Welsh Conservatives lose vote to scrap 20mph default speed limit
Welsh Conservatives lose vote to scrap 20mph default speed limit
Emily Price In the Senedd yesterday evening the Welsh Conservatives have failed in their bid to scrap the introduction of the new 20mph speed limit set to come into force this weekend. A debate was led by the Tories on Wednesday (September 13) in an attempt stop the new speed limit which will s...
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
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But the UK just released that 85% of drivers exceed 20 limits - particularly in roads that were not designed and don't "feel" like 20 mph roads.
These reductions in speed limits are primarily political, while corruptly funneling money to overpriced contractors and police running deceptive speed traps. They serve to give brownie points to the people patting themselves on the back for doing it, meanwhile they do nothing to actually make the road work properly. They'll just slap a new sign on and paint some lines which flow worse than a 6 year old's scribble.
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.
That's completely wrong. Compliance is much better for 30 mph roads, it's pretty much the other way around with 50% exceeding the speed limit but 82% driving less than 35. Meanwhile only 15% of drivers on measured roads follow 20 limits, with 50% of drivers going above 25. Source
It should be noted that the "measured 20 roads" are primarily roads that don't have traffic calming measures, which were designed and built for 30 but have had 20 signs slapped on them - but that's exactly what this proposal is about. When roads are built with the official recommended traffic calming measures, when the roads actually feel like 20 roads, then there's compliance. But that's not what they're doing here.
It still means fewer pedestrians crippled.
That's an issue in specific areas, not in every single part of every single 30 limit.
If you want 20 mph roads, then build 20 mph roads. Provide ongoing training for drivers. Don't just slap a sign up and jerk yourself off over it.
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.This means the proposal is effective, but it could be improved with traffic calming measures.
The report goes into even more detail on this, the roads measured were primarily those without traffic calming measures. The overall subtext is that 20 mph roads should be built as 20 mph roads, including traffic calming as per the official recommendations. You shouldn't just slap a 20 limit on a road built for 30 - which is what this post is about for Wales.
What they're doing will increase noncompliance, not only in the areas where the road should be 30 but also in areas where it should be 20. It's a cheap blanket change that's more about political brownie points than actually achieving positive benefits.
Can we start with the 20 legal limit and then work out the infrastructure modifications needed?
Why not start with an assessment of which roads should be immediately reduced, which roads should be modified and then reduced and which roads should be left alone? Why not do that instead of a blanket change that pushes responsibility onto poorly funded local councils?
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.
One measure is very effective and cheap.
It's certainly very cheap, but only very effective in certain places. It's questionable whether it would be cheaper to target those places exclusively.
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.
But if the goal is to reduce it to 25, they should set the speed limit to 25 and work with drivers. The goal should be to encourage and increase compliance overall, not encourange noncompliance with excessive measures in many prominent zones, which will lead to noncompliance elsewhere where it's actually needed.
The fact is, safety isn't the goal here. The goal here is to make a cheap manuever for political brownie points. Whether or not it's effective overall is an unlikely byproduct. Meanwhile, councils have to spend money to untangle the mess of roads that will now have the wrong speed limit assigned, as per road design specifications and recommendations.
But the limits are assigned so that pedestrians don't have to feel what it's like to be ran over
No, they're not. The limits are assigned so politicians can pat themselves on the back and maybe score some votes. Sometimes also so some new speed trap locations can be created, catching people out in areas where the road feels like it has a higher speed limit (although this is perhaps less true for 20 zones).
If the goal was safety for pedestrians then a hell of a lot more should be done than just messing with the speed limit. Like, actually altering the road and including traffic calming measures - like the official recommendations for 20 limits state - and also providing ongoing training for drivers.
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.
It's clearly not evidenced based, because the most recent evidence says that just slapping a 20 sign on a road built for 30 isn't good enough and leads to massive noncompliance.
It does reduce speed.
It's far better and I think far more effective to train competence in drivers.
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
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.
The severity of the punishment does not matter, as long as it meets the bare minimum threshold of being significant enough that it cannot be dismissed (a small fine is meaningless to someone who is wealthy). The only effective deterrent is the certainty of being caught.
Arguably, we should have more enforcement, with far, far less punishment.
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?
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.”
"Enforcing speed limits in areas that matter leads to better compliance in those areas and a reduction in deaths"
That doesn't mean we should reduce speed limits everywhere, just that we need to enforce safety where it matters.
“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.
