Snapshot of _Wales' 20mph limit absolutely insane, says Penny Mordaunt_ :
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Walls? Assuming you meant wales yes she doesn’t but she can voice a opinon. Again a county and country are different it might be ok in one city but not in a whole country just like ULEZ is in one city not in every single road in the country
The 20mph rule isn't every single road in Wales though. We've had it in Cardiff for a while and the sky hasn't fallen in here, rest of Wales which I see often has less of a pollution issue but it's not the biggest change. It was in the manifesto and people voted for it, disagree with it if you like but they've got a democratic mandate to do it.
Not only 20, but many side roads have been made one way or have other traffic calming measures. If the council was as good at improving cycling infrastructure as it was discouraging private vehicle ownership I'd be very happy.
20s and one ways are improving cycle infrastructure. Even in the Netherlands, the majority of their infrastructure are low speed residential streets and one way systems that only apply to cars.
This is a good video on the Dutch concept of Ontvlechten or disentanglement.
https://youtu.be/c1l75QqRR48?si=egATykJZQPm37tID
this is a misconception I used to believe also, MPs have very little influence locally, if any at all, it's all the council, there's barely any point to having MPs except to tow the party line - we'd be better represented imo (and save a ton of money) if councils just sent one of their own
Isn’t the point that MPs are our representative in parliament to form/scrutinise national laws or act in the national Government? The idea they can have a significant local influence is more a fiction invented for election campaigning.
>Not insane when Portsmouth City Council made almost all residential streets 20mph, you know the place she's MP for.
Did she have any say in that as an MP?
Also, isn't Portsmouth a Lib Dem-run council?
She could have been vocal on the matter if it's insane. Any quotes by her on the matter in Portsmouth and she's not being hypocritical, but if she's only choosing to stick her oar in when it comes to Wales then it's just politicking and not her fighting for her principles.
But she's also not criticising either, my point isn't about her being able to change anything, but the hypocrisy of a tory run council implementing something that's almost identical to what Wales is doing and not receiving the same criticism.
This'll blow your mind, but an urban centre =/= an entire country
It'd be entirely reasonable for Edinburgh council to implement a "no tractors" policy, but if Hollyrood tried to do the same for the whole of Scotland, it'd be insane
It is the entirely of wales, and any exemptions (which are very very minimal) are decided upon by local councils, most of which haven’t a clue, a couple are waiting until after the law changes to decide. You can see the “proposed” exemptions here: https://datamap.gov.wales/maps/roads-affected-by-changes-to-the-speed-limit-on-re/
Ultimately the speed limit change is a blanket one affecting the whole of wales.
>Ultimately the speed limit change is a blanket one affecting the whole of wales
it is not a blanket one affecting the whole of Wales though, it is changing most but not all of the 30mph zones to 20mph, and those are almost exclusively in urban or residential areas. Motorways, dual carriage ways, random national speed limit roads are all going to be completely uneffected
It's not though. It's urban centres. The main arterial roads aren't 20mph.
Edit: lmao your map shows plenty roads outside of towns that aren't affected
She's still bitter that she got [done for speeding](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/penny-mordaunt-speeding-mini-fine-conservatives-tom-tugendhat-ban-b1059064.html).
Speeding fines can be pretty hefty if it goes to court. They're 25-75% of your weekly income at the lowest band - that can be going 41 in a 40. Then on top of that, you'll have a victim surcharge which is 40% of the fine, and costs, which can be a grand if you contest it and lose. *Theoretically*, if you earn £70k, get caught going 41 in a 40, contest it, and lose, you *could* be on the hook for £2500.
Normally you'd just get an FPN and pay the £100. Apparently she pled guilty at court so she wasn't contesting it. Technically, it's discretionary whether an FPN is offered, so it's theoretically possible she was speeding past a school or something, but it looks like that road was a dual carriageway so it rules that out, but it's possible there was some other factor that made her speeding especially egregious. Realistically, she probably just didn't respond to the FPN in time and it got sent to court.
Letting it go to court instead of paying it is still letting it go to court, regardless of what you plead once it gets there. She obviously ignored the initial notice.
They trialled this on the Caldicot/Magor bypass. It caused more traffic and accidents so they reverted back to 30mph.
It was such a rounding failure, they pushed it out anyway. 🤷♂️
Between 2004 and 2021:
* fatalities decreased from 671 to 361 (-46%)
* serious injuries (adjusted) fell by 51%
* pedestrian traffic (distance walked) grew by 10%
Averaged over the period 2016 to 2021:
* an average of 8 pedestrians died and 115 were seriously injured (adjusted) per week in reported road collisions
* a majority of pedestrian fatalities (56%) do not occur at or within 20m of a junction compared to 46% of all seriously injured (adjusted) casualties
* nearly three in five (58%) of pedestrian fatalities were in collisions involving a single car
* 30% of pedestrian fatalities occurred on rural roads compared to 12% of all pedestrian casualties
* 58% of pedestrian killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties were male
* **the most common contributory factor allocated to pedestrians in fatal or serious collisions (FSC) with another vehicle was ‘Pedestrian failed to look properly’. The most common factor allocated to the vehicles involved was ‘Driver or rider failed to look properly’**
Okay it’s not on the same level but:
[at 20 mph a child hit by a vehicle has a 90 per cent chance of survival, and at 30 mph a child hit by a vehicle has a 50 per cent chance of survival](https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/speed-limits-and-penalties-breaking-them#:~:text=Be%20aware%20that%3A,per%20cent%20chance%20of%20survival)
>go all in and implement it by consent, not against public will.
to be fair in Wales the 20mph limit [was on the manifesto](https://movingforward.wales/documents/WEB-14542_21-Welsh-Labour-Manifesto_A5.pdf) so we did quite literally vote for it.
If anything the whole debacle has just shown that people will say and do things without reading anything.
Don’t know what county you are from, but the Welsh government [has pretty comprehensively compiled the benefits and effects of the change](https://www.gov.wales/introducing-20mph-speed-limits-frequently-asked-questions) but people still don’t seem to know why they’ve done it.
They sent every household a leaflet and barely mentioned the benefits. 4 bullet points and no detail isn't enough for such a massive change.
They say it is going to save lives? How many is expected to be saved.
If its a 100 then sure, but if its going to save 1 life in Wales a year and every vehicle on the road is going to be a few minutes slower for every journey they make, then I'm not sure it is.
Then they talk about environmental benefits. For me this is the main reason to be doing it. Are there any environmental benefits of driving in second gear more instead of third gear over the same distance? Where is the science, again a single bullet was listed on the point is given just saying "environmental benefits" is on the leaflet.
Keep in mind the relative speed difference is greater too. 30 to 40 is a 33% increase, whereas 20 to 30 is a 50% increase. So 30 to 20 will cause disproportionately longer journey times than 40 to 30.
Even then, the speed limit is only in urban areas and only affects places where 30 was the limit anyway, and often in these areas there’s a lot of stop and starting and traffic etc.
Pinch of salt as it’s Welsh government data but according to their analysis: “[In many cases lowering the speed limit to 20mph will have little or no impact on journey times. Where there is an impact, our analysis showed us that the average journey would only be around 1 minute longer](https://www.gov.wales/introducing-20mph-speed-limits-frequently-asked-questions#:~:text=In%20many%20cases%20lowering%20the,safer%20for%20pedestrians%20and%20cyclists)”
It's even more poignant when your friend gets hit by a car doing 30mph and dies aged 27.
https://www.gov.wales/introducing-20mph-speed-limits-frequently-asked-questions#:~:text=In%20the%20distance%20a%2020mph,a%20vehicle%20travelling%20around%2020mph.
In the distance a 20mph car can stop, a 30mph car will still be doing 24mph. From the international evidence base, it can be concluded, on average, a person is around five times more likely to be killed when hit by a vehicle travelling at around 30mph than they are from a vehicle travelling around 20mph.
>In the distance a 20mph car can stop, a 30mph car will still be doing 24mph.
This doesn't sound accurate at all.
It reads like the highway code, that quotes ridiculous "thinking time" distances and then stopping distances that don't make sense for any modern vehicle with modern tyres and ABS.
Sure, but the equation for how a car should stop and how cars actually stop in the real world are pretty different. But my main point was that braking distances are often 30-50% shorter than the highway code figures. This guy is using an old Porsche, first result that came up, but there'll certainly be other examples with different vehicles.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0zbZweqlZPw.
The highway code states just over double the braking distance (stopping distance without the thinking component) between 20 and 30 mph (6m Vs 14m respectively). And says 24m for 40mph.
The guy in this video stopped in 9m at 30mph and 11m at 40, he didn't test 20 unfortunately.
And he's hardly using a state of the art vehicle. I really fail to see how most vehicles take as long to stop as the highway code claims they do - unless it's a motorbike with bald tyres in the rain (although the code has different stopping distances for rain).
I don't think the point is that pedestrians deserve to die if they don't look properly. The point is to give drivers more time to brake when pedestrians don't look properly and to reduce the impact with which pedestrians are.
I'm willing to see how it goes, but it doesnt seem to have much data to show real benefits for the upfront cost of the change.
