[Mdb51]

Hi Everyone

It's probably no secret that some of our councils are introducing 20 mph speeds on main roads.

Here in the wirral, our Labour council decided in It's ( not ) infinite wisdom to post 20 mph signs on our roads as they want to turn all of wirral into 20 mph.

They even wanted to reduce the speed on a bypass from 50 mph to 20 ( absolutely ludicrous in my opinion ). Since the 1st lot of 20 mph signs appeared, campaign have been launched for petitions to be signed saying Save 30 mph.

My brother and I ( aswell as many other drivers ) have written to our council to thoroughly object to 20 mph. 1 of the primary points we stated is that 20 should be restricted to outside schools and housing estates only but not on main roads.

There is an added set of issues here aswell, 20 will also slow down buses and HGV's / delivery vehicles meaning there will be delays to your goids being delivered because whilst I am not sure of the rules for van drivers, bus and truck drivers are only allowed to drive for 4 hours 30 minutes before they must have a break of between 45 and / or 90 minutes. The 2nd issue is that the slower speed will also impact the drivers wages because obviously the less journeys / deliveries that can be completed, the less money those drivers will earn.

Overall I think personally that 20 mph on a main road is a bad idea and highly dangerous.

What are your thoughts ?

[Mark07]

Originally Posted by Mdb51

There is an added set of issues here aswell, 20 will also slow down buses and HGV's / delivery vehicles meaning there will be delays to your goods being delivered

Do you think people would obey the new speed limits?
I wonder if people would just drive at ~30. Ironically, that's probably slower than they often drive now.

[Mdb51]

I have to admit that since 20 mph signs started appearing, I have seen a lot of drivers basically just saying **** this and driving at the original 30 mph speed.

A few have been caught by the police but nowhere near as many to justify the costs to us of installing the signs.

Where I live on the Woodchurch estate in wirral, I have seen cars and motorbikes absolutely blasting around the roads and sending pedestrians diving for cover.

During the stay at home pandemic order, we were still allowed to go to the shops on the estate, 1 was even offering free milk and food which I did accept aswell because there was no limit in how much milk you could have.

During 1 trip to the estate shops, I saw 2 off road motorbikes rocketing along the road easily doing about 50 or 60 mph on their back wheels only, how they never lost control and their lives I will never know.

As my car is 12 years old, I am trying to look after if by not hitting the speed bumps on the estate although there are 1 or 2 which go the full width of the road and cannot be avoided.

20 is fine on housing estates because a lot of the roads are narrow and not suitable for high speed driving but on the main roads where again I have seen drivers plainly ignore the signs, it is most definitely a bad idea and it wil result in everywhere just grinding to a halt because nobody will be able to move and / or a serious accident resulting most likely in fatalities.

[TC1474]

Unfortunately this all stems back to deregulation around 1984 iirc.

Back in the day, if a council wanted to change a speed limit (either higher or lower) the they were required t consult the Police. The Police (traffic management) would then investigate the implications which would start with what is called an 85 percentile check where the average speed of traffic is checked over a 24 or 48 hour period using Truvello (cables across the road) and then once the speeds were recorded 15% would be discarded as this is regarded as normal for the number of motorists who will ignore a speed limit anyway.

From the remaining 85%, the average speed is worked out which may be higher or lower than the limit already in place but helps with the determination of whether a change is required.

Additionally, collision records are checked over the previous 5 years (fatal, injury and recorded damage only) and enforcement issues were also taken into consideration along with a whole load of other stuff but I am sure you get the gist.

At the completion of the investigation, the Police would make their recommendations which could be agree with a change (higher or lower) stay as is or come up with an alternative suggestion which the council would then take on board and apply, but before any changes could be introduced the changes and traffic order had to be (and still does) advertised in the London Gazette at least one month prior to its introduction.

Under deregulation however, this all went out of the window and councils are allowed to make changes without any consultation, meaning that their traffic engineers often have to justify their big salaries by coming up with hair brained schemes but have no experience of the reality that speed limits can have, and h-as has been proven on many occasions, reducing a speed limit does not always equate to a reduction in crashes for a whole number of reasons.

I have lost count of the number of crashes I have been to or dealt with where the primary cause was a reduction in a speed limit to an unrealistic level and I have lost count of the number of occasions where an unrealistic speed limit has been introduced and the Police have made it clear that they have no intention of enforcing it.

This is the problem we currently have. Before deregulation, the councils could be kept in check and brought to account, now they are a law onto themselves and create many of the issues we are now experiencing.

In 99% of cases, 20MPH is unrealistic, however during the school run it can be effective. In some residential areas it has a benefit, but as has been proven time and time again, on the more rural open roads it causes nothing but aggravation and I personally believe that the time is coming where a council will be held jointly liable (or at least regarded as a co-defendant) in a fatal or serious injury crash.

[NMNeil]

Speed limits are useless if they are so readily ignored, so putting a sign that say's 20 instead of 30 will do nothing.

[TC1474]

Originally Posted by NMNeil

Speed limits are useless if they are so readily ignored, so putting a sign that say's 20 instead of 30 will do nothing.

The bigger issue is lack of enforcement.

