brakes and looking at your Speedo than you do looking at the road
What really smacks, if they spent all that money on new signs and painting the limits on the road, but do you think they’ve filled in any of the potholes on the same road?
I can see the fad of blanket 20's dying out when cars have mandatory, non-removable speed limiters that read the road signs/use nav to determine the limit
IMO - This would be easier to accept if it was a bit of "Give & Take", rather than simply "Take... Take... Take...". If you're going to drop the limits in one area, raise them in others.
Drop the urban limits to 20mph but please raise the limits on the main through/trunk routes.
M
How on earth can you be against safety??
I can see the fad of blanket 20's dying out when cars have mandatory, non-removable speed limiters that read the road signs/use nav to determine the limit
This encourages not only a disrespect for the law. It further undermines drivers' ability to assess different road conditions for themselves,
thinking that adherence to a technical limit should be their overriding focus.
This encourages not only a disrespect for the law. It further undermines drivers' ability to assess different road conditions for themselves,
thinking that adherence to a technical limit should be their overriding focus.
Been happening ever since the Blair gov't introduced the "Speed Kills" mantra - reduce the complex and dynamic art of driving down to a single, simple, measurable variable and tell everyone that's the only thing that matters.
...then ignore all the unintended consequences around worsening driver behaviours elsewhere.
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