Speed Limit Cuts

[Mark Hewitt]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8415351.stm

On Wednesday they will issue guidance to councils urging blanket speed limits of 50mph, rather than 60mph, on rural single-carriageway A roads with a history of accidents.

The government also says the standard limit should be 20mph around homes and schools.

[michael769]

To all intents and purposes this will just be an extension of what is happening already all over the country. This will just speed up the process a little.

[Achmelvic]

Whilst any death on the road is a tragedy that should be avoided I can't help thinking that a huge increase in 20mph limits will just cause people to ignore them even more, after all 20mph is noticably slow.

A few years ago my old home town of Richmond in North Yorkshire introduced a crazy 20mph throughout the majority of the town centre including on the A6108 (the main through road to the Yorkshire Dales) and A6136 (the main road to Catterick Garrison). Whilst there is a recognisable reason for having a 20 limit in the market place where traffic mixes a lot with pedestrians and past a busy school on the A6136, on the other roads the 20 limit just seems too slow and is often ignored.

By having more 20mph limits drivers won't be able to work out which are really necessary (i.e. those that are already 20 limits) and those that are less so and hence treat them all the same, its a case of the boy who cried wolf IMHO.

If you treat drivers like misbehaving children then they will start to act like misbehaving children and not do as they are told when they can get away with it which will likely lead to more accidents, not less.

A good day for the sign makers though...

[Haydn1971]

Slow news day again... we have been over this so many times in the last few years :¬(

Cue long debate over pros and cons of 20mph and 50mph limits

[Mark Hewitt]

Personally I have no particular objections to 20's and 50's as long as they are specifically targeted. However it seems that they are now saying that they should be applied in nearly all circumstances.

[A303Chris]

I am confused why the BBC have released this. I was at the Government Road Safety Conference , beyond 2010 at Westminster last week which was supposed to be on the day when the new Road Safety targets and requirements to 2020 were going to be released following the consultation on the draft document over the summer. However the Under Secretary for State for Transport Paul Clarke in his keynote address at the start of the day said any new legisation would be put back to March at the earliest as more consultation was required especially over the drink drive limits, which they want to reduce from 80ml to 50ml and the proposed speed limits reviews. Therefore given a general election has to take place in the Spring, it was the belief that the new legisation would therefore have to wait until the new government was in power.

I discussed the conference in April, when the consulation was released, earlier in the year (but I can not find the thread as i can not access the search function here at work)and this was a main aim. At the conference last week there was a lot of talk that the main tabolids were against the government on lower speed limits and as previous stated Theresa Villiers, the shadow sceretary for transport has stated that the tories , if they come in, will scrap Road SAfety Partnerships, reduce the number od speed cameras, stop using Specs and make that main aim dangerous driving, driving without insurance, MOT etc.

While I agree with the tories approach on a professional and personal level, it was obivious from last week that local council members and a majority of road safety officers do not.

Two things about todays story are 1) Labour seeing the polls close, believe this is a good news story and the public will support them or 2) believe they will lose the polls, but bring in legisiation that is opposite to tory policy , knowing to change it will take even further legisiation which given the mess the country is in will not be a top priority.

This morning I am confused at the mixed message the DfT is given to professionals

[Helvellyn]

I may as well get my in now.

[Ritchie333]

The big question on my mind is : What do the police think, and will they enforce the limits?

[Mark Hewitt]

They were talking on Radio 1 this morning about 17-30 year olds being the most likely to crash, which is a reason why the speed limits should be reduced. But surely that age group are the ones most likely to ignore the limits in the first place, and it's more likely them doing something stupid rather than outright speed that is the issue.

Indeed on S2 roads if you slow traffic from 60mph to 50mph you make the faster driver more likely to want to overtake, hence increasing risky overtaking maneuvers which could result in more KSI's, not less.

