Bushey Road A298 20mph limit?!

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Having a cuppa
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Re: Bushey Road A298 20mph limit?!

Post by Having a cuppa »

ajuk wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 18:20
Bryn666 wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 14:05
ajuk wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 14:03

You're arguing to make speeding less acceptable, and so am I. You seem to be invoking the behaviour of poorer drivers as a justification for prohibiting the behaviour of some of the safest drivers on the road. 🤔
Fallacious argument, if you're wilfully ignoring laws on the basis "you know best", you are not safe. Hubris is what causes most driver errors and results in most crashes.
If there is a law that says one must sit on a chair all day and eat milk, bread, and pine needles for sustenance is it a good law? No one is physically forcing him to move from that chair, therefore if he breaks that law it is wrong? If a law is being almost universally disregarded then there must be something outside of the law that determines if it is good or bad.

There's a lot of disregard with speed laws and I think that's a problem.
What I'll do is to try and explain why that is the case and give examples citing non-uniformity and the phycology behind it etc, essentially ignoring all that and coming back with "yeah but it's the law" so only people who aren't sensible will break it isn't a counter argument, because you could essentially make up any law and say the same thing.
The "law is the law" argument is just circular reasoning.
This is a case of 'defacto' vs 'de jure'. If the majority of people don't follow a law and it isn't being enforced, then the law is essentially just a piece of writing located in a government building. It is good for the public to question decisions and the rationale behind them for their own sake. If the authority in charge gives a valid reason of why a certain speed limit is being implemented, then it is ok. However if there aren't any good reasons, then it indicates the authority in charge needs to go back to the drawing board to assess the problem (if there is any problem in the first place).
My car gets 90 leagues to the firkin and that's the way I like it!
fras
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Re: Bushey Road A298 20mph limit?!

Post by fras »

The basic question is, - who is the law serving ? In the case of this ridiculous speed limit, it is clear it is serving nobody. There is such a thing as "abuse of powers".
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Bryn666
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Re: Bushey Road A298 20mph limit?!

Post by Bryn666 »

fras wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 21:08 The basic question is, - who is the law serving ? In the case of this ridiculous speed limit, it is clear it is serving nobody. There is such a thing as "abuse of powers".
In your opinion.

Given it costs money to promote speed limit orders, and has to be signed off politically, it is clearly the opinion of elected officials that it serves somebody.
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ajuk
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Re: Bushey Road A298 20mph limit?!

Post by ajuk »

I'd like to think speed laws are thought through, but many councils seem to be doing a good job of trying to look like they're not. In Bristol you have 20 limit roads that are of a much higher standard than the remaining 30 limit road, roads that change limit for seemingly no reason and I can think of 3 places the limit goes 30 to 20 in exactly the place you might otherwise expect it to go from 20 to 30 or even 30 to 40. It's such a mess and this to me is just why there is so much disregard and contempt towards speed limits.
South Gloucestershire Council have the data available to them showing how many roads with 40 limits have lower speeds than roads that already have 30 limits, it's almost as if they're just pandering to people who don't realise how little difference changing the speed limit will have to actual traffic speed and they take the signs down that were put their in the first place to warn pedestrians of the greater road danger in the first place.
The fact that people see a road with 40 repeaters on it as more dangerous is to the point of having them there, they seem do very little to increase traffic speeds if at all and in some cases have actually caused people to go slower.
I know Evesham Road in Stratford saw speeds increase after the limit was lowered, that's the level you're dealing with.
someone
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Re: Bushey Road A298 20mph limit?!

Post by someone »

fras wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 21:08 The basic question is, - who is the law serving ? In the case of this ridiculous speed limit, it is clear it is serving nobody. There is such a thing as "abuse of powers".
Bless you for trying to stay on topic after calls for constitutional requirements and supranational conventions to set the speed limit on the A298 Bushey Road. Crikey. The thing, though, is that all speed limits are arbitrary.

