20mph - is it legally enforceable?

[Dave83]

So, the situation is that the borough council have placed 20mph terminal signs where their blanket limit interfaces with other limits - which may be at the borough boundary or elsewhere, depending what other roads with other limits may be present - and then within the 20 limits they are relying largely or even solely on painted roundels on the road surface rather than upright repeaters.

Yes, that is correct.

If so - that’s certainly unusual. I’d expect a limit to be signed using regular vertical repeater signs in most cases. But it’s not necessarily wrong. For example, the blanket 40 limit covering the New Forest uses only painted repeaters on the road surface in most places and legislation exists to make that permissible, due to the special landscape considerations of the New Forest and the desire not to fill it with red circles on poles.

It is indeed unusual and the speed of the traffic is such that drivers would seem to think the limit is 30mph not 20mph. Interesting the New Forest example that you cite, the borough in question is not Waltham Forest.

It seems to me that the only relevant question is whether a painted 20mph roundel on the road surface is now considered equivalent to an upright 20mph repeater roundel. That’s the question. Everything else (the fact it’s borough wide, the definition of a 20 limit in the guidance, etc) is immaterial.

No I don't think that is the key question. The key question goes back to paragraph 81 and page 21* of "DoT's Know your traffic signs" which require road painted roundels to be "used in conjunction with upright signs" - see screenshot below.

A driver who starts and finishes their journey within the borough in question may well never pass an upright sign and so I can see there is a possibility that a good barrister could persuade a court of law that there was not appropriate signage to signify the limit was 20mph and not the street light rule of 30mph. I should add the whole borough has street lighting.

I would be very interested to know if there have been any successful prosecutions by the CPS for drivers driving 20mph to say 30mph on such a road as we are considering.

*https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... ns-dft.pdf

SMT edit to fix quoting

[Dave83]

The underlying concept is that a driver should be able to infer the speed limit from their surroundings.

That makes sense but take a road which has no upright roadside speed limit signs but street lights and a dark night when it is raining then it is hard to see the painted roundels (particularly if they are worn out by heavy road usage) and so I think a driver could well argue they did not know the speed limit was not the street light rule of 30mph but actually 20mph. I think this is why roundels painted on roads have to be used in conjunction with upright signs to indicate the speed limit.

SMT again

[Chris5156]

It seems to me that the only relevant question is whether a painted 20mph roundel on the road surface is now considered equivalent to an upright 20mph repeater roundel. That’s the question. Everything else (the fact it’s borough wide, the definition of a 20 limit in the guidance, etc) is immaterial.

No I don't think that is the key question. The key question goes back to paragraph 81 and page 21* of "DoT's Know your traffic signs" which require road painted roundels to be "used in conjunction with upright signs" - see screenshot below.

The thing is that “Know Your Traffic Signs” is just information for road users, and (as others have pointed out on this forum in the past) often lags behind the law in its descriptions - even the latest edition has inaccuracies where it offers a definition that has been changed in law but not updated in KYTS.

What decides whether a painted roundel is or is not sufficient to qualify as a repeater, and make a speed limit enforceable, are statute law (either primary or secondary legislation) and case law.

TSRGD, which I quoted in my last post, is secondary legislation that sets out the meaning of road signs. Its definition of the meaning of a road sign should be taken as definitive over anything you might read in either the Highway Code or Know Your Traffic Signs.

TSRGD isn’t the whole story, though; it is only updated periodically and there may be other secondary legislation that has updated meanings or relaxed requirements in the meantime. The DfT also periodically sends out guidance that changes best practice or codifies developments in case law for highway authorities. This is why I suggested a traffic sign practitioner would be best placed to answer - they will be up to date with all those recent changes and will know where to find them, whereas I don’t.

[Dave83]

For example, the blanket 40 limit covering the New Forest uses only painted repeaters on the road surface in most places and legislation exists to make that permissible, due to the special landscape considerations of the New Forest and the desire not to fill it with red circles on poles.

I have done some googling and as the sign in the below screenshot shows the New Forest is a speed limit zone which is defined in paragraph 80*. The borough I am referring to is not a speed limit zone (there are no similar signs at the boundaries of the borough, instead at the boundaries of the borough there are simply 20 terminal signs).

* Paragraph 80 of The DoT's "Guidance Setting local speed limits" https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... eed-limits
"80) 20 mph zones require traffic calming measures (e.g. speed humps, chicanes) or repeater speed limit signing and/or roundel road markings at regular intervals, so that no point within a zone is more than 50 m from such a feature. In addition, the beginning and end of a zone is indicated by a terminal sign. Zones usually cover a number of roads."

[AndyB]

When local limits came along - 20, 40, 50, 60 - they can never be indicated by the presence or absence of street lighting, so the only way to make those limits apparent from observation of your surroundings is to apply repeater signs. They always require them. The exception is 20 zones, which can use traffic calming instead, but they are a dying breed and repeaters are often used within them now anyway.

Yes, my neighbours were pondering asking for a 20 zone, but I was under the impression that they weren’t being created any more in NI at least (hey, if you don’t ask…) Traffic calming does practically the same thing and the excess cost of multiple road hump signs over terminal signs at boundaries is less than the cost of consulting and making a speed limit order for a 20 zone.

I’ve checked TSRGD. Schedule 10 part 4 General Direction 5 specifies that roundels painted on roads do not need to be accompanied by an upright sign if it’s a repeater (the statutory basis for the New Forest signage). Terminal signage however must always include an upright sign.

Of course, if what is painted on the road doesn’t match what’s on the upright signs, then it’s insufficiently clear for prosecution, but the police don’t have the resources to enforce any limit under 30 (and precious few at 30 or above) on more than a casual basis.

[Bryn666]

https://showmeasign.online/2018/05/15/t ... titioners/

Basic overview here. Since 2011 the status of 20 limits and zones has become very ambiguous and the guidance is really stretched to the limits of credibility by several authorities. I would be very wary of making basic assumptions about signing positions etc as a single solitary repeater in an entire limit/zone can now be considered to be sufficient in some scenarios.

We need to do a major speed limit review. If the general direction of travel is in favour of more 20, then the default urban speed limit should be 20 and major roads upsigned as 30 mph instead.

Or we could go metric and just declare 40 km/h to be the default urban speed limit