Wales to introduce widespread 20mph zones

[FosseWay]

Key to that is not having people and vehicles mixing above 20mph and the accepting of the small cost to that - drivers must drive slightly more slowly for mixed traffic portions of their journey.

This is one of the stranger aspects of this. It's precisely in 20 and 30 mph limits where there is most likely to be (vaguely) adequate accommodation for pedestrians at least, on a separate part of the carriageway (i.e. the pavement). On your average housing estate, the roads all have pavements, yet I'd be the first to agree that roads like that should be the target of a more widespread 20 limit. Conversely, there are miles and miles of rural roads, mostly but by no means exclusively NSL country lanes, where there is genuinely nowhere for pedestrians to walk separately, and the limit is much higher. Take a fairly randomly selected bit of the A470: if there's a pedestrian just round that corner, there's nowhere for them to go, you can't pass them safely without crossing the centre line, and you can't cross the centre line safely because you can't see oncoming traffic. I haven't gone far enough along there on GSV to be absolutely sure of the limit, but I'd imagine it's NSL. Even if it's 50 or 40, that's still a shedload more than 20.

It feels like there's a bit of a parallel here on how the scheme has been "sold in" with LTNs. The messaging with LTNs has exaggerated the safety aspect, both with respect to the current risk and the degree to which it will reduce meaningfully for any given user after implementation. Because most people most of the time don't have a particular problem with safety, they see the measure as pointless or actively objectionable (because they have to drive further or more slowly). Their attitude might have been rather different if the schemes had been presented in terms of reducing noise and pollution, and making their residential areas nicer places to be outdoors in, other than in a vehicle.

For me, the principal benefits of 20 limits are similar. Sure, they improve safety, one would hope, but that's not all. They can make town centres just nicer places to be for people who aren't in cars, and we want to encourage people not to be in cars in town centres. Conversely, if there isn't much to be gained from reducing the limit on the outskirts of a town, where there's a pavement for residents to use and no-one else much goes there on foot, and the houses are sparse and set back from the road so that any reduction in noise is negligible, you have to wonder why it's being applied with such zeal.

Most of the commentary I've read questioning the 20 mph scheme has focused precisely on these borderline cases, not the town centres or housing estates. And the whole narrative has been skewed towards these marginal cases rather than towards the benefits of the scheme in the majority of locations where no-one really questions the new limit, partly because you probably can't do more than 20 there most of the time anyway.

I agree also with Helvellyn on the desirability of the authorities making reasonable attempts to get it right from the beginning and not taking a "slap it on and we might reassess it later" approach. I feel this partly for the reason Helvellyn gives, that obvious and widespread deviations from common sense cause contempt for sensible regulation. But I also think authorities in general tend to forget that when they implement things like speed limits they are creating conditions that can result in criminal prosecution of and, if convicted, a criminal record for citizens. If you (generic) are going to do that, it is incumbent on you to be at least as conscientious in defining the rules sensibly as you expect everyone else to be in sticking to them.

[Helvellyn]

Though there is a risk of it becoming this way, I have never yet seen Vision Zero explained as meaning something insane like 'we tighten the rules until nobody dies anymore'. It's more of a challenge to policymakers to say, there is not an 'acceptable number of road deaths' or a 'cost to death ratio' - engineers must be empowered to fix the built-in risks that have caused deaths from road collisions.

That does sound like "we tighten the rules until nobody dies anymore." There IS a point where the risk of death is less objectionable than the measures after all. To take it to the extreme if you say "no there isn't" then you've simply got to bad cars outright - and bikes, and even walking. The fact that we would regard that as an absurd extreme example shows that, yes, we believe there is an acceptable number.

Ditto with cost to death ratios, because an incredibly expensive scheme that would only make the most marginal difference would be dismissed out of hand, and not just because it could be better spent on other measures.

[AAndy]

Though there is a risk of it becoming this way, I have never yet seen Vision Zero explained as meaning something insane like 'we tighten the rules until nobody dies anymore'. It's more of a challenge to policymakers to say, there is not an 'acceptable number of road deaths' or a 'cost to death ratio' - engineers must be empowered to fix the built-in risks that have caused deaths from road collisions.

That does sound like "we tighten the rules until nobody dies anymore." There IS a point where the risk of death is less objectionable than the measures after all. To take it to the extreme if you say "no there isn't" then you've simply got to bad cars outright - and bikes, and even walking. The fact that we would regard that as an absurd extreme example shows that, yes, we believe there is an acceptable number.

