20 mph limit in Wales.

[Richard (OldStager)]

I am aware of two other posts on the subject, but are there any Welsh folks on here who can report directly on how it's affecting you or otherwise, for those outside the borders what do you think?.

 

Been reading the latest UK news and I see that over 450K folks have signed a petition to get this concept scrapped, I would have thought having 20mph in places like outside schools or hospitals or any other place that is pedestrian heavy is fair, but a blanket ban on every previously 30 mph road is just overkill and (to me at least) seems to be an abuse of the Welsh Gov's power to its citizens. 

 

Having said all that, my own street is 20 mph, but no one, I mean no one sticks to that. It's not policed or enforced in the slightest, and has been in place for years, seems to me just a token nod in the fitting of road signs to appease the more strident out there, show common sense folks ... 

 

I'll get my coat and jump from my soapbox now....

[stephenh]

The problem I have is that it depends on why you have the 20mph limit on a road. Is it for safety or is it for environmental reasons?

If it is for safety, then why stick at an arbitary 20mph? it would be much safer if we had, say, a 7mph limit in built up areas, and required drivers to have a person with a red flag and whistle walking in front to warn pedestrians.

If on the other hand it is for environmental reasons, then it is self defeating in my view. My present car is an automatic, but on my old manual car I could drive comfortably at 30 mph in 4th. gear, but at 20 mph I need to be in 3rd. gear. So I'm using as much or more fuel (and therefor emissions) at 20 mph as I do at 30 mph.

The again, what do I know? I'm just a driver.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Its Wales, land of the speeding camera, camera van and handheld radar. The government might have ment it as a token, or not, but the BiB will take it seriously, I suspect. At least till the first cases start hitting courts; be interesting to see what sort of view they take of the extremely confusing rules.

[p k]

Traffic is at a standstill in vast areas of cardiff (labour control obsessed council) people are afraid to do more than 15mph as they dont know what the speed limit is. Even sections of dual carriageway are down to 20mph . there is a section of road near where i live if you approach from the north is still marked as 30mph  , from the roundabout at the other end if you approach from one road it is 20mph but from the other it is 30mph . Because all the non motoring road users are being told it is now absolutely safe on the road they are taking no care on the road and stepping out into traffic giving car drivers no chance . Nothing funnier than watching an entitled pedestrian and cyclist both do something stupid and be in collision on the second day of the new law .

everywhere there are nose to tail lines of cars and trucks moving slowly with all in low gears producing more noise and pollution but the labour government wants to do even more of it all over wales , from now on any accident on any roads will lead to a speed reduction on that road. 

[p k]

forgot to mention that the first minister intends to ignore the petition (normally 10k signatures gets it discussed in the assembly) as he and his car hating transport minister are always right. his transport minister has admitted t onever using public transport but wants everyone else to have their cars taken from them .

[Stuart Davis (fatblokestu) AO - Devon & Somerset]

I totally agree about the need for these to be only in high risk places and for enforcement otherwise it is meaningless.

 

We live on the A30 in Crewkerne, in a 20mph zone. No one sticks to it, virtually every car does at least 30 and some do 60 plus at times, particularly late at night. The pavements are narrow and I walk my daughter to school most days so it feels quite unsafe. I spoke with the police and they have no interest in trying to address the problem. In this case the 20 feels appropriate, but I totally agree that the blanket approach seems ludicrous and counter-productive in many ways.

[dvd8n]

I find this bizarre in the extreme.

 

There's no robust evidence that it will make a statistical difference to the accident rate.

 

It won't help environmentally as it has the double whammy of moving the car even further away from its most efficient speed than 30 is already, plus the car will spend 50% more time doing 20 rather than 30.

 

All the detractors say that they can see the sense of it in identified locations but that they hate it as a blanket policy.

 

The best argument supporters make is that it won't make that much difference to journey times and that you'll get used to it eventually.

 

I can't see this as anything other than ideological.

 

D

[RizFizz]

Yeh I have to drive from north to south Cardiff every day, mostly through what's now 20mph zones. So not enjoying this change!

Every road now has someone leading a queue of traffic going at a diligent 15mph. Even in 40mph zones 😩

No public transport options available as an alternative for my route, so I guess I just have to get used to it!