What this always seems to lack is a detailed analysis of why the accidents happened in the first place. There seems to be an assumption that it's all about speed, and perhaps in many cases it is, but if someone wipes themselves out by doing 90mph on an S2 country road, then they were already massively exceeding the limit anyway, so lowering the limit would not have helped.

[A303Chris]

They were talking on Radio 1 this morning about 17-30 year olds being the most likely to crash, which is a reason why the speed limits should be reduced. But surely that age group are the ones most likely to ignore the limits in the first place, and it's more likely them doing something stupid rather than outright speed that is the issue.

Indeed on S2 roads if you slow traffic from 60mph to 50mph you make the faster driver more likely to want to overtake, hence increasing risky overtaking maneuvers which could result in more KSI's, not less.

What this always seems to lack is a detailed analysis of why the accidents happened in the first place. There seems to be an assumption that it's all about speed, and perhaps in many cases it is, but if someone wipes themselves out by doing 90mph on an S2 country road, then they were already massively exceeding the limit anyway, so lowering the limit would not have helped.

Mark, I whole hearly agree. I have now become responsible with Road Safety Education as well as my Transport DC role and the view of the police / civil servants is that it is all about cutting speed. That is why it was refreshing to here Teresa Villiers the Tory Shadow Transport Minister speak, see my comments earlier on this thread.

Reducing the speed limit only annoys the majority who were travelling at 55mph-60mph anyway. The nutters who were doing 70, 80, 90mph still will do anyway regardless if the speed limit is 40mph, 50mph or 60mph. I know I have done speed surveys on roads before and after the speed limit has been reduced. The average speed comes down the 5-10% who were dong silly speeds still do it.

That is why I am campaigning for our Road safety partnership to put more officers on the road and pull over vehicles without MOT, Insurance, unsafe, not wearing the seatbelts as these are statistically the drivers who are the most dangerous. I was on such a road side check last week and it was frightening the number of drivers we stopped and ticketed.

Unfortunately unless there is a change of government, the current policy will remain. I hope the polls are wrong and the gap is not closing.

[parristim]

"Allowing councils to put 20mph speed limits on more streets without speed humps or chicanes will mean that they can introduce them at a lower cost and with less inconvenience to residents."

If this is done properly, i.e. applied only on streets where the sensible speed is ~20mph anyway and not on main thoroughfairs then it will be good to do away with annoying 'calming' measures and absurd signage like near me in Hillsborough, where a road of about 40m long is signed 30 coming out of a 20 zone.

I agree with all the above though, a blanket 50 NSL would be a counter-productive nightmare.

[Lockwood]

Lower speed limits leads to more revenue.
Actually safety improvements cost money.

[Haydn1971]

They were talking on Radio 1 this morning about 17-30 year olds being the most likely to crash, which is a reason why the speed limits should be reduced. But surely that age group are the ones most likely to ignore the limits in the first place, and it's more likely them doing something stupid rather than outright speed that is the issue.

Well not quite, the issue with young divers is that they are less experienced with what to do when something goes wrong and not as good at reading the road conditions, they are also more likely to be out on the road when roads are quiet, thus have no benchmark as to what other road users are doing in terms of speed.

Indeed on S2 roads if you slow traffic from 60mph to 50mph you make the faster driver more likely to want to overtake, hence increasing risky overtaking maneuvers which could result in more KSI's, not less.

I tend to find that roads that need to be reduced to 50mph are often the roads where you can't find opportuinities to overtake. A high quality single carriageway (A616 Stocksbridge Bypass, springs to mind as a well known one), is well designed, has good geometry and limited access thus should be NSL, the A628 Woodhead is a lesser quality, with sharp bends, poor crossfall at places and some shocking junctions - I'd consider that as an appropriate candidate for 50mph with perhaps even some 40mph bits.

Overtaking opportunities are very limited on the Woodhead, thus once you get stuck, you are limited to the speed of the HGV anyways, regardless of NSL, 50 or 40 limits.

What this always seems to lack is a detailed analysis of why the accidents happened in the first place.

