Went into town (Fishguard) tonight and got a taste of the new limit for built up areas. My villiage is 20mph all the way, but being a bit of a tight and compact island off the main road most people never drove at more than 17 or 18 anyway. In town there was one place that I thought could have held onto thirty for a bit longer, but in general it seems to have been implicated sensibly with thirty still being held on the more open stretches and the twenty being imposed where you would not do much more or anything at all above 20.
Be interesting to see how far other councils have gone (The locations being decided at local level) but so far not too bad. There are reports in the local online paper of a van going round nicking the new signs, twenty having disappeared so far and others have been vandalised. The protests will probably die when everyone gets used to it, like happened with speed cameras.
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>> There are reports in the local online
>> paper of a van going round nicking the new signs, twenty having disappeared so far
Well, at least they won’t be nicking any more. Twenty’s plenty.
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We have had a 20mph limit in lower Sunbury, not far from where I live
tinyurl.com/32kwj6t7
trying to spot the changes from 40 to 30 to 20 and then back up again is not easy or obvious. Friend of mine was nicked for 24mph here.
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We've had one in the Village along the main road past the Primary School shops etc for Donkey's years though there are plenty of Donkeys who ignore it.
Whole London Boroughs (Ealing?) have been 20 for the best part of a decade. Some time since I ceased to be a commuter Kingsway>Southampton Row>Woburn Place became 20. Makes literally no difference as you'd not get to 30 anytime since the war except in the small hours.
Vast swathes of semi urban - village - roads in France are 30kph ie as near 20mph as makes no difference.
Daughter reports it as making no difference on her residential road but tha 20 through the centre of Shotton feels like a crawl. I doubt though that it adds anything to the time taken from the edge of Connah's Quay to the A550 indeed. if it smooths it a bit it might even reduce congestion.
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A child hit by a car at 20mph has a 90% chance of surviving.
At 30 it is 50/50.
At 40 almost all are killed.
Bit of a no-brainer where pedestrians and cyclists are highly likely to be encountered I guess.
The wholesale adoption of SUVs is good for adults (folding at the waist rather than the knees is good) but worse for small children where the leading edge of the bonnet is more likely to be head-height.
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So they not have a similar scheme in Scotland? I stayed in Jedburgh a couple of years ago and there was a 20mph limit throughout the built up area. I was struck by how much more peaceful and civilised it made the town feel.
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Long link shortened - links to a Scottish Gov site.
tinyurl.com/36yzkf2y
Last edited by: smokie on Mon 18 Sep 23 at 19:08
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what i really don't like, are speed cameras in places where if you went below the limit, you wouldn't be driving at an appropriate speed. then if they leave the cameras in the same place and reduce the limit by ten,it's just not playing fair.
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There are indeed roads and lanes where a 20mph limit would make a lot of sense, just as there are ones where 30mph does and others where 40mph would, and so on upwards. I’d even contend that some rural stretches of motorway could easily accommodate an 80mph limit weather and conditions permitting, but there doesn’t always seem to be a consistency of logic applied to how and where they are set.
With a slight and tenuous nod to the late great Eric Morcambe, we probably have all the right limits, but not necessarily in the right order.
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The problem is that you are looking at it from a motoring point of view. You may well be able to drive safely down a road at a higher speed but if a lower speed provides a better environment then perhaps that should prevail.
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Speed limits apply only to motor vehicles, so I can see a lot of conflict with those cyclists who will delight in whizzing past cars at 25 - 30mph. Perfectly legal, but very unwise both from a safety point of view and prompting a reaction from Ronnie Pickering and his ilk.
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Isn't that ‘wanton or furious cycling’?
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…only if it’s a Chinese bike.
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>> prompting a reaction from Ronnie Pickering.
Who?
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>> The problem is that you are looking at it from a motoring point of view.
>> You may well be able to drive safely down a road at a higher speed
>> but if a lower speed provides a better environment then perhaps that should prevail.
>>
I believe it's not initially for environmental reasons, the 20 mph will have no impact or increase emissions.
It's environmental benefits will kick in when most are in the EVs or on the bus/bike/walking.
That was from a BBC reporting quoting the Welsh Gov.
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I was using environment in a broad sense, not just the air quality. It is much more pleasant and you feel safer in a street where the traffic is moving at 20mph rather than 30mph. Quieter too.
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Indeed, perhaps they were the Welsh government's intention all long but without stating that.
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A report in one of the local rags says that some drivers were complaining they could "Barely get up to fourth gear".
The mind boggles.
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>> A report in one of the local rags says that some drivers were complaining they
>> could "Barely get up to fourth gear".
I recall someone saying their car wouldn't go that slow. I wondered how they got in and out of it.
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It's interesting that the arguments seem mainly to focus on safety and pollution, where benefits probably are modest, but properly implemented there's a massive opportunity with simple quality of life which seems to be ignored.
It's really unpleasant walking with traffic going by at up to 40mph, as it does in the 30 limit here and I've been batted twice by mirrors while on the footpath (it's a fairly narrow road). If a 20 limit were to mean they were doing 26 instead of 36 it would be a big improvement.
Saturday's Daily Mail I noticed had a front page story about Labour's attack on motorists.
Conservative MS's who now want a final vote on it have previously supported the 20mph default.
In any case, it doesn't necessarily mean that every 30 will become a 20. The default where there are street lights etc will be 20. It is clearly intended for residential roads and LA's can presumably sign a different signed speed limit to the default as they can now.
Frankly I would be in favour of a similar approach in England. In practice many towns are doing it anyway, and much of Tring is already 20mph.
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Weve been on the Llŷn Pennisula for the last week. Very interesting experience with it. I'd read that Gwynedd Council had been pretty good with their "exceptions" and so it seemed in practice. Pwllheli and Porthmadog were ok, as it appears that traffic seems to move at around 20mph naturally, some bits of ex-30s seem a little long ( Llanrug - large village between Caernarfon and Llanberis) 20mph seemed slow.
On my ride down south I saw plenty of 20mph limits, it wasn't the end of the world, bike a little uncomfortable at 20mph/
Our home location 20mph will make very little difference. What makes a big difference is the buffoons who used to bimble along at 25mph in 30s now bimble along at 15mph.
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Not to make any comment on the rights or wrongs of any of it, but because we live near the Welsh border, we often have occasion to cross it.
Our two main cars are respectively automatic and manual. Have to admit that it’s way easier to potter along at 20mph in the auto than in the manual. No real difference on the flat, but on a hill, you need to change gear in the manual quite a lot. Just a bit irritating is all really.
Anyway, the Welsh eh? ;-)
Last edited by: Runfer D'Hills on Sat 23 Sep 23 at 19:44
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"the Welsh eh?" They're revolting
www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-66902150
Seems they aren't quite sure what the big issue of the day is though.
"Banners held by demonstrators also complained about a variety of other things, such as Ultra Low Emission Zones (Ulez), Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs), Clean Air Zones (Caz), digital IDs, "cashless societies", and called for people to "defy the travel lockdown"."
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Can’t be right can it, all that seaweed eating and so on ?
Pointy hats too.
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New Welsh 20mph Limits - Crankcase
