2y ago

Welsh Conservatives lose vote to scrap 20mph default speed limit

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

23 comments

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.
- 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
  
  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.
- 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.
- 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.
  
  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.
- But the limits are assigned so that pedestrians don't have to feel what it's like to be ran over
- 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.

23 comments