Wales 20mph limit

[IanF]

https://news.sky.com/story/wales-speed- ... r-12940421

From 17th Sept, old 30mph roads will be changed to 20mph (bar some local council exemptions). Apparently, they’re also going to use the Fire Brigade to offer transgressors a road side video as opposed to prosecution..

[Mito Man]

Why don’t they just make it 10mph to avoid having to go through all this again in 5 years time
It’s somewhat depressing when I use the old TomTom in my Mito (usually as my iPhone battery is knackered now). It’s a 5 year old unit which displays the speed limits but almost every road I drive on has had a 10-20 mph reduction.

[Jobbo]

Having not looked at the detail of this, I did wonder if the blanket 20mph limit included every single road, even formerly NSL ones.

[Carlos]

It's not as bad as it first appears although i am opposed to it as are most people even the local authorities.

It's basically all 30mph areas default to 20mph but the local authority does have the discretion to leave them at 30. I was speaking to our local highways dept after the debacle with my daughter being penalised for speeding in discretionary 20 areas by the insurance company. They highlighted that those areas would become 20 mandatory as they are typically school routes and this would be extended side streets plus high pedestrian areas, main roads appear to be remaining at 30 though.

I got the impression from the highways people they felt undermined and mentioned no one knows our roads better than us!

I have already come across some main roads through rural villages that have been changed to 20 already in other counties and its painfully slow on roads that were NSL not that long ago!

[GG.]

To be honest (assuming 20 limits are here to stay) this needs to be done in London with clear signposting of the reverse, i.e. the main arterial routes that remain 30.

Currently it is a nightmare with significant uncertainty in lots of areas as to whether the limit is 20 or 30 which means lots of irritation sat behind people who think the south circular is a 20 and anxiety in certain areas around whether you're speeding or not (the route from Vauxhall, via Oval/Kennington across via Camberwell is a key offender where there is a single small repeater sized 20 in what, I believe is actually 30 zone for about half a mile).

[Swervin_Mervin]

I was only reviewing the proposed orders for Wrexham yesterday actually. It's actually fairly straightforward - 30mph switches to 20 by default, unless exemptions are sought, and even in a fairly urban county such as Wrexham, the list of exemptions being sought is relatively low (between 10-20 sections of road I think)

[Carlos]

It seems our LA are a bit more pragmatic as there are 100+ roads and streets that have had exemptions applied, i had assumed it was the same everywhere!

[mik]

It's happening to many areas in Jockland too. It's applied in one place, and all the idiots in surrounding areas squeal that they want "the safety of 20mph zones" too.... <sigh>

Tight suburban streets in housing estates etc I can understand, but long straight roads through villages (for example) are mind-numbing to drive through at 22mph - particularly late at night / early morning.

[jamcg]

It’s another example of our nations taking the wrong direction and blaming the wrong party I think. When I was in primary school we had the Green cross code drilled into us, we had superted and hedgehogs on tv telling us to be careful on the roads. Now kids ride bikes and e-scooters the wrong way up a 40mph road and it’s apparently the car drivers fault, whereas if you you stepped into the road without looking that used to be your own fault. Also the amount of people who cross the road about 5 steps away from a zebra/pelican/puffin crossing is getting ridiculous

Yes school areas should be low speed, and tiny side roads, but dropping the speed limit is just masking a larger problem with society as a whole, with people unable to accept responsibility for their own actions and needing someone else to blame and car drivers are unfortunately the easiest ones to point at and everyone else join in. And once you have that person to blame, you no longer need to be concerned with your own actions as if you get run over it’s not your fault

[Carlos]

It seems our LA are a bit more pragmatic as there are 100+ roads and streets that have had exemptions applied, i had assumed it was the same everywhere!

Bizarrely one of the advisory 20's near a school is part of the exemption to 30 as part of a large block exemption to one of the towns main roads. It is heavily policed with a fixed camera at one end and often a mobile at the other end of school area though.