Ditto with cost to death ratios, because an incredibly expensive scheme that would only make the most marginal difference would be dismissed out of hand, and not just because it could be better spent on other measures.

The tragic crash this week in south wales where 3 lost their lives and 2 more critical in hospital is reported as having occurred in a 20mph zone.

[Bryn666]

Though there is a risk of it becoming this way, I have never yet seen Vision Zero explained as meaning something insane like 'we tighten the rules until nobody dies anymore'. It's more of a challenge to policymakers to say, there is not an 'acceptable number of road deaths' or a 'cost to death ratio' - engineers must be empowered to fix the built-in risks that have caused deaths from road collisions.

That does sound like "we tighten the rules until nobody dies anymore." There IS a point where the risk of death is less objectionable than the measures after all. To take it to the extreme if you say "no there isn't" then you've simply got to bad cars outright - and bikes, and even walking. The fact that we would regard that as an absurd extreme example shows that, yes, we believe there is an acceptable number.

Ditto with cost to death ratios, because an incredibly expensive scheme that would only make the most marginal difference would be dismissed out of hand, and not just because it could be better spent on other measures.

Whenever there are disasters resulting in loss of life in other modes of transport, we want to know why and we look to address the cause and try and prevent a recurrence. When people die on the roads we shrug and say "price of freedom". This is called motor-normativity and it is a very dangerous way of thinking because there is no acceptable number of avoidable deaths (and road deaths are avoidable). "Let stupid people kill themselves and stop nannying me" is also a dangerous way of thinking because they have an unfortunate habit of taking innocent people with them, which will one day probably include the people saying this.

Having safe roads and permitting the use of motorised vehicles are not mutually exclusive. We need to clamp down on the behaviour of those who see driving recklessly as a victimless crime (1,800 bereaved families a year might see it differently), and we need to make sure that anyone with a driving licence is made fully aware of their social responsibility through stricter testing, re-testing, and competence checks.

Likewise, safer vehicle design, safer road design, and where there is an unacceptable risk - banning motorised traffic - are all components of vision zero.

Yes, deaths will still probably happen on the roads - hence why the term is VISION zero, but the principle is that these deaths should be genuine freak occurrences, and not the result of someone making a mistake. This is why we don't still use fishtail crash barriers or make cars out of metalwork that decapitates an occupant if it's crushed.

[Helvellyn]

A "zero vision" implicitly goes beyond accepting that even freak accidents can happen. It also fundamentally implies that human beings are a problem and thus we need to be removed from the equation altogether. This is much further than dealing with the (frankly unacceptably high number of) dangerous drivers.

[jnty]

I disagree that that's what happens. Serious crashes are investigated. But it is a fact of life that they will happen I'm afraid, There is an extent where it is "normalised" because it simply is normal.

This is exactly the sort of thing that was presumably said in the rail industry in the past when extra safety measures were brought up. Somehow, they have managed to drive passenger deaths down to virtually zero without any mass deaths due to boredom. I don't think that's really a credible risk. If you find you're not getting a sufficient adrenaline fix from driving any more, I would recommend bungee jumping.

[Bryn666]

I disagree that that's what happens. Serious crashes are investigated. But it is a fact of life that they will happen I'm afraid, There is an extent where it is "normalised" because it simply is normal.

This is exactly the sort of thing that was presumably said in the rail industry in the past when extra safety measures were brought up. Somehow, they have managed to drive passenger deaths down to virtually zero without any mass deaths due to boredom. I don't think that's really a credible risk. If you find you're not getting a sufficient adrenaline fix from driving any more, I would recommend bungee jumping.

Same as when people said it was just normal that people died in coal mine explosions...

[Helvellyn]

I disagree that that's what happens. Serious crashes are investigated. But it is a fact of life that they will happen I'm afraid, There is an extent where it is "normalised" because it simply is normal.

This is exactly the sort of thing that was presumably said in the rail industry in the past when extra safety measures were brought up. Somehow, they have managed to drive passenger deaths down to virtually zero without any mass deaths due to boredom. I don't think that's really a credible risk. If you find you're not getting a sufficient adrenaline fix from driving any more, I would recommend bungee jumping.