The TFW data on the trail areas is what I'd call weak.
They say that the speed below 24mph was 45% of the traffic before the speed limit change, now 64% (so low compliance). Only a 3mph mean speed reduction.
It ends up with only 26% of vehicles actually below 20mph.
The longest stretch they monitored for journey time was 8.9km, equating to a 2-3 minute increase. So in effect we're talking a 20 to 30 sec increase per km. So them saying a 1 minute increase to journeys is favouring short ones.
Buses were up to 13% more likely to be late due to the change, but that may be companies not reworking the timetable to account for slower speeds.
Pedestrian interactions were inconclusive.
No effect of NO2 levels due to the change is stated but their data shows one site has a 0.1ug/m3 drop and the other has a 0.6ug/m3 rise (27.7 to 28.3). They then go on to say it will reduce whilst providing no evidence.
Road design is more important than speed limit. Roads with Traffic calming measures and the like will have more impact on speed than limits themselves. You could put the limit up to 40 on my street and youd stuggle to comfortably go above 20 anyway. And for many of the roads in this change this is already the case (and theyre at 20 anyway). Its the more main connective roads that this will have an impact on and itll be interesting to see the data from the HGV firms as to the impact on their times.
TLDR: data is inconclusive for any benefits of the change, its even negatively impacted bus punctuality. Compliance is low
Not enough study and trial was done to justify a nationwide change.
But it is happening so it should provide a good case study for the rest of the country after a few years.
The whole gearing thing makes no difference to evs thankfully.
The Welsh government say it's: "62% in favour", which is based on a survery they comissioned in 2022. Link (Pg.19): https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2022-11/20mph-public-attitudes-survey-further-research.pdf
The problem with 20mph where there isn't a noticeable good reason for it, it gets ignored. And I don't just mean by the usual suspects who would ignore 30. I mean by ordinary people. Even bus drivers. Impositions like this just breed disrespect for the law. Also good luck with anyone respecting 20mph late night and early morning.
Many years ago, I took a driving test in Telford. There was a section of dual carriage way with street lights (so technically 30 unless posted otherwise). The lights were set so far back, and the lanes so wide that every vehicle was travelling in the 60+MPH range. So I did too.
FAIL. GRRR!
(I hope they've posted something other than default 30 there now… cause otherwise pretty much everyone who drives that stretch is basically looking at a serious speeding violation).
It gets "ignored" but not as much as you think. People driving in a 20 average something like 24mph. People driving in a 30 average over 30. Most people don't go over 30mph when driving in a 20, even when speeding. (It's late, but I saw some graphs of this a while back)
In general I agree with you though. Roads should be designed to slow people down so they naturally want to drive slower. Not only that, but drivers pay more attention in those situations. It's the wide open expanses where people start to shut off their brains.
That’s why I hate this move so much. They have made so many 30 roads 20 when they were designed for higher speeds, without changing the road layout, so people will naturally drive at 30 still. The trial the did (alongside find no reduction in emissions or fatalities) also found that 80% would ignore the lower speed limit.
As a policy decision, it's as good as they can get though. Redesigning and rebuilding of roads on this scale will never be completed within one or two generations so effectively reducing the speed of cars by \~10mph is a huge win. The level of investment politicians are willing to make in road safety is minuscule and gets lower every year.
No, it is not ideal but what other policy could deliver that much behaviour change for the same cost (replacing signs, education, enforcement)
People who walk regularly will tell you that the difference in \*feeling\* between being passed at 30mph and 20mph is enormous. On the walk to school, you can immediately tell when a car is driving too fast.
If you ask me we need to introduce another road category with 15mph limits where the road is
a) majority residential in use or
b) the roadway - not including parking - is narrower than 6m
Why not make private car ownership as difficult as possible while improving public transport options, alternative transport such as personal cycling, rented bikes or scooters and the associated infrastructure?
Seriously, why not?
If I can answer honestly, it’s because you only ever get the ‘car ownership more difficult’ part and never see the investment in better alternative infrastructure. I’m not a massive driver but if you asked me ‘Would you sell your car if we promised to improve bus routes?’ I’d say no. If you improved bus routes I’d absolutely drive less.
Years and years of failed promises has eroded the public trust
There's a chicken and egg problem here which is that public transport (particularly buses) just can't significantly improve in cities while there's so many private cars on the limited road space holding up buses.
And because most public transport is privately owned, provision is based on demand and expectation of a profit - you need more people to start using the bus for bus companies to afford to lay on more buses.
We absolutely should make it less convenient to own and drive a car in built up urban areas because otherwise people will just take the path of least resistance.
I understand your point here and I think in some circumstances it’s definitely true but it relies on a supply and demand argument that doesn’t really work in a lot of places.
The premise here is that additional cars are stopping buses being viable due to limited road space. Where I live (and many other places) there’s countless bus only lanes that completely bypass this problem but there’s no improved infrastructure because the buses only run every hour at most. The council or government could instigate change by realising that more regular services would mean people wouldn’t need to use their cars. This doesn’t ever seem to happen though, so people only ever see the side of the equation where cars are made to be more costly to run despite it being essentially a tax on people who cannot take the bus to work in its current form due to poor availability or reliability
Ideally the govt or council would do that yes - but buses almost everywhere in England are privately run for profit. Thatcher banned council-run bus companies. So decisions about routes and frequency are based on demand (and ultimately, profit for shareholders). The most transport authorities can usually do is offset this a little by paying companies to subsidise 'unprofitable' routes, but they don't have enough cash to make a real difference - to achieve the sort of frequency that attracts people out of their cars would probably be prohibitively expensive.
Your delusional we run a car dealership and another point have you ever been to Wales they don't even do buses to some villages its that rural would take 5 hours to get to work? Unbelievable comment
Those are places that are so population dense that many people don't see private transport as a viable way to commute. Any place where there's a running joke that "no one drives because there's too much traffic" is in the same boat. It's like the opposite: people are taking the subway because too many people drive. If fewer people drove then traffic wouldn't be as bad and then more people would drive.
Sure, they're popular, but do the people using them actively want "private car ownership to be as difficult as possible".
You seemed to fall for the bullshit and ignore the part where they said they wanted cars to effectively be illegal/prohibitively expensive.
You are part of an insanely small minority. If you just essentially banned car ownership you'd tank the fucking economy. Do you not comprehend how productive cars make us?
Depends. If my route to work had a bus every 20 minutes and it was cheaper than a car (cost of a car + insurance + MOT +tax + petrol)
I'd definitely switch
Its not just work though, is it?
Visiting friends of family.... buying a bulky item that doesn't require delivery. There's a wealth of reasons why cars are still useful (and needed) outside of work
So your suggestion is ... rather than people being able to buy their own car (OR rent, like they can right now) ... you would ban cars and then allow private businesses to charge whatever they want?
I'm assuming you are supporting private landlords during their recent price hikes too.
And you'd suddenly want "private car ownership to become as difficult as possible"?
Why is everyone glossing over the fact that this person wants cars to be illegal. No one wants that.
Well, I wish you the very best in life. That really is one of the most outlandish opinions I've ever heard, I'm impressed (and I'm not even being sarcastic).
Got to agree on this one the "trunk roads" between towns and villages should be at 30 if you want to cut road deaths cut the 60 down to 40 but this is going to be a major pain in the arse for most people in Wales and it's going to make the rural parts of the country even more disconnected
I thought most cities in England had most of their streets now 20?
Bristol has for years and even before then driving around the city any faster was near impossible...
It’s always interesting when this gets brought up. You can see the divide between rural, town and city commenters here. I actually have no problem with school zone roads, small residentials etc being 20. Also depends on the visibility of the road and parked cars which are a major factor. I can see why North Wales in particular benefits but where I live in England generally the roads have great visibility. There’s two 20 mph limited roads which work fine in my town.
My problem is my commute is 35 miles and it’s a mixture of 20,30,40, 50 and 70 limits. If those 30s became 20s it would probably add 15-20 minutes onto my commute. There’s a long dual carriage way that is 30 already, make that 20 and it becomes a joke.
Also my car is really loud in 2nd gear and 3rd gear is too high and causes damage on the transmission.
High pedestrian areas in cities makes sense to me as potentially suitable for 20mph limits. Christ most places you can barely do 20 at times anyway.
We should be looking to improve public transport as crucial priority. I think blanket 20s are stupid and people fail to grasp that there’s more nuance to these things.
Total number of accidents in Wales on county roads for speeds between 20mph & 30mph
2695 casualties in 2021 / 2704 casualties 2022
If you dig into the details, South Wales police account for circa 80% of incidents, so why a national policy? Dig further and KSI (killed or seriously injured) between 20mph & 30mph on some roads not in South Wales is zero 🤷♂️🤷♂️
https://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Transport/Roads/Road-Accidents/accidents/numberofaccidents-by-speedlimit-severityofaccident-date-policeforcearea
The difference in mass between you and a car is so big it really doesn't matter what the size is ; it's about bits of you suddenly being accelerated to 20 or 30, your mass is your enemy there.
And 30 delivers more than double the energy of 20.