Fatal and potential fatal accidents have in depth investigation, doing this for the remaining recorded serious 5-10x as many, plus the recorded slights about 100x as many would be a massive drain on Police resource and to what end ?

There seems to be an assumption that it's all about speed, and perhaps in many cases it is, but if someone wipes themselves out by doing 90mph on an S2 country road, then they were already massively exceeding the limit anyway, so lowering the limit would not have helped.

Its fair to say that "some" road safety people will throw the speed card in at any opportunity - I do work in the old school ways of looking at the police stats, drawing a tini stick diagram, looking at the factors and so on to establish the right solution - I do however consider factors such as overtaking, loss of control and excessive braking to be probably speed related unless something else indicates that speeds were low i.e. a comment about in queueing traffic or slowing for signals and so on...

Going at 90mph on a S2 road is a very rare thing, its often the case that the top 5% is going very fast, with the odd car going stupidly fast, but in general, the 85th percentile is often somewhere between the speed limit and the ACPO threshold

[Haydn1971]

That is why I am campaigning for our Road safety partnership to put more officers on the road and pull over vehicles without MOT, Insurance, unsafe, not wearing the seatbelts as these are statistically the drivers who are the most dangerous.

I've been of the same opinion for many years, sadly the Police authorities have a different view and focus more on drug or street related crime - Nothing better in my view to focus the mind than a Police Evo in your rear view mirror

Unfortunately unless there is a change of government, the current policy will remain.

As much as the Tories are banging the drum, the policies will end up being pretty much the same, the policy comes from the officers rather than the political arms, they want votes and will agree to do whatever the electorate want, the anti safety camera lobby might be more vocal, but I get a hell of a lot calls from people wanting "speed cameras" and "sleeping policemen" I do wonder if they mean a copper sleeping in a car though

[PeterA5145]

If this is done properly, i.e. applied only on streets where the sensible speed is ~20mph anyway and not on main thoroughfairs then it will be good to do away with annoying 'calming' measures and absurd signage like near me in Hillsborough, where a road of about 40m long is signed 30 coming out of a 20 zone.

I fear what we are increasingly going to see is 20 mph limits applied not only to minor residential roads (the white roads on Landranger maps) but also to major distributor roads (the yellow, brown and red ones). Around here I would say that most of the minor residential roads are 20s already.

I agree with all the above though, a blanket 50 NSL would be a counter-productive nightmare.

It already exists in effect in the Derbyshire Peak District

[SteveA30]

Sometime last week, the papers ran a story about 3 or 4 London boroughs going ahead with SPECS on their 20 limits. Norwich and predictably, Portsmouth, had also shown interest in this.

As the 20 bandwagon is spreading fast, the 20 SPECS one will follow. This could lead to speed limit tyranny amongst the most rabidly anti car councils, with both 20 and 50. No-one can ignore SPECS, it must be obeyed.

How is 'residential road' defined? The many unbypassed villages on 50 or, NSL roads could be subject to 20, perhaps with SPECS.

[WHBM]

Close to me the rebuilt A13 was designed to 50 mph but cut to 40 just as the works were completed to "improve its accident rate".

In fact there was never a problem with the vast majority of users. However you do have motorcycles coming in the morning peak doing 70-plus, including weaving between two slow lanes of traffic at these speeds, and in one recent case passing me at high speed doing a wheelie in the process !

Probably half the accidents I have passed on this road in recent years have involved motorcycles, a small minority of the road's users. If the police analysis of the resulting accidents were in any way accurate they would take measures to address this, but I fear the analysis is a box-ticking process where they strive to prove whatever is flavour of the month, which currently seems to be excessive speed, and using a mobile phone. And if there's one thing the motorcycles are not doing, it's using a mobile phone !

[haymansafc]

There are numerous small side streets full of housing on either side here where it's almost impossible to safely break 20mph anyway, so on routes like that, I have no issue with a reduction at all. I find most such streets built within the last few years have become so narrow and twisty for this purpose anyway.