The government decided that in Great Britain (for urban areas) that limit should be 30 mph. That Bushey Road had higher one was because someone was decided to make an exception for that particular section of road.

Now, as the government entitled them to do, Merton Council have decided that in their area the limit should be 20 mph.

Neither limit is any more "right" or abusive than the other, they are both totally arbitrary. Which is a different issue what what is appropriate which is not something that can be set by policy but has to be judged individually. Even on this site, where people should understand better, you still see complaints about narrow cracked bending country lanes being derestricted despite connecting with a decent quality road with a lower limit.

But if, as claimed, such changes were so unpopular then political parties will jump on that bandwagon and keep them as high as they are now, or increase them. That there is a general agreement to reduce them though suggests it is seen as a vote winner and not a loser. As mentioned with the A216, Wandsworth has a 20 mph policy despite being a flagship Tory council. Low traffic neighbourhoods are being pushed by Johnson's government.

Merton has about a 67% ownership of private vehicles, of which there will be many who agree with a 20 mph policy, that it is not difficult to imagine the policy having public support. A lot of people drive below the speed limit anyway. And in the document I linked to about the original plan to reduce Bushey Road to 30 mph they only had one objection.

I have no problem with 20 mph being the limit for genuinely local roads, the problem for me is that while red routes are the main arteries through London, they are mostly focused on central London and do not cover the equally important roads for local areas to get out of London.

From Streatham it is quicker and with less time spent on local roads to use Bushey Road to reach the A3 than it is to use the A23 and M25, or heading northwards on the A214 to join the A3 in Wandsworth. And the latter is only possible because the A214 is one of the few radial red routes outside of the North and South Circulars. Somewhere like Anerley is several miles from a red route in any direction.

No regard is given for through roads where, though local interests have to be considered, a large number of the road users (of all forms) are people outside of the borough and necessarily passing through because there is no reasonable alternative.

The issue for me with Bushey Road is that while red routes have a sort of conceptual equivalent to A-roads, there is nothing similar for B-roads. Routes such as the A298 to connect the A3 and A24 red routes, or the A216 between the A23 and A24 red routes. They may not be as heavily used by the main red routes, but are still important arteries for carrying through traffic between places that the red route network does not serve. Or does so only by routing traffic in a way which increases localized pollution and congestion.

Whatever the speed limit should be on such routes can be argued on a case-by-case basis, but it should be decided more widely than just voters and local consultations in an individual borough. Which is the reason why TfL own red routes, because the importance of them is more widely spread.

This is a major part of the problem with the justification for the original proposed speed reduction on Bushey Road, because it does not apply to what is probably the majority of the traffic using it. When I am using Bushey Road it is to make a long distance journey, so encouraging public transport and cycling are not an option. And I do not use my motorbike in town anyway, although slowing buses down makes them less attractive.

It seems odd that one end of my residential street (which with cars parked on both sides is effectively one lane, and where a 20mph limit is very appropriate) is a red route because it joins one, yet Bushey Road is not one despite being D2 and connecting two red routes for which there is no better alternative. Vastly different lengths, obviously, but so is the importance. And in my experience the original 40 mph section of the A298 is just as busy as nearby red routes such as the A23 through Norbury and the A24 through Balham.
fras
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Re: Bushey Road A298 20mph limit?!

Post by fras »

It seems to me that essentially 20 mph limits get public approval because everybody wants a 20 mph limit outside their own front door, but not outside the front doors of anybody else ! How else does this explain the low compliance of such limits ?
In fact his probably applies to any limits.
marconaf
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Re: Bushey Road A298 20mph limit?!

Post by marconaf »

fras wrote: Fri Jun 11, 2021 21:55 It seems to me that essentially 20 mph limits get public approval because everybody wants a 20 mph limit outside their own front door, but not outside the front doors of anybody else ! How else does this explain the low compliance of such limits ?
In fact his probably applies to any limits.
This figures. You don’t have to drive much to see that there is very little compliance with speed limits generally, especially the lower ones.