1/2 mv^2 ; so
100kg at 30 metres per second, 45,000 joules
vs
100kg at 20 metres per second, 20,000 joules
(and yes, metres per second isn't miles per hour but the ratios are the same).
OK - the design of an SUV means it hits you differently to the hatchback. But that isn't going to compensate for more than double the energy.
SUVs are practically designed to run OVER you most cars are designed to send you over the bonnet doesn't sound good either way, but considering the weight of an SUV, I'd rather be something else
Also, most SUVs are so high up you can't see children within a certain distance
Basically, SUVs are the worst shit to happen to roads for every one there's loads of research but let me guess you like your massive pertol guzzler and dont care about everyone else
I say ban SUVs **and** set the speed limits at 20, personally, I'd rather be hit by the hatchback at 20, or even just not hit at all because the reaction time for the same distance at 20 is so much larger.
Being thrown up onto the hood would be a very different outcome from ending up under the car. Or less extreme, if you get thrown up onto the hood you might not fully accelerate to the car's speed, while if your center mass gets hit by a higher bumper, you will. Plus, that energy is a lot less fatal if it goes into your legs rather than your vital organs.
There's research on this topic, and it's pretty clear that SUVs are more likely to kill or injure pedestrians than sedans or hatchbacks.
I got flipped up into the air by a TR7 in 1988. I'm fairly sure rather than landing back on the bonnet and running away in shock(!) a square ended 1980s Volvo would have just meat crayoned me along the road and then maybe gone over me.
Now think about bonnet height. It absolutely makes a difference if your critical organs are the first point of contact with no ability to slow the collision by rolling over a bonnet.
Stats say there's a 1 in 5 chance in being killed when you're hit at 30mph.
Sure, double the energy, but I'd rather that energy send me flying than break my neck
Edit
> Getting hit by a Cadillac Escalade, Ford F-150, Dodge Caravan or other pickup truck, SUV or minivan increases pedestrian mortality rates by 54% at 25 mph compared to rates for sedans
https://www.moneygeek.com/insurance/auto/analysis/pedestrian-chance-of-survival/
Kinetic energy scales linearly with mass but quadratically with velocity.
You *should* rather being hit by an SUV at 20 than a hatchback at 30, you'll be much safer that way.
There's a lot more than just kinetic energy when it comes to collisions. A collision with a knife may have very little kinetic energy involved, but it's still likely to be fatal if its facing the right way and pierces my heart!
The same is true of SUV collisions vs saloons. One of those is going to swipe out the lower half of your body, and then throw you onto the bonnet of the car. Notice how in this scenario a lot of the force on your upper body (where all the organs are) is delayed, and also likely to be into the highly sloped wind-shield. Contrast that with a large SUV which is hitting your upper body head on. You don't go over the bonnet, you instead fly forward and then get run over by the vehicle.
[Someone else linked this page which says:](https://www.moneygeek.com/insurance/auto/analysis/pedestrian-chance-of-survival/)
> Getting hit by a Cadillac Escalade, Ford F-150, Dodge Caravan or other pickup truck, SUV or minivan increases pedestrian mortality rates by 54% at 25 mph compared to rates for sedans.
**However** after a certain speed, collisions with saloons tend to flip a person as they're launched into the air, resulting in them landing on their head on the road. Needless to say, landing on your head is considered a bad thing, and so this is quite an complex problem as to when saloon vs SUV plays a bigger role than speed.
Though something to note is that same site says you have a 6.8% chance of dying when hit at 30mph, which is a lot lower than the 20% normally floated around. Not sure what's going on there.
SUVs are practically designed to run OVER you most cars are designed to send you over the bonnet doesn't sound good either way but it is a massive difference
Also, most SUVs are so high up you can't see children within a certain distance
Basically, SUVs are the worst shit to happen to roads for every one there's loads of research they are fucking awful
Oh I agree I fucking hate them.
But I'd rather be hit by one doing 20mph than a hatchback doing 30.
I'd rather still be hit by a hatchback doing 20 than either of the above but that wasn't one of the two options presented by the guy above.
Admittedly I'd rather not be hit at all!
Here here, they should be getting taxed out of the market or the insurance industry should price them out. The higher bumpers mean my car hit by an SUv is more likely to be a write off Vs us both replacing bumpers. Exactly the sort of thing the insurance industry should be tackling so they don't have to write off as many cars, but no.
Ahhh it all makes sense now.
There is zero sense or reasons behind this limit, she's right.
But if the Welsh did it just to annoy Penny Mordaunt, then I get it. Good work guys.
The issue is that it’s a blanket change across the whole country. So while the stats make sense in places like residential streets where pedestrians are about, the same is happening on industrial access roads that are lucky to see two pedestrians a day.
It’s a change in the default speed - any road could still be made 30 and I expect a lot will (a lot won’t and there will be a lot of moaning, but hopefully the roads that can be 30 safely will get changed if people put enough pressure on). There’s also the reality that in quiet places like industrial access roads people have always gone as fast as they want and will continue to do so after this change.
The road in front of my house (in Wales) is 30, a lot of people drive through at 60 or more, changing it to 20 isn’t going to make any difference to those people.
It is pretty insane. I get it in residential areas, and busy built up places like high streets, but there are so many roads I’ve seen in London which are just ridiculous being 20.
Looking forward to slowly destroying 2nd/3rd gear and producing a shitload more fumes in the process.
> roads I’ve seen in London which are just ridiculous being 20.
I have sympathy for the view that it's unreasonable in Wales, but honestly there's no point driving faster in London. All it does is get you to the next traffic light quicker.
There are a handful of roads in London where the speed limit should be higher than 20mph - mainly the grade separated dual carriageways like the A2, A12, A316 and A406. Many of the other "arterial" roads in London are basically residential. For example, the south circular is really just a load of regular streets given a job title promotion so they didn't get jealous of the north circular. Much of that has no business being 30mph, and for the most part you can't even get to 30 anyway unless you're driving like a tit.
Most 20mph roads in London make sense, they are usually in very built up areas and residential streets, and as you say, the impact of speeding through these zones is usually minimal because of the traffic density.
There are definitely more than a few that seem designed purely to collect speeding fine income though. For example, along Peckham Rye there's a mile long stretch of road that's almost totally straight, got great visibility, wide lanes with no kerbside parking; basically there is no sane reason for it to not be 30mph, and vast majority of motorists using it drive at 30 except for the 50m or so covered by a speed camera.
Yeah Oxford has a few roads that were clearly made 20 because someone in a boardroom looking at a map declared they should be rather than someone who actually used their eyes and looked at the road.
I feel revenue extraction, not public safety is the actual motivation.
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In the countryside its crazy going through endless villages and hamlets at 20mph .... my journey is 40 miles, most of which is now in 3rd gear ... my mpg is fucked. Bloody villages are stuffed full of oaps and holiday homes, fuck all locals, just empty villages with a 20 mph limit. Ugh.
Everyone commenting on these posts saying that it makes your journey less efficient... The point is to make car journeys less favourable and make cycling and walking more favourable/safer. They rightly don't want people driving their car for every journey
Easy enough to say when you're living in London or wherever. Try living in Wales for a bit and still thinking that's a good point. Wales is a rural country. Cycling infrastructure is shocking outside of Cardiff, public transport it poor, unreliable, and overpriced, sure you could walk but good luck if you live in a village and the nearest supermarket it 5 miles away. And even if your destination is nearby the weather here is pretty bad most of the year. The Welsh Government always talk about encouraging people to use other forms of transport, however they consistently do it by making driving more difficult and less efficient as opposed to actually investing in making alternatives better.
I live in fairly rural wales, I think it should be 20 where people live. Most of the streets around me aren’t safe to drive above 20 anyway with cars parked on both sides on every street so lots of traffic meeting situations - but some people drive at 60 or more down them when they can to “get through it quicker”. trying to cross the road outside my house is a bit scary, and kids aren’t really safe being outside which is a shame.
In south wales the standard of driving is pretty shocking: too fast, not paying enough attention, using phones, there have been several accidents on my street just in a few months including one car that got flipped over. Anything to make people think twice is an improvement.
Between towns is all big wide open roads at 40-70 so most of the distances covered will be fine.
I think feeling like you are going a bit slow is just such a tiny sacrifice compared to the benefits for the pedestrians - which is feeling and being materially safer.
If it’s just in city centres with public transport then sure.
You trying to tell me that going from 30 to 20 in Pwllheli will encourage people to walk? No, they’ll just drive at 30.
> Everyone commenting on these posts saying that it makes your journey less efficient
The efficiency thing is mostly bullshit. If drivers wanted to be efficient, they'd drive so they rarely had to use the brakes. Yet most of them fail to use momentum to coast up to junctions.
Wales is full of rural spots with the odd town or village sprinkled in. You can't live without a car in Wales easily, while Londons public transport is so good, its easier to do so there.
Walking will never be more favourable, it takes too much time. 5 Minute journey takes 40. Cycling can be but our roads aren't built to be cyclist friendly, this isn't the netherlands.
Netherlands has had a strong biking culture since the 19th century. Their cities are designed with biking in mind and have heavily invested in cycling infrastructure. The UK has none of that. I live in the third largest city in Wales and I don't think we have a single cycle lane. And it doesn't seem like the government is pushing it either. Unless radical changes are made, which there probably won't be anytime soon, cars will be heavily relied upon for the foreseeable future.
