Wales’s 20mph speed limit has cut road deaths. Why is there still even a debate?
Wales’s 20mph speed limit has cut road deaths. Why is there still even a debate?
Research suggests the scheme may be more popular than thought, with consultations dominated by a loud minority
Even with the caveats about limited data and untangling causation and correlation, the statistics are striking: the first year of a scheme in Wales where the speed limit on urban roads was lowered to 20mph resulted in about 100 fewer people killed or seriously injured.
I constantly encounter people who speed in my town in Wales. Then I meet them at the next light. It's infuriating because they're making the place more dangerous for everyone but for literally no benefit. The average road speed possible is below 20 mph so speeding just means a longer wait at the next junction.
These selfish fuckwits don't appear to be able to grasp that though so things are still dangerous due to their childish twattery.
I’m all for survival of the fittest. If people are too stupid to stay on the pavement, it’s on them. Why let drivers suffer to protect those idiots that blindly run into traffic?
Maybe we should ban ALL cars to get traffic related injuries to 0… 🤦♂️
Yeah, we should
I'd vote for that without hesitation
Your last sentence is the only one that isn't idiotic.
That’s not the story of evolution! Read your Darwin! There’s like two pages on competition. Darwin, page after page after page is marveling at: oh my gosh, look at how species are collaborating and cooperating with one another for mutual survival!
Thinking about the absolute inability of the average Brit to drive like a sane person... we should
haha yeah, why should we prevent deaths?
so like, would you just accept your entire family being shot as the natural way of things? if i throw you off a cliff that's just.. fine?
Shooting someone or throwing someone off a cliff is a deliberate act to hurt/kill someone else. No driver wants to kill someone. (Well, apart from these extremists that occasionally drive into German Christmas markets…)
People mindlessly walking into traffic, because that funny video on Instagram is more important than watching their surroundings, they are the problem.
Higher speeds can cause drivers to lose control of their cars. People are killed on the side walks by drunk or speeding drivers frequently. Instead of blame shifting we should be taking steps to make the whole system safer.
Fantastic! wonder how people are adjusting? Walking more, pooling trips, or avoiding slow roads?
I wondered at the definition:
defined as roads where lamp-posts were no more than about 180 metres apart.
Will this result in worse lighting to avoid the reduced speed limit?
Not sure why they'd adjust. It's mostly urban areas where top speed makes little difference to journey times. Journey times are generally decided by how long you spend waiting at every light and intersection.
The thing about the lamp posts doesn't really have any significance. Roads in the UK have a default speed limit that doesn't need to be marked with the speed limit - it's 30mph for "normal" streets with regular lamposts, 60mph for other roads, 70mph if there's an embankment thing in between each side of the road. 180m spacing must just be the technical definition for what makes a road 30mph. In Wales, they made default 30mph roads 20mph.
I have personally found that roads are nicer to walk along with people going slower, but I haven't necessarily noticed more people walking. I think part of the issue is the way that new housing has been built where it is still a significant distance away from the places you need to get to is still keeping people in cars.
I have not noticed any differences in the lighting, but the Welsh Gov did postpone all road building projects at a similar time, and for any smaller residential road building I would've thought the builders would want it to be low speed anyway.
I’m ok with the limit itself, I just want a dedicated button on my steering wheel to turn on/off 20mph speed limit.
The 2023 figures (the latest ones and which had the 20mph change) also changed the way the statistics were gathered.
They state
It is likely that KSI collisions and casualties in 2023 are affected by Dyfed Powys police force migrating to Crash. This is further discussed in our quality report.
(KSI is "Killed or seriously injured". Crash is the new collection method)
100 people is about a 10% variance. To call that "striking" when there's also a change in record keeping is bullshit. You need more data.
but vroom vroom!? what's the point of buying a overwrought shitwagon if they can't vroom vroom?
downvotes from vroom vroom fuckwits lol.
y'all have no fucking rational for your bullshit, just smooth brains and hairy knuckles because vroom vroom is all you can fucking do
What wete they before?
21
30mph