20mph residential speed limit (replacing 30mph)

Demon said:
I used to commute 50 miles each way, predominantly a nice easy bit of M4/M5 motorway, cruise on and I distinctly remember arriving at work one day and hardly remembering the journey in.. that was a single episode and I assumed I was on autopilot and would have reacted accordingly, but none the less, made me think a bit and ensure it did not happen again..
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I think most of us have had occasional instances of that happening.
 
There are a lot of people who seem hopelessly naive with these kind of things and only learn the hard way when it eventually affects them personally.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
Can we make sure we hit all these points please?

cyclistbingocard.jpg
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The only aspect discussed I can see is cyclists and speed limits, and actually the main point I brought is my real world experience of a rise of unrestricted eBikes doing 40+ (whilst wearing no helmets in most cases).

I don't know if you are being serious, but it's quite a petulant response to shut down any form of discussion, cyclists pay a huge part in this new scheme and you need to man up and start taking responsibility for your own actions.

As a reminder the reason given for the 20mph limits (which by and large have a huge impact of the primary road users is):

from the horses mouth said:
The evidence from around the world is very clear – decreasing speeds will reduce collisions, save lives and reduce injuries – helping to improve quality of life and make our streets and local communities safer for all.

A public health study estimated that the 20mph default speed limit could result – every year - in:

  • 40% fewer collisions
  • 6 to 10 lives lives saved
  • 1200 to 2000 people avoiding injury
The change will also:

  • make streets safer for playing, walking and cycling
  • encourage more people to walk, wheel or cycle
  • makes our communities safer
  • improve health and wellbeing
  • reduce noise pollution
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The science always shows that the faster you cycle, the worse any injuries are if you have an accident, so if the drastic step of impacting 99% of road users by reducing their speed has to be made in the interests of 'safety', then it is absolutely necessary and reasonable to discuss speed limit implications for all road users, why wouldn't we also ensure cyclists are forced to be sensible and ride at speeds shown to improve their outcome in an accident, never mind the small improvement in decreasing damage to pedestrians?

But then that's quite a civil and nice discussion, no one is being militant, I brought up eBikes doing 40mph+ overtaking police cars, not to attack cyclists, but to show that we do need to have a limit and police it..

I commute on a bike as much as I can and I think that we need address both sides to have a meaningful outcome, you can demand compliance and respect of others on one side and then allow flagrant disregard on the other.
 
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I personally don't mind the 20mph limits in sensible places like town centres, near schools and parks or heavily residential areas where there are more likely to have children playing.

However no one seems to stick to them. The number of times I've been overtaken doing near enough the speed limit in a 20 is far more dangerous than had I been doing 30.

However that's a cultural thing probably. I'm almost never in a rush.
 
Tom_ed1987 said:
Does anyone actually respect 20mph limits? Every time I've been a passenger with what i'd describe as 'normal' non-car people in a 20 zone, they've basically ignored it.
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Yes, because they're usually near a school or heavily pedestrianised area. If it was made a blanket thing everywhere I'm sure it would be a damn sight more annoying.
I'd probably just put the adaptive cruise on and nod off.
 
I'll probably carry on driving at 30.
Im not gonna overtake a 20mph driver. But. I'm certainly not going 20 down a rural out of village road.

I find 20 really frustrating. Maybe it'll change in time. But right now? I'll be sticking to 30 mainly.

Car is quite noisy at 20 too.
 
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I'm not in GW but when I popped into town this morning at half six, I deliberately drove along the main road at 20mph (there was nobody else about) to feel what it was like. The speed limit on that road is 30mph.

Awful. It felt terribly slow. My car was in a lower gear than normal and my engine speed was higher than it would be at 30mph so this is less economical.

Where will this stupidity stop? Give it a few years and some bright spark will decide it should be 15mph.
 
Feek said:
I'm not in GW but when I popped into town this morning at half six, I deliberately drove along the main road at 20mph (there was nobody else about) to feel what it was like. The speed limit on that road is 30mph.

Awful. It felt terribly slow. My car was in a lower gear than normal and my engine speed was higher than it would be at 30mph so this is less economical.

Where will this stupidity stop? Give it a few years and some bright spark will decide it should be 15mph.
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This is same as my car.
20 is a gear lower and higher rev.
I'll probably drive at whatever pops out into the gear above.
 
Well I hear that for the first year the Police will not properly enforce the 20 in Wales unless you are taking the mickey with your speed of course.

Instead pulling you over to have a word type of thing, to educate you.

I think they know if they enforced it properly from day 1 that the population would have rejected it and ignored the limit in huge numbers.
 
dave28 said:
Well I hear that for the first year the Police will not properly enforce the 20 in Wales unless you are taking the mickey with your speed of course.

Instead pulling you over to have a word type of thing, to educate you.

I think they know if they enforced it properly from day 1 that the population would have rejected it and ignored the limit in huge numbers.
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It will be enforced by other road users as some will choose to stick to 20mph and others will be forced by tracking systems (ours only has a 10% margin before being reported to employer).

So unless you have a quiet road or want to overtake then you'll be doing the speed of the vehicle in front.

As someone who is forced to abide by limits due to GPS tracking sadly I see a lot of stupid overtaking in dangerous spots and 20mph limits only make that worse. In an ideal world the driver behind would chill out and just stick to the limit but in a 20 they get more aggressive.
 
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Puzzled said:
It will be enforced by other road users as some will choose to stick to 20mph and others will be forced by tracking systems (ours only has a 10% margin before being reported to employer).
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if it's like the SE then a bunch of them will stick to their normal 40, 40 in a 30, 40 on a NSL, 40 in a 20
 
SexyGreyFox said:
I love those drivers who speed up between average speed cameras.
I had one mate who said, "I have never sped past one of those but it still had me 20 mph over the limit" :)
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I did learn from someone working for the local police force that many of those don't even run 24/7, at least in my local area.

Apparently the council don't have enough licences to operate them all at once so they have to switch between them lol. These systems cost millions each to put up.
 
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Firegod said:
I was laughing at the ridiculous braking stats they gave on the news for 20 vs 30 mph as a reason. I had to brake from 30mph other day as a set of lights ahead changed to red. I stopped safely and quickly within a short distance. Easily within 10m. I'm sure they were saying on the news it was 23m to stop from 30mph. I disagree with that. Sounds like they're using stats from the 1970s!

www.brake.org.uk

Stopping distances | Brake

Find out more about the link between vehicle speed and stopping distances
www.brake.org.uk www.brake.org.uk
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Drum brakes all round cough cough!
 
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