20mph speed zones cut road injuries by 40%, study says

20 mph roads save lives because when a road gets a 20mph limit put on it, people drive a different route to avoid the bloody speed bumps. Bet the accidents have gone up on alternate nearby routes.
 
Conscript said:
Travelling slower causes less injuries in the event of a crash. Well, duh.

Are there any details on the actual number of accidents being lowered? I'd be more impressed of they'd managed to cut that by 40%. We could cut road injuries by 100% if we reduced the speed limit to 3MPH, but then no one would get anywhere and we may as well just return to walking. Driving is always going to be a risky endeavour and I'd much rather we concentrate on reducing the risk of hitting anyone in the first place, rather than lowering the speed limits across the board.
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Driving slower does lower the risk of hitting anyone in the first place though...
 
Le_Petit_Lapin said:
20 mph roads save lives because when a road gets a 20mph limit put on it, people drive a different route to avoid the bloody speed bumps. Bet the accidents have gone up on alternate nearby routes.
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None of the 20 limits near me have speed bumps.

I think situation appropriate 20 limits are fine. Blanket limits are unlikely to be beneficial however.
 
Maybe if people were driving at 30 in 30 limits we wouldn't need this. But oh no, 30 is too slow for me in my eurobox, it should be my rights to do more than 45. Especially because my car is so safe.

The two cars that have flipped on my road wouldn't have flipped on a perfectly clear straight piece of road if they were doing 30.
 
I much prefer the 20 mph down in ponty... The 20mph is an "advisable speed" when the children are around. There's a sign that lights up during the times children are coming/leaving school... I think they are turned on/off manually by some school worker.
 
^ I believe they do that in America (although it is a legal limit and not advisory which is better) - and that is a commonsense approach which I support. Clearly while 20mph might be a sensible limit at 3pm, at 3am it isn't necessary.
 
I wonder what the accident reduction rate would be from actually teaching children (and adults) to stay the **** out of the road?
 
The only time I obey the limit is when it makes sense for the limit to be there, or when there is speed enforcement about.

I've done anything between 10 and 50 mph in a 20 zone so far in Oxford, 10mph outside a school with kids, and 50mph at night with no-one around.
 
Ironically, i came across a crash earlier this year, where 2 cars were written off in a 20 zone and i thought wtf, turns out that some young driver and his mates in a subaru impreza got bored of the person in front doing 20mph, and coming up to a blind R/H bend decided they wanted to overtake, as they did, a 206CC came around the corner and they smashed into each other, i'm pretty sure someone was killed in that accident, the kids in the scooby did a runner too.
 
fadetoblack said:
Sorry but if it saves just one life then it's a good thing.
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Sorry but that is emotive tosh. Why not champion the banning of smoking, alcohol or improving hygiene in hospitals to eradicate MRSA if saving lives is such a priority? You could save a damn site more lives than by lowering a speed limit.
 
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