And I'd prefer to travel by rail sixty years ago than now... And not because of desire for an adrenaline rush either. There's a world of difference between accepting risk and going out looking for it.

Tell me, where do you draw the line? There's no fundamental difference, it's all about just where on a continuum the solutions become less appealing than the problem. It's always possible to come up with absurd, far-fetched examples which you'll probably reject as being absurd, but they're merely another point on that same continuum. Some appear to believe there's a fundamental difference in attitudes, there is not, unless you're talking to a true extremist.

[Helvellyn]

I disagree that that's what happens. Serious crashes are investigated. But it is a fact of life that they will happen I'm afraid, There is an extent where it is "normalised" because it simply is normal.

This is exactly the sort of thing that was presumably said in the rail industry in the past when extra safety measures were brought up. Somehow, they have managed to drive passenger deaths down to virtually zero without any mass deaths due to boredom. I don't think that's really a credible risk. If you find you're not getting a sufficient adrenaline fix from driving any more, I would recommend bungee jumping.

Same as when people said it was just normal that people died in coal mine explosions...

Heading off in to one extreme or the other territory again (at any rate what would put me off isn't the risk but the run down, falling apart, tatty neglected air that is the impression I get of the railways from back then)... An extreme example in one direction does not justify an extreme one in the other. It just highlights what I said in my last post, there's a point where it's sensible to draw a line.

It also ignores the fact that efforts were made to try to reduce that. The desire to reduce an extreme problem is not incompatible with accepting that sometimes it happens. If you brought someone back from that time to now they might very well find it great that that high level of risk has been massively reduced, and absurd about how far we've gone or want to go in some areas. It'll depend on the individual of course.

Some ideas I might very well get behind (depending upon how they're implemented). I'd certainly like to see harsher penalties for various forms of genuinely dangerous driving. I'm not sure how we'd go about it, but I'd like to see the level of social acceptability of it significantly reduced (the extremes are generally not accepted but there's a lot of lesser but still bad stuff that is). Periodic retests I think would be a great idea, although there are obvious practical issues to overcome there when people are struggling to get even one test.

[jnty]

I disagree that that's what happens. Serious crashes are investigated. But it is a fact of life that they will happen I'm afraid, There is an extent where it is "normalised" because it simply is normal.

This is exactly the sort of thing that was presumably said in the rail industry in the past when extra safety measures were brought up. Somehow, they have managed to drive passenger deaths down to virtually zero without any mass deaths due to boredom. I don't think that's really a credible risk. If you find you're not getting a sufficient adrenaline fix from driving any more, I would recommend bungee jumping.

And I'd prefer to live at some point in the past with that different attitude to risk (some point, not to the other extreme). And not because of desire for an adrenaline rush either. There's a world of difference between accepting risk and going out looking for it.

Tell me, where do you draw the line? There's no fundamental difference, it's all about just where on a continuum the solutions become less appealing than the problem. It's always possible to come up with absurd, far-fetched examples which you'll probably reject as being absurd, but they're merely another point on that same continuum. Some appear to believe there's a fundamental difference in attitudes, there is not, unless you're talking to a true extremist.

Your arguments seem to suggest you're the only person capable of drawing a line and everyone else is an extremist, however. Eliminating car deaths could be very simply done by eliminating all cars. Yet that is not what any Vision Zero practitioner proposes. Perhaps, then, you don't hold a monopoly on nuance.

[Helvellyn]

This is exactly the sort of thing that was presumably said in the rail industry in the past when extra safety measures were brought up. Somehow, they have managed to drive passenger deaths down to virtually zero without any mass deaths due to boredom. I don't think that's really a credible risk. If you find you're not getting a sufficient adrenaline fix from driving any more, I would recommend bungee jumping.

And I'd prefer to live at some point in the past with that different attitude to risk (some point, not to the other extreme). And not because of desire for an adrenaline rush either. There's a world of difference between accepting risk and going out looking for it.

Tell me, where do you draw the line? There's no fundamental difference, it's all about just where on a continuum the solutions become less appealing than the problem. It's always possible to come up with absurd, far-fetched examples which you'll probably reject as being absurd, but they're merely another point on that same continuum. Some appear to believe there's a fundamental difference in attitudes, there is not, unless you're talking to a true extremist.