[Richard (OldStager)]

I see others have the same views as me, but the replies from Wales are interesting, I suspect ( but maybe wrong) "some" of these 15mph folks are doing that in protest, seems a good way to get your point across, although not at all clued up on the law aspect of "under speeding" on A roads. I find @p k's post rather disturbing, how can an elected minister "choose" to ignore a public poll ?, what is the website for then if polls are dismissed willy nilly.... Odd how the ULEZ and this Welsh issue have been introduced by voted in for labour folks, I used to support them once - not any more. Like others above have said, what is this really about?, now I will make it quite clear from the outset I am NOT one of these of the conspiracy theorists, I have an open mind but not so open my brains fall out... but you do have to ask why. They claim its better for the environment, when simple physics disagrees straight away, if its for safety as @stephenh says, why pick 20mph, I loved your comment on  the red flag, I wonder if the future folks will be doing the LLandudno to Bangor emancipation run , which I think was the concept for the London based one that we all know. I have just read that Arriva are having to re-do all the timetable such has this messed things up, one report I read suggested they may even cancel some routes altogether  - so that backfired didn't it?. See what happens in the weeks to come - You have my sympathy Wales.

[Paul Baker]

It might just be my cynical take on things as I’m getting older, but I firmly believe that a lot of the 20mph schemes are more related to potential income sources for the police/local authorities than for genuine safety reasons. There are a lot of really important ones that I agree with, but a lot of the 20mph zones near me are badly designed and the Wales blanket coverage thing seems like a bit of an expensive sledgehammer to crack a nut.

 

There is a long 20mph road very close to me. There are schools and community facilities at one end, and nobody speeds there, and most people would be struggling to go more than 20mph there. However, at the other end of the long road (which is very straight) there is nothing really there and no safety reason whatsoever to continue the 20mph zone that far up the road. But of course, that’s where the police sit every few weeks to catch people speeding, and they have NEVER gone up the other end where there is actually a genuine reason to set the speed limit lower around the schools etc.

[Richard (OldStager)]

Whether it's cynicism or not your thoughts are aligned with my own, I am aware that the Gov spent billions over the pandemic and have to repay that debt, but there must be better ways than to target already struggling motorists ( an easy target and there are lots of them) . What we need are 2 or 3 completely new parties , get shut of what we have and start again, that's the point of a democracy isn't we, the idea being - we haven't got a clue so lets vote that lot in as they had some good ideas, turns out they lied or at best were too over optimistic , so we just replace them with other party... Trouble for me is , there are no parties I would give my vote to, and that's not how a democracy should operate. If there was a general election tomorrow my vote sadly will have to go in my bin. dreadful to say but there you go.

[jeff oakley]

There is no end to the anti car madness in the devolved assemblies.

 

The SNP and the Green have decided to look at a feasibility to reduce the speed limit on the M8 motorway to 30mph. 

 

I thought this must surely be a wind up but no it is true. The usual suspects are also pushing for the same limit to be applied on previous 30mph to a default of 20mph as in Wales.

 

The studies used by Drakeford in Wales was based on a reduction in some areas of Spain which coincided with their lockdown, so of course accidents reduced. Never miss an opportunity to use statistics to your own ends.

 

I really hope that we can fight off the wholesale reductions in the country as our economy depends upon the car in all its forms and these anti car groups have no answer as to where all the revenue lost will be replaced from 

[p k]

Reply to several comments 

geting anything other than a Labour assembly in wales is virtually impossible , there are large areas that will never vote anything other than labour because of what margaret thatcher did to the miners. 

even if labour do not get a majority none of the other parties will form a coalition with the conservatives because of what margaret thatcher did to the miners. so the government (23 yrs of labour so far ) of wales is decided by the south wales valleys.

The welsh government likes control , they decide what is good for the people ( they loved making up random rules for covid , always more extreme than the rest of uk)

The first thing they did was to buy 31 new car taxing vans ( not that the 20mph was anything to do with more speeding fines)

welsh motorways are already for the most part are 50mph and most dual carriageways are 50 or less and the assembly is already considering a ULEZ on all the major routes out of cardiff.

 

A warning to the shropshire area members as I am considering moving to the Oswestry area and living out of wales for the first time .

 

[evosteve]

Wales used to be such a nice place the visit, I will certainly have to think hard before returning. I guess my holiday spend will be going elsewhere!

[Richard (OldStager)]

Wow, @p k 23 years in power and wish to have full control of everything and anyone, now who and what does that remind me of in Europe, some dude started a war or something....