Mate, the A9 is a beast in and of itself. It's the one road that connects mainland Scotland (Glasgow & Edinburgh) with the rest of the country, if you exclude Aberdeen. When the A9 has a major accident (which happens far too frequently) then you often have to detour 50 miles, easily more if you don't pick the right route first time.
The A9 single carriageway average speed cameras are pretty reasonable, though, more or less. What would be more reasonable would be dualling it all the way, or at least dualling the key accident hot spots, the bottlenecks. Then if they had a crash they could divert to the other carriageway, rather than queueing up traffic for half a day and expecting people to turn around and navigate across the lower highlands.
Suffice it to say, horses for courses. We can have speed regulation and enforcement where it matters, and we can have national speed limits that leave drivers to driver to the conditions. All of these measures of changing the rules are nothing but bullshit though, not when we have no formal system of teaching the new rules to existing drivers.
Ongoing training for drivers is needed. Not necessarily ongoing pass/fail tests, but at least a CBT course every couple years, to brush up on the latest rules if nothing else. This avenue would offer far better safety improvement than anything else.
10mph it is then.
Here's the thing about your comment: police don't run speed traps on 20 roads. You're talking bollocks.
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.
Interesting, that's the first I've heard of it - at least, aside from temporary 20 zones around schools and the like. I think most forces are avoiding 20 limits because it's legally not that well tested, there's a slightly higher potential for someone to come up with a novel defense. I guess that doesn't stop revenue coming in from people who just take the fines without challenging them.
Could you please tell me, which country are you in? England/Wales/Scotland.
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think it’s pretty clear that due to budgetary constraints enforcement is lacking in all areas
It is and it isn't. I've noticed a hell of a lot more police on the roads over the last year or so. Speed traps come and go, but often those aren't run by police but private contractors - it's less about budget constraints and more about profitability. Like I say, there's a higher risk that someone will get off a 20 speeding charge, in which case they not only miss the revenue but also incur court costs.
Cheers for the information though, it's nice to hear updates in their practices, and how it varies across the country. Like, in a couple places I've seen some really deceptive looking cameras - not in a van but on tripods. There's definitely an element of trying to catch people out, while more or less skirting within the bounds of the law.
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.
These reductions in speed limits are primarily political, while corruptly funneling money to overpriced contractors and police running deceptive speed traps.
I'm talking generally about speed limit reductions here. Not just 30 to 20, but 60 to 50, 40 to 50 or 40 to 30. Sometimes it's done with valid safety intentions, backed up by data. More often than not it's done as part of some bullshit political project.
From another of my comments:
The limits are assigned so politicians can pat themselves on the back and maybe score some votes. Sometimes also so some new speed trap locations can be created, catching people out in areas where the road feels like it has a higher speed limit (although this is perhaps less true for 20 zones).
I'm not aware of police extensively enforcing 20 zones, but I am aware of police enforcing speed limits in areas where it has been reduced for arbitrary reasons. Quite often these involve civil works that are ludicrously overpriced and under-delivered, which reeks of corruption.
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.
I detailed it more in one of my other comments and the government data and graphs can be found here, but yeah the real non-compliance happens when roads are reduced without traffic calming measures. Which basically shows that reducing the speed limit on its own does nothing but criminalise road users.
I doubt that noncompliance can effectively be used to deliver further measures beyond speed limit reductions. Rather, people are going to say "See, your blanket 20 limit doesn't work, you should undo it".
Ultimately I see this as a very cheap but ineffective method at achieving its purported goals, but it's very visual and very cheap so politically it's fantastic.
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.
They actually wouldn't be sign posted, the whole point of the change is that the un-posted speed limit will now be 20 instead of 30. So you may see a 20 sign on the entry to the area, but there will be no requirement for repeater signs.
A lack of traffic calming doesn't justify speeding, no. But the official recommendations for 20 limit areas recommend installing traffic calming measures and generally making the road feel like a 20 road. You're supposed to design a road with a speed limit in mind, changing the limit should involve more than just changing one or two signs.
It's not that I don't care, I don't recognise the significance of the effect, and I don't think they're putting in the effort they should be. 20 zones are good and can be effective in a lot of places, but they don't belong everywhere Wales has a 30 limit. Furthermore, this change by the Welsh Senedd puts all the responsibility onto councils to correct the new 20 zones that should have remained 30, at their own expense, with no further funding. What the Welsh Senedd should be doing is giving more authority to councils to create 20 zones where appropriate. Let them reduce the speed limits where it's needed.