Where I do have a problem is when it's implemented outside schools - which sounds to general for my linking. Not every school is situated on a small residential backstreet. We have two here alone, which are situated on main arteries to and from town. Imagine a 20mph crawl along two arrow straight routes, initially designed with 40mph speed limits...

We already see too many questionable 50mph on rural trunk roads and it grows pretty much by the month now. Some of them, due to junctions and blind bends I'm willing to accept it's a good move, especially on those with genuine safety problems, but there are plenty of others out there I do personally question the reasons behind.

I can think of one example within five miles of me which has been reduced as such (two Sections of the A41) and as a regular user, I've never witnessed any accident or near misses along either. I'd like to know exactly where do the statistics come from and who pays the wages of the 'information gatherers'. I'll accept that I'm probably cynical here, but I do think some of them are rather warped to suit what's an unpopular plan with many motorists.

We should be trying to promote the use of non-motorway alternatives to make better use of the network we already have in place. Lowering speed limits will just continue to push traffic away from them onto faster and no doubt, more congested routes.

This is why for a long time I've campaigned for a fully independent review into every reduced speed limit introduced over the last twelve years, to see if they really have been justified or not. Any proven not to be, the limits will be reverted without question.

The only reason why local council members and a majority of road 'safety' officers do not don't agree with the Tories ideas is because it'll end up reducing revenue for such areas and actually make them earn their generous salaries. The Tories ideas would probably go towards improving safety rather than increasing the revenue stream - which is quite clearly the practice we see at the moment and have seen for some years. Lockwood sums this up perfectly.

A lot of road 'safety' campaigners no longer stand for what they were supposed to do. Speed appears to be the only safety issue today. It's their only focus. Poor driving/training/attitude, lack of concentration, tiredness, poorly-maintained vehicles, poor weather conditions, badly maintained roads, alcohol and drugs (please add if you feel I've missed any) rarely get a mention, consideration or reason for the cause for accidents any more, so I can only presume that these no longer comply and driving a few mph over a (sometimes already reduced) low limit is far more dangerous. It's only recently we've heard mobile phones brought into the equation again as a cause of accidents.

I think it's long overdue that the motorist, who pays an ever increasing amount to actually use the roads deserves to get something back. Maybe to have their voices heard and accepted. Just for once. At the moment, all I see is endless 'punishment' for the problems caused by the minority and of course, ever rising bills (from all angles) considerably above the rate of inflation. As far as I'm concerned, motorists have never actually get anything back (or very little...) from the taxes they pay for a long time.

This is all I'm willing to say on the matter, here. I'm going to lie down in a dark corner for a bit.

about 17-30 year olds being the most likely to crash

I see the usual '25' limit (which I'm only four months off) has been quietly extended by five years then... Here's to another five years of scandalous insurance premiums...!

[CJ]

I am confused why the BBC have released this.

It's as a result of this DfT press release:
http://nds.coi.gov.uk/Content/detail.as ... tMode=true

which publishes the results of the first year of the Portsmouth 20mph scheme.

[Chris5156]

I posted on my (long-dead) blog about this last time the "blanket 20" was in the news. My views haven't changed.

My view is that widespread 20mph limits will not prove to be the wonderful fix-it solution that campaigners and politicians are hoping for. My experience is that a small, well-placed 20mph limit or zone can make you sit up and pay attention - effectively and subtly highlighting an extra risk. A big, rambling 20mph zone is largely forgettable and not worth the effort.

I say this from the point of view of someone who lives on a 20-limit road, speed cushions and all, and who sees the effect it has: none. Cars and vans do 30 to 40 down the street. Buses do 30 in between stops. I’ve followed police cars above 30 (and there are plenty, with a police station on an adjoining street). Nobody - authorities included - pay it the slightest bit of attention. And that is my problem with 20 limits: not that they are wrong in themselves, but that they do not automatically work. The one I live in doesn’t work - traffic speeds are anything up to double the limit and it is therefore patently not saving any lives.