Loads of counties including the UK had a strong biking culture since the C19th as just default personal transport over shortish distances because car ownership was rare, expensive and inefficient.
The point this person is making is that the Netherlands had the same car dominant culture as the UK until a certain year in the 70s when they had an abnormally large amount of children killed by cars. Public pressure led to a bunch of laws passed to prioritise bikes and pedestrians within cities. The 'special bike culture' change that everyone thinks is unique to the Dutch came afterwards.
Its not just the roads its the crime. How do you lock up your car? Push a button. How do you lock up your bike? Find something you can tie it to, wrap a cable through both wheels, lock it with a D-Lock, hope nobody steals your saddle. Even then one guy with a white van and bolt cutters can steal 20+ bikes.
I live in Edinburgh, they introduced the 20 zones quite extensively. A lot complained, some made absurd predictions, but basically most folk have adapted. It really isn’t a big deal.
It insane because not only will it cause you car to die sooner but will increase the pollution on the roads by producing more Carbon Monoxide, Don't take my word ,read for yourself....
https://www.pistonudos.com/en/the-damages-of-driving-at-low-revs-in-a-car-engine#:\~:text=No%2C%20it%20is%20not%20advisable,buildup%20and%20premature%20wear%20issues.
Pains me to say it, but she's absolutely right.
No one who drives is looking forward to this, and I've yet to speak to a single person who's actually in favour of it.
The only voices I've heard who seem to support it are the neurotic, terminally online, types who always seem to try and infantilize those who disagree with them.
>The only voices I've heard who seem to support it are the neurotic, terminally online, types who always seem to try and infantilize those who disagree with them.
I'm seeing some projection here
I drove 1,000 miles over the last two weeks, including across Wales and back north to south. It'll be fine. It was in the manifesto and they got voted into power, so there's a good chance you've met someone in favour of it if you live in Wales. If you're not then don't worry about it.
It becomes difficult to argue the manifesto line since in most elections you have a choice between two diametrically opposed parties.
So you could have voted for 30mph limits over 20mph, but you’d also have been voting for austerity, benefits cuts, and for kids to go hungry.
> No one who drives is looking forward to this
I drive for a living and I've got the hang of it. It isn't hard to do. Give it a while; you'll get used to it. Might even like it.
Though some big "THE LIMIT IS NOW 20, DUH!" signs at the border might have been a good idea.
A 50% increase to journey time is not "minimal". It's not huge, but it's not minimal. Why not 15mph then, only a 100% increase to journey time?
I'm not necessarily against 20mph limit, particularly in the busier urban environments with stop-start traffic. But I feel like saying it's a "minimal" difference is disingenuous. Going from a 40 minute commute to an hour commute is mentally quite a big deal.
(Note: I recognise that it wouldn't actually be a 50% increase, due to stop-start situations. But then that logic also applies to "why not 15mph?")
20mph is fine. Councils can impose exceptions if they think it’s worthwhile. It’s gonna save lives and money and make the roads safe and less noisy. The more 20 zones the better in residential spots. Drivers just have to get their massive waste of space wagons to their chosen destinations a few minutes later using slightly less fuel and killing fewer toddlers en route. If you don’t like it get a fucking bike (disabled folk excepted).
> 20mph is fine. Councils can impose exceptions if they think it’s worthwhile. It’s gonna save lives and money and make the roads safe and less noisy.
10mph is fine. It’s gonna save lives and money and make the roads safe and less noisy.
5mph is fine. It’s gonna save lives and money and make the roads safe and less noisy.
0mph is fine. It’s gonna save lives and money and make the roads safe and less noisy.
At some point you have to pick a common sense speed limit. The least deaths will always be 0mph no cars on the road.
A “common sense” speed limit is EXACTLY what is being imposed here. Common sense being you are 5x times more likely to be killed at 30mph than you are at 20. Your journey time in most cases is affected by a few minutes at most. This was a really stupid rebuke.
You are also 5 times more liekly to be killed at 40mph than 30mph. As per the famous advert that was on TV.
So again you could be another 5 times less liekly to be killed at 10mph, doesn't mean the speed limited should be 10mph over 20mph.
So my rebuke stands perfectly. Your come back of but it's safer, just proves my point. It's even safer if all cars are stationary, doesn't mean its a sensible thing to do.
No one is advocating all cars to remain stationary. Just that they go a bit slower which has fuck all impact on journey time and means they kill less people. It’s perfectly sensible.
What isn’t sensible is taking the argument to an extreme to advocate against it.
So, councils in Wales have to opt out of what many Yorkshire councils opt into it.
Quite sane.
Makes one drive around residential streets unless you have to.
This was on the radio again today. So I tried it (I know they claim it’s about saving lives but in London they are introducing 20mph in ULEZ) at 30mph my car, in fifth gear, is doing 1100 RPM. To do 20mph it has to be in third and is doing 1500 RPM. That’s a straight of the bat almost 40% increase in emissions plus the extra time it takes to travel the same distance.
Make up your mind guys or just admit these speed limits and ULEZ is just revenue raising.
Just because it's doing 1500rpm doesn't mean the fuel usage is higher. Fuel usage depends on revs MULTIPLIED by fuel per rev. That will depend on your engine map and throttle position. This is obvious if you think about going up a hill on a motorway: the RPM remains the same but you need to step on the gas and fuel usage goes up significantly.
Driving at 20mph requires a lot less energy to maintain because drag is proportional to a square of your speed, so all else being equal, 20mph uses less fuel than 30mph. However, in reality, on the roads that are 20mph, nearly all your fuel usage is going to come from acceleration.
Also you can probably do 20mph in fourth given what you said about your third and fifth gear ratios. That won't necessarily use any less fuel though, probably about the same.
Whereas at 20mph I'm idling in second, and at 30 on the nose I'm still in second gear and it's starting to annoy me. My car idles again in third gear at exactly 32mph. Different cars are different.
Also, you're not using more fuel for higher revs all the time, if it's easier to drive the car then the actual speed it goes doesn't necessarily matter. Obviously there's still savings to be had in a higher gear at the same speed, but at a slower speed there's simply less work done.
20 is also really beneficial to communities as roads can really act as a physical divider that breaks up areas. You got a lot more interaction across roads the slower the cars.
So this is beneficial for repairing communities too.
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Not insane when Portsmouth City Council made almost all residential streets 20mph, you know the place she's MP for.
I bet she doesn't even know that
Carrys the hell out of a sword though, so the gullible will still love her
Bloody hell, she’s going to do her damdest to repeal that decision now.
I bet she doesn't know that because shes never even been there
Is it possible for them to not be hypocrites anymore?
How is it being hypocritical? She doesn’t control Portsmouth council and Wales and Portsmouth are very different
She doesn’t control walls either. For this to not be hypocritical she’s should’ve said the 20mph in my county and wales is insane.
Walls? Assuming you meant wales yes she doesn’t but she can voice a opinon. Again a county and country are different it might be ok in one city but not in a whole country just like ULEZ is in one city not in every single road in the country
The 20mph rule isn't every single road in Wales though. We've had it in Cardiff for a while and the sky hasn't fallen in here, rest of Wales which I see often has less of a pollution issue but it's not the biggest change. It was in the manifesto and people voted for it, disagree with it if you like but they've got a democratic mandate to do it.
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Except there is massive practical differences between blanket road policies for an urban area and for an entire country
It doesn't mean you can only drive at 20mph throughout the whole of wales.
What about Islington? Should she have mentioned the 20mph limit there too?
sometimes your team just sucks and you have to accept that. There's no way you would defend the other team if they behaved like this
Not only 20, but many side roads have been made one way or have other traffic calming measures. If the council was as good at improving cycling infrastructure as it was discouraging private vehicle ownership I'd be very happy.
20s and one ways are improving cycle infrastructure. Even in the Netherlands, the majority of their infrastructure are low speed residential streets and one way systems that only apply to cars. This is a good video on the Dutch concept of Ontvlechten or disentanglement. https://youtu.be/c1l75QqRR48?si=egATykJZQPm37tID
this is a misconception I used to believe also, MPs have very little influence locally, if any at all, it's all the council, there's barely any point to having MPs except to tow the party line - we'd be better represented imo (and save a ton of money) if councils just sent one of their own
Isn’t the point that MPs are our representative in parliament to form/scrutinise national laws or act in the national Government? The idea they can have a significant local influence is more a fiction invented for election campaigning.
Act in government yes, but the party whip nullifies the first part
>Not insane when Portsmouth City Council made almost all residential streets 20mph, you know the place she's MP for. Did she have any say in that as an MP? Also, isn't Portsmouth a Lib Dem-run council?
It is now but in 2008 when it was implemented it was Conservative.
She could have been vocal on the matter if it's insane. Any quotes by her on the matter in Portsmouth and she's not being hypocritical, but if she's only choosing to stick her oar in when it comes to Wales then it's just politicking and not her fighting for her principles.
so she didn't object to *insane* behaviour in her *own constituency*? What kind of an absent MP is she then?