Your arguments seem to suggest you're the only person capable of drawing a line and everyone else is an extremist, however. Eliminating car deaths could be very simply done by eliminating all cars. Yet that is not what any Vision Zero practitioner proposes. Perhaps, then, you don't hold a monopoly on nuance.

I never claimed anything of the sort, nor do my arguments imply that everyone else is an extremist. Although I certainly find some peoples' opinions on that matter pretty extreme. But one thing I've most definitely NOT done is claim that I'm speaking for anyone other than myself, where I, personally, would like to draw the line, what works for me. What really does anger me though are people who appear to believe that they can claim that I am somehow definitively wrong about it, nope, they're absolutely right (if you believe that that's what I'm claiming about my position - that it's unarguably the correct one to take, no room for debate, then you're not understanding my position). Not that they simply disagree with me, quite strongly; that's fair enough, we've all got our views and should be free to argue about them as robustly as possible. We also have to accept that we live in a democracy so where the line's drawn needs to reflect that. It's why I'll happily say whatever I feel about an issue but will not cross the line in to outright physically acting against it (i.e. I'll stick with Wales' 20 mph limits even if the risk of being caught is zero, and wouldn't dream of e.g. vandalising signs and speed cameras, whilst at the same time saying exactly what I think of it).

No-one here, no-one in this argument is definitively right or wrong. I hope we all understand that.

If a Vision Zero practitioner isn't prepared to admit that eliminating cars is what it would take then there's a fundamental conflict with the very idea, because that's the only way you'll get zero. So if that's not your answer then you don't actually accept that zero is a sensible goal to aim for and the name seems inappropriate. After all it's probably a given that everyone thinks that in an ideal world it would be zero anyway.

[Bryn666]

It's called Vision Zero because it's a snappier title than vision towards a number of deaths that are deemed arbitrarily acceptable by middle aged white men (who are often the least affected by road deaths) on the internet.

It's called Vision Zero because there is a belief that continual steps towards a goal are better than defeatist ostrich behaviour and burying one's head in the sand going "la la la motor-normativity".

It's called Vision Zero because it's an aspiration, not a fixed target. The clue is in the word vision, and not target. However, for those with a sensitive disposition, it can be interchanged with the phrase "sustainable safety".

I didn't realise that we were into the realms of being Mr. Logic from Viz magazine and arguing more about semantics than an actual serious subject.

[jnty]

And I'd prefer to live at some point in the past with that different attitude to risk (some point, not to the other extreme). And not because of desire for an adrenaline rush either. There's a world of difference between accepting risk and going out looking for it.

Tell me, where do you draw the line? There's no fundamental difference, it's all about just where on a continuum the solutions become less appealing than the problem. It's always possible to come up with absurd, far-fetched examples which you'll probably reject as being absurd, but they're merely another point on that same continuum. Some appear to believe there's a fundamental difference in attitudes, there is not, unless you're talking to a true extremist.

Your arguments seem to suggest you're the only person capable of drawing a line and everyone else is an extremist, however. Eliminating car deaths could be very simply done by eliminating all cars. Yet that is not what any Vision Zero practitioner proposes. Perhaps, then, you don't hold a monopoly on nuance.

I never claimed anything of the sort, nor do my arguments imply that everyone else is an extremist. Although I certainly find some peoples' opinions on that matter pretty extreme. But one thing I've most definitely NOT done is claim that I'm speaking for anyone other than myself, where I, personally, would like to draw the line, what works for me. What really does anger me though are people who appear to believe that they can claim that I am somehow definitively wrong about it, nope, they're absolutely right (if you believe that that's what I'm claiming about my position - that it's unarguably the correct one to take, no room for debate, then you're not understanding my position). Not that they simply disagree with me, quite strongly; that's fair enough, we've all got our views and should be free to argue about them as robustly as possible. We also have to accept that we live in a democracy so where the line's drawn needs to reflect that. It's why I'll happily say whatever I feel about an issue but will not cross the line in to outright physically acting against it (i.e. I'll stick with Wales' 20 mph limits even if the risk of being caught is zero, and wouldn't dream of e.g. vandalising signs and speed cameras, whilst at the same time saying exactly what I think of it).

No-one here, no-one in this argument is definitively right or wrong. I hope we all understand that.