[IanF]

It’s another example of our nations taking the wrong direction and blaming the wrong party I think. When I was in primary school we had the Green cross code drilled into us, we had superted and hedgehogs on tv telling us to be careful on the roads. Now kids ride bikes and e-scooters the wrong way up a 40mph road and it’s apparently the car drivers fault, whereas if you you stepped into the road without looking that used to be your own fault. Also the amount of people who cross the road about 5 steps away from a zebra/pelican/puffin crossing is getting ridiculous

Yes school areas should be low speed, and tiny side roads, but dropping the speed limit is just masking a larger problem with society as a whole, with people unable to accept responsibility for their own actions and needing someone else to blame and car drivers are unfortunately the easiest ones to point at and everyone else join in. And once you have that person to blame, you no longer need to be concerned with your own actions as if you get run over it’s not your fault

Yep..

[GG.]

It’s another example of our nations taking the wrong direction and blaming the wrong party I think. When I was in primary school we had the Green cross code drilled into us, we had superted and hedgehogs on tv telling us to be careful on the roads. Now kids ride bikes and e-scooters the wrong way up a 40mph road and it’s apparently the car drivers fault, whereas if you you stepped into the road without looking that used to be your own fault. Also the amount of people who cross the road about 5 steps away from a zebra/pelican/puffin crossing is getting ridiculous

Yes school areas should be low speed, and tiny side roads, but dropping the speed limit is just masking a larger problem with society as a whole, with people unable to accept responsibility for their own actions and needing someone else to blame and car drivers are unfortunately the easiest ones to point at and everyone else join in. And once you have that person to blame, you no longer need to be concerned with your own actions as if you get run over it’s not your fault

Yep..

Yes - correct. Its the tyranny of the brainless and disproportionate "if it even saves one life" school of moralising.

To blanket every urban area in the country with a reduced speed limit it should be required to show it would save hundreds of lives a year - not that you are x% less likely to die in the abstract, which could be used to justify any arbitrary and draconian safety measure. If I am placed under house arrest, I'm 100% less likely to be hit by a bus!!! Amazing.

ETA: The Welsh govt. are predicting "up to" 100 fewer fatalities... over the next decade. First it will be interesting to see if that materialises and secondly, its 10 people a year - in 2022 93 people were killed so we're talking about an estimated 10% reduction in fatalities. That does not seem proportionate to me whean heart disease kills 9,500 people per year in Wales.

I also like that people are pointing to spain as a precedent using the 2020 year as indicative following lower limits being introduced in 2019

[Mito Man]

How times change, reminds me bit about the village by my parents place. 11 year old girl got hit by car 5 years because she just ran into the road, broken leg only fortunately. Her parents ever since have gone on a full on campaign ever since demanding the 40 mph road be reduced to 20/30 with speed cameras and pedestrian crossings. It's brought up every week on the local group. They even printed off posters with SLOW and put them on loads of posts and stand there with their own speed guns at the weekend. Also put a fake speed camera in their front garden.

I was also hit by a car when I was a similar age albeit the car slowed much more and it was merely a glancing blow. The car driver which hit me knew my parents and told them what happened and that I was being a blind twat. My parents must have disliked me as they didn't support me or go on a rampage against motorists. I got a massive bollocking, wasn't allowed out for over a week, banned from my PS2 etc. I'd rather have taken the broken leg

Anyway where was I, ah yes, people actually accepting blame for once.

[Simon]

Lots of correctness in this thread. Christ, Wales is becoming a basket case for drivers.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Lots of correctness in this thread. Christ, Wales is becoming a basket case

EFA

[nuttinnew]

[Marv]

I’ve been in France for just over a week and it appears that since I did a decent trip here last (pre 2019), they’ve slapped 30kph speed limits in what seems to be the majority of towns and villages…that’s about 18.6mph to save you reaching for your calculator.

It’s ridiculously slow and barely anyone can keep to it.

In another note, it seems that 75% of speed cameras are vandalised in France too

[Mito Man]

I got back from Wales yesterday, hadn’t been in almost 10 years. They’ve put bullshit signs everywhere saying “56 incidents in 5 years” etc and just slapped average speed cameras across many country roads.
Seem to hate motorbikes too, except the random cafes which say “motorbike friendly” - so will they get assaulted in the ones which don’t say if they’re friendly? So many questions…

[Simon]

...and so many reasons to avoid Wales.

[Carlos]

Nearly 300,000 people have signed a petition for the blanket 20 mph limit to be reconsidered in Wales. It seems NCG's in Wales were barely aware of it coming in!

What's even more bizarre is that most of the people I've spoken to about it don't realise and in some cases won't believe that the roads are 20mph as there aren't any 20mph signs!