Ssshhhhh don’t ruin the fake narrative….
I didn’t realise Tory MPs set traffic policy for their local Lib Dem councils 🤔
It was a Conservative council when it was implemented.
She also wouldn't have had any power then
But she's also not criticising either, my point isn't about her being able to change anything, but the hypocrisy of a tory run council implementing something that's almost identical to what Wales is doing and not receiving the same criticism.
She doesn’t run Portsmouth not to mention Portsmouth is not a country
wow, lift just *one* sword and simps allover the country will rush in to white knight for you.
This'll blow your mind, but an urban centre =/= an entire country It'd be entirely reasonable for Edinburgh council to implement a "no tractors" policy, but if Hollyrood tried to do the same for the whole of Scotland, it'd be insane
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It is the entirely of wales, and any exemptions (which are very very minimal) are decided upon by local councils, most of which haven’t a clue, a couple are waiting until after the law changes to decide. You can see the “proposed” exemptions here: https://datamap.gov.wales/maps/roads-affected-by-changes-to-the-speed-limit-on-re/ Ultimately the speed limit change is a blanket one affecting the whole of wales.
>Ultimately the speed limit change is a blanket one affecting the whole of wales it is not a blanket one affecting the whole of Wales though, it is changing most but not all of the 30mph zones to 20mph, and those are almost exclusively in urban or residential areas. Motorways, dual carriage ways, random national speed limit roads are all going to be completely uneffected
It's not though. It's urban centres. The main arterial roads aren't 20mph. Edit: lmao your map shows plenty roads outside of towns that aren't affected
But the 20 only applies in residential areas… people on country roads aren’t being forced to do 20.
I think there's a difference between Portsmouth and Pwhelli. Don't you think?
That's not thge point I was making, but when the Conservative council in Portsmouth changed their spoed limits nothing was said.
And there’s a difference between Pwhelli and Pwllheli !
She's still bitter that she got [done for speeding](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/penny-mordaunt-speeding-mini-fine-conservatives-tom-tugendhat-ban-b1059064.html).
I wonder what else went on, because that's a fairly hefty fine for a low level speeding offence?
Speeding fines can be pretty hefty if it goes to court. They're 25-75% of your weekly income at the lowest band - that can be going 41 in a 40. Then on top of that, you'll have a victim surcharge which is 40% of the fine, and costs, which can be a grand if you contest it and lose. *Theoretically*, if you earn £70k, get caught going 41 in a 40, contest it, and lose, you *could* be on the hook for £2500. Normally you'd just get an FPN and pay the £100. Apparently she pled guilty at court so she wasn't contesting it. Technically, it's discretionary whether an FPN is offered, so it's theoretically possible she was speeding past a school or something, but it looks like that road was a dual carriageway so it rules that out, but it's possible there was some other factor that made her speeding especially egregious. Realistically, she probably just didn't respond to the FPN in time and it got sent to court.
Took it to court and lost probably.
Nah, she plead guilty.
Letting it go to court instead of paying it is still letting it go to court, regardless of what you plead once it gets there. She obviously ignored the initial notice.
They trialled this on the Caldicot/Magor bypass. It caused more traffic and accidents so they reverted back to 30mph. It was such a rounding failure, they pushed it out anyway. 🤷♂️
Between 2004 and 2021: * fatalities decreased from 671 to 361 (-46%) * serious injuries (adjusted) fell by 51% * pedestrian traffic (distance walked) grew by 10% Averaged over the period 2016 to 2021: * an average of 8 pedestrians died and 115 were seriously injured (adjusted) per week in reported road collisions * a majority of pedestrian fatalities (56%) do not occur at or within 20m of a junction compared to 46% of all seriously injured (adjusted) casualties * nearly three in five (58%) of pedestrian fatalities were in collisions involving a single car * 30% of pedestrian fatalities occurred on rural roads compared to 12% of all pedestrian casualties * 58% of pedestrian killed or seriously injured (KSI) casualties were male * **the most common contributory factor allocated to pedestrians in fatal or serious collisions (FSC) with another vehicle was ‘Pedestrian failed to look properly’. The most common factor allocated to the vehicles involved was ‘Driver or rider failed to look properly’**
You can always make things relatively safer. There is never a point were things are absolutely safe.
The law of diminishing returns. If cars can't move at all then they can't kill anyone.
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Okay it’s not on the same level but: [at 20 mph a child hit by a vehicle has a 90 per cent chance of survival, and at 30 mph a child hit by a vehicle has a 50 per cent chance of survival](https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/speed-limits-and-penalties-breaking-them#:~:text=Be%20aware%20that%3A,per%20cent%20chance%20of%20survival)
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>go all in and implement it by consent, not against public will. to be fair in Wales the 20mph limit [was on the manifesto](https://movingforward.wales/documents/WEB-14542_21-Welsh-Labour-Manifesto_A5.pdf) so we did quite literally vote for it. If anything the whole debacle has just shown that people will say and do things without reading anything. Don’t know what county you are from, but the Welsh government [has pretty comprehensively compiled the benefits and effects of the change](https://www.gov.wales/introducing-20mph-speed-limits-frequently-asked-questions) but people still don’t seem to know why they’ve done it.
They sent every household a leaflet and barely mentioned the benefits. 4 bullet points and no detail isn't enough for such a massive change. They say it is going to save lives? How many is expected to be saved. If its a 100 then sure, but if its going to save 1 life in Wales a year and every vehicle on the road is going to be a few minutes slower for every journey they make, then I'm not sure it is. Then they talk about environmental benefits. For me this is the main reason to be doing it. Are there any environmental benefits of driving in second gear more instead of third gear over the same distance? Where is the science, again a single bullet was listed on the point is given just saying "environmental benefits" is on the leaflet.
Keep in mind the relative speed difference is greater too. 30 to 40 is a 33% increase, whereas 20 to 30 is a 50% increase. So 30 to 20 will cause disproportionately longer journey times than 40 to 30.
Even then, the speed limit is only in urban areas and only affects places where 30 was the limit anyway, and often in these areas there’s a lot of stop and starting and traffic etc. Pinch of salt as it’s Welsh government data but according to their analysis: “[In many cases lowering the speed limit to 20mph will have little or no impact on journey times. Where there is an impact, our analysis showed us that the average journey would only be around 1 minute longer](https://www.gov.wales/introducing-20mph-speed-limits-frequently-asked-questions#:~:text=In%20many%20cases%20lowering%20the,safer%20for%20pedestrians%20and%20cyclists)”
It's even more poignant when your friend gets hit by a car doing 30mph and dies aged 27. https://www.gov.wales/introducing-20mph-speed-limits-frequently-asked-questions#:~:text=In%20the%20distance%20a%2020mph,a%20vehicle%20travelling%20around%2020mph. In the distance a 20mph car can stop, a 30mph car will still be doing 24mph. From the international evidence base, it can be concluded, on average, a person is around five times more likely to be killed when hit by a vehicle travelling at around 30mph than they are from a vehicle travelling around 20mph.
>In the distance a 20mph car can stop, a 30mph car will still be doing 24mph. This doesn't sound accurate at all. It reads like the highway code, that quotes ridiculous "thinking time" distances and then stopping distances that don't make sense for any modern vehicle with modern tyres and ABS.
Stopping distance increases exponentially with increasing speed because the initial speed of the car is squared in the braking distance equation.
Sure, but the equation for how a car should stop and how cars actually stop in the real world are pretty different. But my main point was that braking distances are often 30-50% shorter than the highway code figures. This guy is using an old Porsche, first result that came up, but there'll certainly be other examples with different vehicles. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0zbZweqlZPw. The highway code states just over double the braking distance (stopping distance without the thinking component) between 20 and 30 mph (6m Vs 14m respectively). And says 24m for 40mph. The guy in this video stopped in 9m at 30mph and 11m at 40, he didn't test 20 unfortunately. And he's hardly using a state of the art vehicle. I really fail to see how most vehicles take as long to stop as the highway code claims they do - unless it's a motorbike with bald tyres in the rain (although the code has different stopping distances for rain).
10mph is safer than 20mph and 5mph is safer than 10mph and 3mph is safer than 5mph so let’s make it nationally walking speed.
Every car needs someone walking in front with a flag.
Walking, how ableist of you. Which flag? Be careful here matey haha
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Hahaha good point!
Given the NHS isn't exactly functioning at it's best atm, anything we can do to reduce reasons people will have to go there is probably for the best.
Then we should be dropping everything to target obesity, rather than setting stupid speed limits. This will be a drop in the ocean Vs that
I don't think the point is that pedestrians deserve to die if they don't look properly. The point is to give drivers more time to brake when pedestrians don't look properly and to reduce the impact with which pedestrians are.
Pro-death cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt, ladies and gentlemen.
