Wales’s 20mph speed limit has cut road deaths. Why is there still even a debate?

www.theguardian.com

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.

United Kingdom @europe.pub

tfm @europe.pub

1w ago

Wales’s 20mph speed limit has cut road deaths. Why is there still even a debate?

www.theguardian.com /world/2025/mar/22/wales-20mph-speed-limit-cut-road-deaths-why-debate

Fuck Cars @lemmy.world

DrunkEngineer @lemmy.world

1w ago

Wales’s 20mph speed limit has cut road deaths. Why is there still even a debate?

www.theguardian.com /world/2025/mar/22/wales-20mph-speed-limit-cut-road-deaths-why-debate

55 comments

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
- In Darwin's terms, the 'survival of the fittest' you referred to means something like 'those most able to adapt to evolutionary change'.
  In this context, your inability to adapt to a change that improves life for everybody, from the direct reduction in deaths, to reduced micro plastics (of which car tyres are something like 25%) makes you the unfit one. You are the idiot.
  Let's not ban all cars, even though it would be a positive development, let's just ban idiots (to use your word) like you. It is clear by your attitude that you are not safe.
- Your last sentence is the only one that isn't idiotic.
- More! Child! Deaths!
  
  Don’t worry, the intelligent ones will survive.
  
  Clearly you weren't one of them, yet here you are
- 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!
  https://youtu.be/rRWzOdUiqQE?t=1484
- suffering is when someone in a climate-controlled vehicle with comfortable seats gets to their destination seconds later than the fastest possible.
  zero road deaths have been caused by drivers running red lights or zebra crossings or mounting the pavement.
  /s
- Thinking about the absolute inability of the average Brit to drive like a sane person... we should
  
  The scary thing is British driving ability appears on the high end of the spectrum from my experience.
  The worse thing is speeding which is normalised.
  The roads are just shit and full. When you go to a part of another country with same sort of traffic and narrow roads its becomes apparent Brits drive well.
- 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.
  
  If these drivers don’t obey the rules now, what makes you think they will obey them if you lower the speed limit?
  And you don’t just lose control of your car at 30mph or even 50. Especially not in today’s cars with all their safety features.
  
  They don't have to lose full control. They could be following too closely and swerve onto the sidewalk to avoid a collision with a car and end up striking a pedestrian.
  Speeders will stick out even more making them easier to spot in traffic. The reduced speed limit should also be accompanied by lane narrowing, speed humps, and other traffic calming techniques.
  
  They don’t have to lose full control. They could be following too closely and swerve onto the sidewalk to avoid a collision with a car and end up striking a pedestrian.
  This is a matter of the human factor - and you can never make that disappear. There will always be the odd idiot driver.
  The reduced speed limit should also be accompanied by lane narrowing, speed humps, and other traffic calming techniques.
  This is totally fine for housing areas, but definitely not for through-roads. There's no one-for-all solution in the same way our bodies don't have only one size of blood vessel.
  
  The reduced speed limit should come with traffic calming relative to the speed limit. If a through road has a 20 MPH zone that area should have lane narrowing and at least raised crossings.

55 comments