Nobody is arguing that you are definitively wrong, because that would be impossible - you aren't actually advocating a concrete position to argue against. Instead, you're faintly implying that a large group of people are quite seriously wrong and mean to cause you harm based on a strict lexicographic interpretation of a two word title for an engineering philosophy they associate with. Any attempt to narrow your position down from a long list of negatives to any concrete positive things you support - other than a return to an ill-defined nostalgic hinterland - just results in more negatives and vehement points of semantic disagreement. If you seek out extreme disagreements wherever you can, then you will also find everyone else feels like an extremist.

[AAndy]

It all kicks off on Saturday : https://www.countytimes.co.uk/news/2399 ... ent-looms/

[DB617]

Going back to a previous point about rural roads with high speed limits, that has to be decided based on where pedestrians are likely to be, and we're not there yet at all on that either. I can name several roads in my home town which link rural communities and have quite a bit of suppressed walking and cycling demand (denied of course by the local usual suspects who would prefer, clearly, to see pedestrians on the road despite a series of fatal accidents) where there is a 50mph limit and no footway or spare width. Finally, we are starting to see movement there, with the links being equipped with stepped footway and cycleway with a set back verge as specified in LTN 1/20. It's very refreshing.

The vision zero approach on roads with mixed traffic but predominantly (>95%) consisting of motors and likely to continue being so, is to provide safe infrastructure alongside for the few non motorised users (forgive me Professor Parkin for the 'reductive language') which is incredibly cheap to do compared to, say, road widening schemes.

But what you have to remember about the UK is historical context. 150 years ago the majority of travellers on a road were on foot, beside horse, on horse or on a stage. Perhaps the occasional horse hauled bus. We brought cars capable of ever higher speeds into that environment and increased the speed limits over time before doing away with them completely, in other words deciding that routes originally traversed at 1-8mph would now only be safe at 40+mph. And there was not even a shred of effort to segregate the slower traffic to allow it to continue. Buy a car, or stay at home - or get the usually abysmal bus service. That's the context we are working in today and the massive range of often misinformed or uninformed views on this - and how much credence we afford them - is the reason I am so glad I tripped and fell into the utilities sector instead. Somehow, despite Fergal Sharkey et al., it is less controversial, vitriolic and generally disheartening.

[roadtester]

It looks as though Ely, Cambridgeshire (the place where I live) is going over to 20.

https://t.co/XgSflx89yn

The measure seems to be quite widely supported. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating but I think this is going to make it a nicer place to live.

[owen b]

I was in Wales over Christmas and the 20 limit didn't bother me much. At least where I went (Shropshire to Pwllheli and back and various local outings from Pwllheli) it seemed to be restricted to village and town centre areas with narrow roads, pedestrians, frontages, awkward junctions, etc. Most of the urban fringe areas were still 30 or 40.

The one limit which seemed inexplicably low was the 40 on the still fairly new and high standard Tremadog (A487) bypass, which has only one junction along it and no building frontages.

[A303Chris]

I was in Wales over Christmas and the 20 limit didn't bother me much. At least where I went (Shropshire to Pwllheli and back and various local outings from Pwllheli) it seemed to be restricted to village and town centre areas with narrow roads, pedestrians, frontages, awkward junctions, etc. Most of the urban fringe areas were still 30 or 40.

The one limit which seemed inexplicably low was the 40 on the still fairly new and high standard Tremadog (A487) bypass, which has only one junction along it and no building frontages.

I have not been over the border since the change but was talking to a client at a consultation event in Weymouth before Christmas, based in Swansea and he said the same. Most A and B roads have stayed at 30 and 40, unless they're passing shops / school etc. His view was the media has blown it out of proportion.

[DB617]

Having visited 'home' a few times since the change and I have had a mixed experience but broadly positive - I find that traversing the village roads at 20 and not feeling guilty for it is far better than the previous hair-raising passing parked vehicles etc at 30. At all times I felt more in control of the car and less afraid in the urban environment. And yes, technically one can slow down where risk increases but it usually results in further increased risk due to the attitude and road rage of other (lesser?) road users when one does so. However, there is a mile of link road between the 50mph main B road and my former housing estate which should always have been at least 40mph as it had no junctions, no frontages, a stepped cycleway and plenty of SSD - that is now 20, which is even more ridiculous and poorly observed than it was at 30. A little more work needs to be done and I suspect that could be worse in some other counties.

[Big L]

…His view was the media has blown it out of proportion.

Oh come on; seriously?