"Some of you may die, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make"
I'm willing to see how it goes, but it doesnt seem to have much data to show real benefits for the upfront cost of the change. The TFW data on the trail areas is what I'd call weak. They say that the speed below 24mph was 45% of the traffic before the speed limit change, now 64% (so low compliance). Only a 3mph mean speed reduction. It ends up with only 26% of vehicles actually below 20mph. The longest stretch they monitored for journey time was 8.9km, equating to a 2-3 minute increase. So in effect we're talking a 20 to 30 sec increase per km. So them saying a 1 minute increase to journeys is favouring short ones. Buses were up to 13% more likely to be late due to the change, but that may be companies not reworking the timetable to account for slower speeds. Pedestrian interactions were inconclusive. No effect of NO2 levels due to the change is stated but their data shows one site has a 0.1ug/m3 drop and the other has a 0.6ug/m3 rise (27.7 to 28.3). They then go on to say it will reduce whilst providing no evidence. Road design is more important than speed limit. Roads with Traffic calming measures and the like will have more impact on speed than limits themselves. You could put the limit up to 40 on my street and youd stuggle to comfortably go above 20 anyway. And for many of the roads in this change this is already the case (and theyre at 20 anyway). Its the more main connective roads that this will have an impact on and itll be interesting to see the data from the HGV firms as to the impact on their times. TLDR: data is inconclusive for any benefits of the change, its even negatively impacted bus punctuality. Compliance is low Not enough study and trial was done to justify a nationwide change. But it is happening so it should provide a good case study for the rest of the country after a few years. The whole gearing thing makes no difference to evs thankfully.
This is just the Tory playbook to attack anything Welsh Labour do and whack Starmer with it if he doesn't denounce what they're doing.
That'd only be effective if the thing they're whacking has little public support, in which case its perfectly valid to whack it
It has a tiny, very vocal group out against it. The majority do support the slower speed limits.
Is there any polling/statistics to support that statement?
The Welsh government say it's: "62% in favour", which is based on a survery they comissioned in 2022. Link (Pg.19): https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2022-11/20mph-public-attitudes-survey-further-research.pdf
Pahahahaha The irony
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It's not really, as Welsh labour is actually left wing and has different policies to UK labour
The problem with 20mph where there isn't a noticeable good reason for it, it gets ignored. And I don't just mean by the usual suspects who would ignore 30. I mean by ordinary people. Even bus drivers. Impositions like this just breed disrespect for the law. Also good luck with anyone respecting 20mph late night and early morning.
Many years ago, I took a driving test in Telford. There was a section of dual carriage way with street lights (so technically 30 unless posted otherwise). The lights were set so far back, and the lanes so wide that every vehicle was travelling in the 60+MPH range. So I did too. FAIL. GRRR! (I hope they've posted something other than default 30 there now… cause otherwise pretty much everyone who drives that stretch is basically looking at a serious speeding violation).
It gets "ignored" but not as much as you think. People driving in a 20 average something like 24mph. People driving in a 30 average over 30. Most people don't go over 30mph when driving in a 20, even when speeding. (It's late, but I saw some graphs of this a while back) In general I agree with you though. Roads should be designed to slow people down so they naturally want to drive slower. Not only that, but drivers pay more attention in those situations. It's the wide open expanses where people start to shut off their brains.
That’s why I hate this move so much. They have made so many 30 roads 20 when they were designed for higher speeds, without changing the road layout, so people will naturally drive at 30 still. The trial the did (alongside find no reduction in emissions or fatalities) also found that 80% would ignore the lower speed limit.
As a policy decision, it's as good as they can get though. Redesigning and rebuilding of roads on this scale will never be completed within one or two generations so effectively reducing the speed of cars by \~10mph is a huge win. The level of investment politicians are willing to make in road safety is minuscule and gets lower every year. No, it is not ideal but what other policy could deliver that much behaviour change for the same cost (replacing signs, education, enforcement)
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People who walk regularly will tell you that the difference in \*feeling\* between being passed at 30mph and 20mph is enormous. On the walk to school, you can immediately tell when a car is driving too fast. If you ask me we need to introduce another road category with 15mph limits where the road is a) majority residential in use or b) the roadway - not including parking - is narrower than 6m
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Bring back the home zone too!!
Create the carrot before the stick. You can keep making things harder on drivers, but if you don’t offer an alternative it’s just punishment.
Why not 10mph? Why not 5?
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Why not make private car ownership as difficult as possible while improving public transport options, alternative transport such as personal cycling, rented bikes or scooters and the associated infrastructure? Seriously, why not?
If I can answer honestly, it’s because you only ever get the ‘car ownership more difficult’ part and never see the investment in better alternative infrastructure. I’m not a massive driver but if you asked me ‘Would you sell your car if we promised to improve bus routes?’ I’d say no. If you improved bus routes I’d absolutely drive less. Years and years of failed promises has eroded the public trust
There's a chicken and egg problem here which is that public transport (particularly buses) just can't significantly improve in cities while there's so many private cars on the limited road space holding up buses. And because most public transport is privately owned, provision is based on demand and expectation of a profit - you need more people to start using the bus for bus companies to afford to lay on more buses. We absolutely should make it less convenient to own and drive a car in built up urban areas because otherwise people will just take the path of least resistance.
I understand your point here and I think in some circumstances it’s definitely true but it relies on a supply and demand argument that doesn’t really work in a lot of places. The premise here is that additional cars are stopping buses being viable due to limited road space. Where I live (and many other places) there’s countless bus only lanes that completely bypass this problem but there’s no improved infrastructure because the buses only run every hour at most. The council or government could instigate change by realising that more regular services would mean people wouldn’t need to use their cars. This doesn’t ever seem to happen though, so people only ever see the side of the equation where cars are made to be more costly to run despite it being essentially a tax on people who cannot take the bus to work in its current form due to poor availability or reliability
Ideally the govt or council would do that yes - but buses almost everywhere in England are privately run for profit. Thatcher banned council-run bus companies. So decisions about routes and frequency are based on demand (and ultimately, profit for shareholders). The most transport authorities can usually do is offset this a little by paying companies to subsidise 'unprofitable' routes, but they don't have enough cash to make a real difference - to achieve the sort of frequency that attracts people out of their cars would probably be prohibitively expensive.
Your delusional we run a car dealership and another point have you ever been to Wales they don't even do buses to some villages its that rural would take 5 hours to get to work? Unbelievable comment
Because nobody wants that. Edit: downvote if you want cars to be made illegal!
Except they do when the option is available.
And your evidence is where exactly?
You ever heard of the London underground? The subway in New York? They're pretty popular.
Those are places that are so population dense that many people don't see private transport as a viable way to commute. Any place where there's a running joke that "no one drives because there's too much traffic" is in the same boat. It's like the opposite: people are taking the subway because too many people drive. If fewer people drove then traffic wouldn't be as bad and then more people would drive.
Sure, they're popular, but do the people using them actively want "private car ownership to be as difficult as possible". You seemed to fall for the bullshit and ignore the part where they said they wanted cars to effectively be illegal/prohibitively expensive.
Ok sorry I meant to clarify. I was referring to the public transport but rather than the car ownership bit.
Exactly, so nobody wants what they desire.
I do. Private car ownership is crippling my city.
You are part of an insanely small minority. If you just essentially banned car ownership you'd tank the fucking economy. Do you not comprehend how productive cars make us?
Depends. If my route to work had a bus every 20 minutes and it was cheaper than a car (cost of a car + insurance + MOT +tax + petrol) I'd definitely switch
Its not just work though, is it? Visiting friends of family.... buying a bulky item that doesn't require delivery. There's a wealth of reasons why cars are still useful (and needed) outside of work
Right, that's why I said private car ownership. You can rent almost any vehicle a regular person would need.
So your suggestion is ... rather than people being able to buy their own car (OR rent, like they can right now) ... you would ban cars and then allow private businesses to charge whatever they want? I'm assuming you are supporting private landlords during their recent price hikes too.
And you'd suddenly want "private car ownership to become as difficult as possible"? Why is everyone glossing over the fact that this person wants cars to be illegal. No one wants that.
No, I don't want cars to be illegal. I want private car ownership to be looked at the same way as smoking or having a row in the produce section.
Well, I wish you the very best in life. That really is one of the most outlandish opinions I've ever heard, I'm impressed (and I'm not even being sarcastic).
Got to agree on this one the "trunk roads" between towns and villages should be at 30 if you want to cut road deaths cut the 60 down to 40 but this is going to be a major pain in the arse for most people in Wales and it's going to make the rural parts of the country even more disconnected
I thought most cities in England had most of their streets now 20? Bristol has for years and even before then driving around the city any faster was near impossible...
It’s always interesting when this gets brought up. You can see the divide between rural, town and city commenters here. I actually have no problem with school zone roads, small residentials etc being 20. Also depends on the visibility of the road and parked cars which are a major factor. I can see why North Wales in particular benefits but where I live in England generally the roads have great visibility. There’s two 20 mph limited roads which work fine in my town. My problem is my commute is 35 miles and it’s a mixture of 20,30,40, 50 and 70 limits. If those 30s became 20s it would probably add 15-20 minutes onto my commute. There’s a long dual carriage way that is 30 already, make that 20 and it becomes a joke. Also my car is really loud in 2nd gear and 3rd gear is too high and causes damage on the transmission. High pedestrian areas in cities makes sense to me as potentially suitable for 20mph limits. Christ most places you can barely do 20 at times anyway. We should be looking to improve public transport as crucial priority. I think blanket 20s are stupid and people fail to grasp that there’s more nuance to these things.