The only ones that seem to get compliance are 60 limits becuase a lot of roads that have them are hard to sustain 60 on given bends and so on.

I honestly dont think people drive to these limits, other than watching for cameras etc. So its kind of moot if the limits change.

As for them having public support, we all know that politics and governence is driven by those who shout a lot. As 2016 showed us all to our surprise, a (slight) majority, although a lot more than expected, actually felt opposite to what had been orthodox politics for decades, and which significantly wrong footed all the major parties.

So I doubt lowering speed limits actually has public support, if anything the lack of opposition reinforces how ignored the entire concept is as many people arent going to work themsleves up over something they dont plan to comply with anyway.

Speed limits have for me become a good example of how the law ends up in disrepute because the law is an ass. It may be the law, lawfully passed, but it’s still an ass. It drastically reduces my respect for the rest of the law and the organs of the law.

That doesnt seem a good place to have people.
someone
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Re: Bushey Road A298 20mph limit?!

Post by someone »

I went out and back on the A3 on Sunday, so got to travel this way twice. It was not that busy in the morning but the few vehicles there were it felt like they were treating it as a 30 mph road. But coming home when it was busy only a Porsche went at 40 mph (and probably would have done that on any road!) a couple of vehicles at 30, but everyone else was doing 20 mph.

With the first section already dropped to 30 mph, which is sensible as the road reduces to a single lane to cross the railway bridge, and the single carriageway section being 20 mph, the middle part seems too short and isolated to make sense as 40 mph now. It feels like a 30 mph road, but maybe just because people are now used to it, most seemed to comply with the new limit.

And returning to the A216, I am not sure what the speed limit is for the section in Lambeth. I was finding it slightly odd that by passing through three boroughs the limit is signed separately on each border despite no gaps, that is with a full-sized roundel and not a repeater. But whilst there is a 20 roundel on both sides of the lamp posts on the Lambeth and Wandsworth border, there is only a small repeater between that and the A23 and A214 red routes.

The top end of the A216 Mitcham Lane between St. Leonards junction and A214 Ambleside Avenue is a red route, which it needs to be for southbound A23 traffic to easily turn onto the westbound A214 as it has a one way system. But continuing on Mitcham Lane there are 20s painted on the road, some in full colour, but no actual sign until you reach a repeater about half way to the Wandsworth border.

So heading south there is no proper signed change of limit until the railway bridge as you enter Wandsworth. But heading north you have a facing 20 roundel as you cross into Lambeth, a repeater, but then nothing when heading onto the A214 or A23 to tell you the limit is now 30.

It is as though the council just forgot to put up the signs at the Ambleside Avenue junction when they reduced the limit.
Skipsy
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Re: Bushey Road A298 20mph limit?!

Post by Skipsy »

fras wrote: Fri Jun 11, 2021 21:55 It seems to me that essentially 20 mph limits get public approval because everybody wants a 20 mph limit outside their own front door, but not outside the front doors of anybody else ! How else does this explain the low compliance of such limits ?
In fact his probably applies to any limits.
So true
fras
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Re: Bushey Road A298 20mph limit?!

Post by fras »

I am now going to rationalise my breaking of a speed limit by considering it to be "civil disobedience" ! Actually I don't exceed limits by huge margins, and use the local village speed indicator to see what the error is on my speedo, so I generally keep pretty well at the limits. Of course we are now going through a political phase which will hopefully come to an end before I curl my toes up.
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ajuk
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Re: Bushey Road A298 20mph limit?!

Post by ajuk »

Bryn666 wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 22:32
fras wrote: Thu Jun 10, 2021 21:08 The basic question is, - who is the law serving ? In the case of this ridiculous speed limit, it is clear it is serving nobody. There is such a thing as "abuse of powers".
In your opinion.

Given it costs money to promote speed limit orders, and has to be signed off politically, it is clearly the opinion of elected officials that it serves somebody.
I'd still like to know what logical fallacy I committed?
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