The Conservatives in Wales lose their last ditch attempt to stop the speed limit change from 30mph to 20mph. The change will be coming into force on the 17th September
If the Tory member is going to argue that this will cost £millions to the economy, perhaps he could elucidate us with that evidence. I am a ROSPA and IAM trained driver, this speed limit change will not hinder progress in built up areas. It will definitely save lives and reduce pollution. In heavier traffic, ruzh hour, it will make not difference.
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The concern is about impeding progression when there is no traffic and no good reason, ie an empty road through town in quiet times with few cars or people about.
The thing is, nobody plans to crash their car into a pedestrian. So how does it keep happening? One reason is from people driving faster than they should because they wrongly believe a road is empty. Slower limits help with this, because when drivers are going around with incorrect beliefs about whether roads are empty or not, there is more time to react and less energy to cause injury
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You can do the maths to work out percentages of a small number. Perhaps check the killed and seriously injured specs, and whilst online, the other technical assessments. Give me more than uninformed view to consider.
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Just in general, can I ask what you’re hoping to get from this thread? I mean, you’re in the Fuck Cars community asking everyone to agree with you that today’s driving is okay, that there aren’t benefits from slowing down motor traffic and that we shouldn’t expect people to act legally. It seems a strange battle to choose.
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That whole study is specifically aimed at 20mph. It does reduce speed but not exactly by 10mph. It’s going to reduce traffic time, casualities, pollution and increase walking and public transport use.
There is a lot to like and for the places that it doesn’t apply people can always put up a sign for 30. Ideally this is supported by traffic calming measures but that’s a longer more costly.
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Yes, they exceed the 20mph rule - by driving at 25. As opposed to exceeding a 30mph rule by driving at 33mph.
It still means fewer pedestrians crippled.
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From your own source:
“For the 20mph sites (which are not thought to be representative of all 20mph roads), the average speeds were above the speed limit for all vehicle types, ranging from 22mph to 28mph but below the average speeds seen on the 30mph roads.”
So the average speed does decrease, increasing safety. Just because the effect isn’t a perfect 10 mph reduction doesn’t mean that it does nothing.
This means the proposal is effective, but it could be improved with traffic calming measures.Removed by mod
Can we start with the 20 legal limit and then work out the infrastructure modifications needed?
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One measure is very effective and cheap. Every city, town and village in Wales becomes safer very soon by just reducing the speed limit.
Your proposal takes years to implement and incurs a massive cost and inconvenience to shut down many roads for weeks at a time. Just to make sure you reap the entire benefit of the changed speed limit. The extra benefit has a disproportionate cost to the proposed solution.
I mean it sounds like from the figures that you are providing that changing the speed limit from 30 to 20 DOES reduce the average speed of motorists. It doesn’t change it from 30 to 20 seems to be your main point, which, yeah, duh.
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police running deceptive speed traps.
Here’s the thing with speed traps.
Turns out that after people have been fined a few times, they suddenly do feel that 20mph roads are 20mph roads.
Almost as if they knew the road was 20mph all along, but decided to ignore the clearly marked speed limit (and often the speed limit warning on their satnav) because they hadn’t faced any consequences for it before.
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Here’s the thing about absolute statements: they only need a single counter-example to be falsified. There’s a 20mph road about 200m from my front door. There’s a police speed trap there roughly once a month. You are talking bollocks.
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What the heck? In your other comment you say they make these 20 zones to fund corrupt police running speed traps on them… Which is it?
These reductions in speed limits are primarily political, while corruptly funneling money to overpriced contractors and police running deceptive speed traps.
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I have seen documented evidence many times that enforcement does NOT alter people’s behaviour in a way that persists after enforcement ceases. They simply adapt to the enforcement level, whatever that happens to be. I don’t think that enforcement is a reasonable component of street safety. We can’t have street daddies on every corner keeping us safe.
The UK Department for Transport estimated that cameras had led to a 22% reduction in personal injury collisions and 42% fewer people being killed or seriously injured at camera sites. The British Medical Journal recently reported that speed cameras were effective at reducing accidents and injuries in their vicinity and recommended wider deployment. An LSE study in 2017 found that “adding another 1,000 cameras to British roads could save up to 190 lives annually, reduce up to 1,130 collisions and mitigate 330 serious injuries.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_enforcement_camera
“Our research suggests the growing use of average speed cameras in motorway roadworks and increasingly on sections of A-road is reinforcing the road safety message as they are extremely effective at slowing down drivers. … “For instance, on the A9 in Scotland the number of deaths has halved since average speed cameras were introduced between Dunblane and Inverness in October 2014.
https://roadsafetygb.org.uk/news/average-speed-cameras-more-effective-study-finds/
All but one of the studies showed effectiveness of cameras up to three years or less after their introduction; one study showed sustained longer term effects (4.6 years after introduction). Reductions in outcomes across studies ranged from 5% to 69% for collisions, 12% to 65% for injuries, and 17% to 71% for deaths in the immediate vicinity of camera sites. The reductions over wider geographical areas were of a similar order of magnitude.
https://www.bmj.com/content/330/7487/331
We can’t have street daddies on every corner keeping us safe.
You can and thanks to the revenue cameras generate, it generates enough revenue to save the tax payer money, and free up the police for other duties.
I have seen documented evidence many times that enforcement does NOT alter people’s behaviour in a way that persists
Given I found plenty of evidence with a 5 second search, is it possible you didn’t want to find evidence because you had already come to a conclusion about the effectiveness of speed enforcement?
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10mph it is then.
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But the limits are assigned so that pedestrians don’t have to feel what it’s like to be ran over
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Speed limit reductions are often unpopular.
This policy is clearly evidence based. Not playing politics. It’s why the conservatives oppose it. They take contrarian positions to fuel outrage, that keeps people voting against their best interest.
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It does reduce speed.
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You are right in the sense that they are popular, but only when compared to the idea of altering infrastructure because speedlimits cost less than building stuff
Increasing the speedlimit is way more popular, hell more people would probably want them removed altogether than decreased
I get your point about drivers exceeding the limit anyway. They trialed the 20mph in our area and on some roads it doesn’t feel like anything has changed.
Hopefully with this put in place first, they can then target areas where people are over and have the legal “backing” to add traffic calming.
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No, only criminals would be criminalised. These speed changes would be sign posted. A lack of traffic calming doesn’t justify speeding.
These changes will bring down the average speed of cars. This difference has a big impact on reducing the likelihood a child dies from an impact. It also reduces the likelihood of an impact occuring.
Your argument of the change won’t reap the most benefit so we might as well do nothing is shortsighted. I could be your not shortsighted, rather you don’t care and do want any change that might inconvenience cars.
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