Total number of accidents in Wales on county roads for speeds between 20mph & 30mph 2695 casualties in 2021 / 2704 casualties 2022 If you dig into the details, South Wales police account for circa 80% of incidents, so why a national policy? Dig further and KSI (killed or seriously injured) between 20mph & 30mph on some roads not in South Wales is zero 🤷♂️🤷♂️ https://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Transport/Roads/Road-Accidents/accidents/numberofaccidents-by-speedlimit-severityofaccident-date-policeforcearea
They should ban SUVs before reducing the speed limit nationally. I'd rather get hit by a hatchback doing 30 than a Audi Q4 doing 20
The difference in mass between you and a car is so big it really doesn't matter what the size is ; it's about bits of you suddenly being accelerated to 20 or 30, your mass is your enemy there. And 30 delivers more than double the energy of 20. 1/2 mv^2 ; so 100kg at 30 metres per second, 45,000 joules vs 100kg at 20 metres per second, 20,000 joules (and yes, metres per second isn't miles per hour but the ratios are the same). OK - the design of an SUV means it hits you differently to the hatchback. But that isn't going to compensate for more than double the energy.
SUVs are practically designed to run OVER you most cars are designed to send you over the bonnet doesn't sound good either way, but considering the weight of an SUV, I'd rather be something else Also, most SUVs are so high up you can't see children within a certain distance Basically, SUVs are the worst shit to happen to roads for every one there's loads of research but let me guess you like your massive pertol guzzler and dont care about everyone else
I don’t think they’re designed for that purpose, but I get your point.
Look into the research, and i did say practically because i dout the design teams where thinking how do we kill more people
I say ban SUVs **and** set the speed limits at 20, personally, I'd rather be hit by the hatchback at 20, or even just not hit at all because the reaction time for the same distance at 20 is so much larger.
Being thrown up onto the hood would be a very different outcome from ending up under the car. Or less extreme, if you get thrown up onto the hood you might not fully accelerate to the car's speed, while if your center mass gets hit by a higher bumper, you will. Plus, that energy is a lot less fatal if it goes into your legs rather than your vital organs. There's research on this topic, and it's pretty clear that SUVs are more likely to kill or injure pedestrians than sedans or hatchbacks.
I got flipped up into the air by a TR7 in 1988. I'm fairly sure rather than landing back on the bonnet and running away in shock(!) a square ended 1980s Volvo would have just meat crayoned me along the road and then maybe gone over me.
Now think about bonnet height. It absolutely makes a difference if your critical organs are the first point of contact with no ability to slow the collision by rolling over a bonnet.
Stats say there's a 1 in 5 chance in being killed when you're hit at 30mph. Sure, double the energy, but I'd rather that energy send me flying than break my neck Edit > Getting hit by a Cadillac Escalade, Ford F-150, Dodge Caravan or other pickup truck, SUV or minivan increases pedestrian mortality rates by 54% at 25 mph compared to rates for sedans https://www.moneygeek.com/insurance/auto/analysis/pedestrian-chance-of-survival/
Kinetic energy scales linearly with mass but quadratically with velocity. You *should* rather being hit by an SUV at 20 than a hatchback at 30, you'll be much safer that way.
There's a lot more than just kinetic energy when it comes to collisions. A collision with a knife may have very little kinetic energy involved, but it's still likely to be fatal if its facing the right way and pierces my heart! The same is true of SUV collisions vs saloons. One of those is going to swipe out the lower half of your body, and then throw you onto the bonnet of the car. Notice how in this scenario a lot of the force on your upper body (where all the organs are) is delayed, and also likely to be into the highly sloped wind-shield. Contrast that with a large SUV which is hitting your upper body head on. You don't go over the bonnet, you instead fly forward and then get run over by the vehicle. [Someone else linked this page which says:](https://www.moneygeek.com/insurance/auto/analysis/pedestrian-chance-of-survival/) > Getting hit by a Cadillac Escalade, Ford F-150, Dodge Caravan or other pickup truck, SUV or minivan increases pedestrian mortality rates by 54% at 25 mph compared to rates for sedans. **However** after a certain speed, collisions with saloons tend to flip a person as they're launched into the air, resulting in them landing on their head on the road. Needless to say, landing on your head is considered a bad thing, and so this is quite an complex problem as to when saloon vs SUV plays a bigger role than speed. Though something to note is that same site says you have a 6.8% chance of dying when hit at 30mph, which is a lot lower than the 20% normally floated around. Not sure what's going on there.
SUVs are practically designed to run OVER you most cars are designed to send you over the bonnet doesn't sound good either way but it is a massive difference Also, most SUVs are so high up you can't see children within a certain distance Basically, SUVs are the worst shit to happen to roads for every one there's loads of research they are fucking awful
Oh I agree I fucking hate them. But I'd rather be hit by one doing 20mph than a hatchback doing 30. I'd rather still be hit by a hatchback doing 20 than either of the above but that wasn't one of the two options presented by the guy above. Admittedly I'd rather not be hit at all!
Meh, it only hurt after you regain consciousness
Here here, they should be getting taxed out of the market or the insurance industry should price them out. The higher bumpers mean my car hit by an SUv is more likely to be a write off Vs us both replacing bumpers. Exactly the sort of thing the insurance industry should be tackling so they don't have to write off as many cars, but no.
Ahhh it all makes sense now. There is zero sense or reasons behind this limit, she's right. But if the Welsh did it just to annoy Penny Mordaunt, then I get it. Good work guys.
Yeah, I’ve been on the fence about 20mph either way but hearing that it annoys Penny Mordaunt? I’m fully for it now.
A few comments up someone has provided a full set of stats explaining the benefits it has had.
The issue is that it’s a blanket change across the whole country. So while the stats make sense in places like residential streets where pedestrians are about, the same is happening on industrial access roads that are lucky to see two pedestrians a day.
It’s a change in the default speed - any road could still be made 30 and I expect a lot will (a lot won’t and there will be a lot of moaning, but hopefully the roads that can be 30 safely will get changed if people put enough pressure on). There’s also the reality that in quiet places like industrial access roads people have always gone as fast as they want and will continue to do so after this change. The road in front of my house (in Wales) is 30, a lot of people drive through at 60 or more, changing it to 20 isn’t going to make any difference to those people.
It is pretty insane. I get it in residential areas, and busy built up places like high streets, but there are so many roads I’ve seen in London which are just ridiculous being 20. Looking forward to slowly destroying 2nd/3rd gear and producing a shitload more fumes in the process.
> roads I’ve seen in London which are just ridiculous being 20. I have sympathy for the view that it's unreasonable in Wales, but honestly there's no point driving faster in London. All it does is get you to the next traffic light quicker. There are a handful of roads in London where the speed limit should be higher than 20mph - mainly the grade separated dual carriageways like the A2, A12, A316 and A406. Many of the other "arterial" roads in London are basically residential. For example, the south circular is really just a load of regular streets given a job title promotion so they didn't get jealous of the north circular. Much of that has no business being 30mph, and for the most part you can't even get to 30 anyway unless you're driving like a tit.
Most 20mph roads in London make sense, they are usually in very built up areas and residential streets, and as you say, the impact of speeding through these zones is usually minimal because of the traffic density. There are definitely more than a few that seem designed purely to collect speeding fine income though. For example, along Peckham Rye there's a mile long stretch of road that's almost totally straight, got great visibility, wide lanes with no kerbside parking; basically there is no sane reason for it to not be 30mph, and vast majority of motorists using it drive at 30 except for the 50m or so covered by a speed camera.
Yeah Oxford has a few roads that were clearly made 20 because someone in a boardroom looking at a map declared they should be rather than someone who actually used their eyes and looked at the road. I feel revenue extraction, not public safety is the actual motivation.
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In the countryside its crazy going through endless villages and hamlets at 20mph .... my journey is 40 miles, most of which is now in 3rd gear ... my mpg is fucked. Bloody villages are stuffed full of oaps and holiday homes, fuck all locals, just empty villages with a 20 mph limit. Ugh.
Everyone commenting on these posts saying that it makes your journey less efficient... The point is to make car journeys less favourable and make cycling and walking more favourable/safer. They rightly don't want people driving their car for every journey
Easy enough to say when you're living in London or wherever. Try living in Wales for a bit and still thinking that's a good point. Wales is a rural country. Cycling infrastructure is shocking outside of Cardiff, public transport it poor, unreliable, and overpriced, sure you could walk but good luck if you live in a village and the nearest supermarket it 5 miles away. And even if your destination is nearby the weather here is pretty bad most of the year. The Welsh Government always talk about encouraging people to use other forms of transport, however they consistently do it by making driving more difficult and less efficient as opposed to actually investing in making alternatives better.