Traffic policing is no longer considered as front line policing by many chief officers (even though more traffic cops are killed on duty then any other department), therefore training, resources, standards, equipment levels and manpower has been substantially reduced and many believe that technology can do the job usually the preserve of expert eyes and knowledge.

[Grimm]

20 mph on main roads sounds like it could cause more problems than it solves maybe sticking to slower speeds around schools and residential areas makes more sense.

[NMNeil]

@TC1474 I don't know if you had the same attitude but if I was running radar and it triggered with someone doing say, 35 in a 30 I'd ignore them, might touch the siren or the blue and reds, but that's about all.
Could I write them a ticket, sure, but with such a slight over the limit there was a good chance that radar error, speedo error or any of the other excuses that have been used in the past would work, plus all I had to do was wait a few minutes and Tweedle Dee the wonder dummy would come along at 50 with his cell phone at his ear.
We do have school zones where the speed is 15 mph and it's indicated by flashing lights. 17 mph and I'll stop them, ticket them, have their car impounded and the judge will revoke their license for 12 months and fine them a few hundred bucks.
It rarely happens due to such strict enforcement and everyone knows it.

[TC1474]

Originally Posted by NMNeil

@TC1474 I don't know if you had the same attitude but if I was running radar and it triggered with someone doing say, 35 in a 30 I'd ignore them, might touch the siren or the blue and reds, but that's about all.

The policy here id that we have to allow 10% for speedo error, so 33 in a 30, 44 in a 40 is accepted as the norm.

My force has a general policy of 12MPH over the limit before they get a FPN but if they are doing mid to high 30's and are being followed by a uniform car then they might also get a b@llocking for also being blind😉 but much also depends on the attitude of the driver and their general driving behaviour.

For sure a stiff finger wagging can do more good than 3 points or a court appearance, but the one thing in a good traffic cops armoury is that he/she has discretion and if they want to argue the toss, then fine they can go into the book and argue their case in court.

On a Motorway, most forces will not book anyone until they are hitting 90 + which is a FPN and over 100 is report for summons and a court appearance.

However, especially with motorways, many forces have done away with full time motorway crews and are relying more on CCTV and technology with the Highways traffic officers taking up the slack with the mundane stuff.

But then you also ger variations from area to area, so whilst there might be a national policy, some forces have a strict zero margin policy, for example south Wales will book anything doing 33 in a 30 so discretion is being taken away from crews out on the road.

The last point is that if a local divisional officer books someone for a following check over the 3/10 of a mile in their panda car, it is frowned upon because their speedo is not calibrated which means they have to get a calibration check done over the measured mile which means pulling in a traffic crew o do the check which all takes time and it has to be done within a certain time frame

On a Motorway the following check has to be over a minimum distance of 1 mile and only traffic cars are allowed to do such checks.

Traffic crews are the only ones tasked with speed enforcement because they have the equipment (VASCAR, TRUVELLO, Lazer, calibrated speedo) as well as the vehicles and the "Expertise" and speedo calibration is completed once a week over the measured mile and if there are any discrepancies any tickets issued during the previous week are written off as being unsafe to proceed and therefore given the benefit of the doubt.

So it sounds like speed enforcement on this side of the Atlantic (or at least the rules) are quite different from your side.

[Rolebama]

Local to me speed reductions have been going on for a few years now. NSLs to 50, 50s to 40s. 40s to 30s and 30s to 20s. So we now reach the time where some NSLs from a few years ago now have 20mph stretches. I also hear of more people receiving FPNs from fixed and mobile 'safety' cameras. I now send random emails asking why, and still live in hope of one day receiving a reply.

[NMNeil]

@TC1474 At least you may be getting speed limiters as standard, but over here it seems that the drivers 'rights' are more important than public safety because every time the word speed limiter is mentioned they start having a fit.
It may change soon because this is becoming far too common.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/flynn-m...other-charged/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...egas-rcna14246
Just two incidents, but it's an almost daily occurrence ,and the auto manufacturers are being asked why make and sell cars extolling how fast they can go when they are killing people.
For example
https://www.ford.com/cars/mustang/fe...ta-performance

[Rolebama]

In the next Borough, there is a curvy road through a residential area where, in the 80s, because of residents complaints of boy racers speeding, their Borough saw fit to install chicanes and speed humps. The complaints were mainly concerned with loud exhausts. After the humps and chicanes were installed it became a challenge to go faster along the road. Cars going airborne at the humps, and drivers losing control going around the chicanes, at speed, caused far more damage to parked cars and, in some instances, varying injuries to drivers and passengers.
Sometimes, these measures, including reductions of speed limits, just add to the challenge. We still get the occasional roadside shrines.

[NMNeil]

@TC1474 We had a great deal of discretion, but speeding in a school zone wasn't one of them.
It was 2am and I was in my patrol car near a quiet intersection that just had stop signs, but I was out of sight.
A car comes to the stop sign, slows slightly and goes through the intersection, he repeated this at the next stop sign about 100yards further on. No other traffic as it was 2am. Stopped him and asked if he'd seen the stop signs. His answer was "Yes, but it was you I did'nt see", got him off with a warning. 🤣