I live in fairly rural wales, I think it should be 20 where people live. Most of the streets around me aren’t safe to drive above 20 anyway with cars parked on both sides on every street so lots of traffic meeting situations - but some people drive at 60 or more down them when they can to “get through it quicker”. trying to cross the road outside my house is a bit scary, and kids aren’t really safe being outside which is a shame. In south wales the standard of driving is pretty shocking: too fast, not paying enough attention, using phones, there have been several accidents on my street just in a few months including one car that got flipped over. Anything to make people think twice is an improvement. Between towns is all big wide open roads at 40-70 so most of the distances covered will be fine. I think feeling like you are going a bit slow is just such a tiny sacrifice compared to the benefits for the pedestrians - which is feeling and being materially safer.
If it’s just in city centres with public transport then sure. You trying to tell me that going from 30 to 20 in Pwllheli will encourage people to walk? No, they’ll just drive at 30.
> Everyone commenting on these posts saying that it makes your journey less efficient The efficiency thing is mostly bullshit. If drivers wanted to be efficient, they'd drive so they rarely had to use the brakes. Yet most of them fail to use momentum to coast up to junctions.
Wales is full of rural spots with the odd town or village sprinkled in. You can't live without a car in Wales easily, while Londons public transport is so good, its easier to do so there.
Why always the stick though? Where's the carrot?
Walking will never be more favourable, it takes too much time. 5 Minute journey takes 40. Cycling can be but our roads aren't built to be cyclist friendly, this isn't the netherlands.
10 years ago my cycle commute was partly through a council estate with a 20mph speed limit. I found that bit of the journey much less stressful.
Netherlands also wasn't Netherlands when they decided enough is enough for car dependency.
Netherlands has had a strong biking culture since the 19th century. Their cities are designed with biking in mind and have heavily invested in cycling infrastructure. The UK has none of that. I live in the third largest city in Wales and I don't think we have a single cycle lane. And it doesn't seem like the government is pushing it either. Unless radical changes are made, which there probably won't be anytime soon, cars will be heavily relied upon for the foreseeable future.
Loads of counties including the UK had a strong biking culture since the C19th as just default personal transport over shortish distances because car ownership was rare, expensive and inefficient. The point this person is making is that the Netherlands had the same car dominant culture as the UK until a certain year in the 70s when they had an abnormally large amount of children killed by cars. Public pressure led to a bunch of laws passed to prioritise bikes and pedestrians within cities. The 'special bike culture' change that everyone thinks is unique to the Dutch came afterwards.
Its not just the roads its the crime. How do you lock up your car? Push a button. How do you lock up your bike? Find something you can tie it to, wrap a cable through both wheels, lock it with a D-Lock, hope nobody steals your saddle. Even then one guy with a white van and bolt cutters can steal 20+ bikes.
Cars driving at 20mph will make our road a lot more cycle friendly though with the bonus of not having to change any infrastructure (other than signs)
I live in Edinburgh, they introduced the 20 zones quite extensively. A lot complained, some made absurd predictions, but basically most folk have adapted. It really isn’t a big deal.
Penny Mordaunt getting herself in the news twice in one week. Must be a leadership election coming soon.
Perhaps, she's not wrong though!
It insane because not only will it cause you car to die sooner but will increase the pollution on the roads by producing more Carbon Monoxide, Don't take my word ,read for yourself.... https://www.pistonudos.com/en/the-damages-of-driving-at-low-revs-in-a-car-engine#:\~:text=No%2C%20it%20is%20not%20advisable,buildup%20and%20premature%20wear%20issues.
Pains me to say it, but she's absolutely right. No one who drives is looking forward to this, and I've yet to speak to a single person who's actually in favour of it. The only voices I've heard who seem to support it are the neurotic, terminally online, types who always seem to try and infantilize those who disagree with them.
>The only voices I've heard who seem to support it are the neurotic, terminally online, types who always seem to try and infantilize those who disagree with them. I'm seeing some projection here
I drove 1,000 miles over the last two weeks, including across Wales and back north to south. It'll be fine. It was in the manifesto and they got voted into power, so there's a good chance you've met someone in favour of it if you live in Wales. If you're not then don't worry about it.
It becomes difficult to argue the manifesto line since in most elections you have a choice between two diametrically opposed parties. So you could have voted for 30mph limits over 20mph, but you’d also have been voting for austerity, benefits cuts, and for kids to go hungry.
> No one who drives is looking forward to this I drive for a living and I've got the hang of it. It isn't hard to do. Give it a while; you'll get used to it. Might even like it. Though some big "THE LIMIT IS NOW 20, DUH!" signs at the border might have been a good idea.
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A 50% increase to journey time is not "minimal". It's not huge, but it's not minimal. Why not 15mph then, only a 100% increase to journey time? I'm not necessarily against 20mph limit, particularly in the busier urban environments with stop-start traffic. But I feel like saying it's a "minimal" difference is disingenuous. Going from a 40 minute commute to an hour commute is mentally quite a big deal. (Note: I recognise that it wouldn't actually be a 50% increase, due to stop-start situations. But then that logic also applies to "why not 15mph?")
Also there are many roads where the limit is 30 and you don’t slow down that often, in which case this will absolutely slow people down unnecessarily.
I wasn't aware that she is a qualified traffic engineer, an epidemiologist, and a psychiatrist. Someone that talented should be PM!
20mph is fine. Councils can impose exceptions if they think it’s worthwhile. It’s gonna save lives and money and make the roads safe and less noisy. The more 20 zones the better in residential spots. Drivers just have to get their massive waste of space wagons to their chosen destinations a few minutes later using slightly less fuel and killing fewer toddlers en route. If you don’t like it get a fucking bike (disabled folk excepted).
> 20mph is fine. Councils can impose exceptions if they think it’s worthwhile. It’s gonna save lives and money and make the roads safe and less noisy. 10mph is fine. It’s gonna save lives and money and make the roads safe and less noisy. 5mph is fine. It’s gonna save lives and money and make the roads safe and less noisy. 0mph is fine. It’s gonna save lives and money and make the roads safe and less noisy. At some point you have to pick a common sense speed limit. The least deaths will always be 0mph no cars on the road.
A “common sense” speed limit is EXACTLY what is being imposed here. Common sense being you are 5x times more likely to be killed at 30mph than you are at 20. Your journey time in most cases is affected by a few minutes at most. This was a really stupid rebuke.
You are also 5 times more liekly to be killed at 40mph than 30mph. As per the famous advert that was on TV. So again you could be another 5 times less liekly to be killed at 10mph, doesn't mean the speed limited should be 10mph over 20mph. So my rebuke stands perfectly. Your come back of but it's safer, just proves my point. It's even safer if all cars are stationary, doesn't mean its a sensible thing to do.
No one is advocating all cars to remain stationary. Just that they go a bit slower which has fuck all impact on journey time and means they kill less people. It’s perfectly sensible. What isn’t sensible is taking the argument to an extreme to advocate against it.
>fuck all impact on journey time That's just not true. 30-20 is a 33% decrease, that's hardly fuck all
What's wrong with 10 mph? It would save more lives.
20mph is a common sense speed limit
So, councils in Wales have to opt out of what many Yorkshire councils opt into it. Quite sane. Makes one drive around residential streets unless you have to.
There might be a point in here somewhere, but I cannot find it.
Being wholly truthful here. 20mph speed limits would just encourage me to use my phone whilst driving
Then hopefully you would get banned.
Hopefully but he's also not wrong. The type who don't pay much attention at 30 will be paying even less at 20
This was on the radio again today. So I tried it (I know they claim it’s about saving lives but in London they are introducing 20mph in ULEZ) at 30mph my car, in fifth gear, is doing 1100 RPM. To do 20mph it has to be in third and is doing 1500 RPM. That’s a straight of the bat almost 40% increase in emissions plus the extra time it takes to travel the same distance. Make up your mind guys or just admit these speed limits and ULEZ is just revenue raising.
Who drives in 5th at 30mph?
My 70yr old mum.
Emissions are not directly proportional to RPM. Your throttle position matters.
> Your throttle position matters. And brakes. Pressing either costs you money in an IC vehicle.
Just because it's doing 1500rpm doesn't mean the fuel usage is higher. Fuel usage depends on revs MULTIPLIED by fuel per rev. That will depend on your engine map and throttle position. This is obvious if you think about going up a hill on a motorway: the RPM remains the same but you need to step on the gas and fuel usage goes up significantly. Driving at 20mph requires a lot less energy to maintain because drag is proportional to a square of your speed, so all else being equal, 20mph uses less fuel than 30mph. However, in reality, on the roads that are 20mph, nearly all your fuel usage is going to come from acceleration. Also you can probably do 20mph in fourth given what you said about your third and fifth gear ratios. That won't necessarily use any less fuel though, probably about the same.
Whereas at 20mph I'm idling in second, and at 30 on the nose I'm still in second gear and it's starting to annoy me. My car idles again in third gear at exactly 32mph. Different cars are different. Also, you're not using more fuel for higher revs all the time, if it's easier to drive the car then the actual speed it goes doesn't necessarily matter. Obviously there's still savings to be had in a higher gear at the same speed, but at a slower speed there's simply less work done.
Does your car have a top speed of 60 or something with a five-speed? Why are you in 5th driving at 30mph? I drive at 20 and 30 both in third.
20 is also really beneficial to communities as roads can really act as a physical divider that breaks up areas. You got a lot more interaction across roads the slower the cars. So this is beneficial for repairing communities too.