Raheem
Well-Known Member
You're confusing conflating with confusing.Perhaps you're conflating the lack of cacophony with the acute lack of interest the rest of the world has with welsh speed limits.
About the 20mph speed limit in Wales built up areas? Which goes live tonight..
- Thread starter weltweit
- Start date
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
No. That’s incorrect. But it’s a common mistake.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
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kebabking
Not a Girly Swot, but I like them....
I heard on the radio that whatever enforcement there is will be (for X period of time) that anything over 30 will be instant ticket, but between 20 and 30 will be education, not SAC's, but a chat, short video etc...
From what I've read, none of the automatic enforcement stuff - speed cameras - have been changed to 20 yet, I think (apart from the VSL's on motorways) it's all manual changing required.
I doubt there'll be any prosecutions until all the speed limit signs have been changed - which isn't going to be quick.
It'll be interesting to see firstly how quickly, and to what extent speed, and accidents, change, and secondly how long it takes the machinery - signage and enforcement - to change.
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
It's not all about kinetic energy though is it? If it was, a person hit by a 360-tonne train at 50mph would stand a better chance of surviving than one hit by a 720-tonne train at 50mph.
People do survive being hit by 50mph trains, usually if they're dealt a glancing blow. It follows that the profile of the front end is perhaps more important than the amount of kinetic energy in such situations. This is just one example.
liquidindian
Hello
What if the cyclist has gaffer-taped seventeen knives to their handlebars, making their vehicle much more lethal? People aren't considering such things in their simplistic kinetic energy calculations.
hash tag
Books, not bombs
In Wandsworth, the fines started from day 1 for anyone exceeding 30 MPH ( as my colleagues will testify). There are still many drivers who drive around at 30 ish
in 20 limits and will try and intimidate you or give you grief if you stick to 20.
kebabking
Not a Girly Swot, but I like them....
Has the signage changed?
muscovyduck
Good IT skills and food hygiene competent
So, yous all choking in petrol fumes ruining your gearboxes today then over in Wales?
moochedit
I'm not feeding seagulls
Signs are not needed. 20mph will be the default in any road in a "built up" area (which means it has street lights a certain distance apart from each other, not buildings as you might expect it to mean) and which doesn't have any signs with another limit on them (which overides the default). I'm sure they will update signs though.
Edit -in wales not england where built up default still 30mph. (Sorry realised you talking about london)
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hash tag
Books, not bombs
moochedit
I'm not feeding seagulls
I'm guessing people who ignored limits before will continue to ignore them. Those that stuck to limits before will obey the new one.
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
Signs will be needed at the end of faster limits, for example entering a built up area from a country road there will be existing 30 signs that need changing. There won't be any need for repeater signs though.
kebabking
Not a Girly Swot, but I like them....
I would think that any 30 sign will need to be replaced - difficult to imagine any prosecution succeeding for a <30 (and they'll have to start enforcing it eventually) offence if the driver can show that the road was clearly marked as a 30mph limit.
moochedit
I'm not feeding seagulls
If there is a 30mph sign then its 30mph. Though i'm sure they will change them to 20mph eventually.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
Correct. They can't prosecute without adequate signage. In London it's been changed to 20 on both the repeater signs and road markings. They haven't noticeably inreased the number of cameras (although Khan says otherwise) so they've only recalibrated the old 30mph units, which stand out like bulldogs bollocks. As ever, the issue is enforcement. All locals know exactly where the cameras are, they're fucking big yellow boxes with warning signs preceeding them, and nowadays all navigation apps give you 300 meters warning of them anyway. Waze even tells you if there's a solo copper having a sandwich in a layby ahead of you. You've got to be pretty dim to get done by one of them.
The reality is that there are many roads where 20mph is pefectly appropriate (residential streets in genuinely built-up areas) but most people did 20 on those anyway. There are roads near us which are effectively dual carriageways with 20 limits now, so they are roundly ignored, even by the police. Very few people pay them much heed beyond slowing down a bit for the cameras then getting on their way again as soon as they cross the grad marks.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
There are no speed limits in the highway code for bikes, e-bikes, push scooters or pedestrians. The speed limits are specified by vehicle type and only motor vehicles are specified. e-scooters I'm not sure about tbh, I think that it's never come to court so not been legally defined but they probably count as a moped? They are mechanically propelled but there's no type class for them. It's kind of a moot point since only the rental ones are legal to use on the roads and they are limited to 15mph which is lower than any normal speed limit.
e-scooters might get specifically included once they get legislated for, depends if they are legally limited to 15mph or not. Obviously if they are limited to 15mph there's no need to have them included in the speed limit table. Anyone using an illegal escooter to go faster than the speed limit is likely to be facing much more serious charges than speeding should police decide to use their limited resources to enforce the law instead of policing more dangerous vehicles.
cyclists who are exceeding speed limits could be charged with a general careless or dangerous cycling charge, but not with speeding.
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
it really is time we followed France and made it illegal for a satnav device to show camera positions. It could be done overnight with a few lines of code.
Then stop painting cameras yellow. Hide them all as much as possible.
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
They were originally painted grey, I'm not sure but I think it was the result of some legal challenge that ended up with them being repainted yellow
beesonthewhatnow
going deaf for a living
Presumably from drivers crying at how “unfair” it was that they were getting caught breaking the law
farmerbarleymow
I'm Petee's spirit animal
They should change the law to make speeding an offence punishable by having to remove stuck on chewing gum from pavements with their tongue. That might deter some idiot drivers.
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
Presumably from drivers crying at how “unfair” it was that they were getting caught breaking the law
It's because they want drivers to actually slow down at camera locations, rather than speed through them and receive a fine.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Quite often there are seemingly counter intuitive reasons that things just work better. Like the merging at a bottle neck thing: it’s actually better for flow that some people merge late.
So if it turns out that actually having hi vis cameras means people are driving slowly without hard braking at the high accident spots (and I don’t know if this is correct, I’m just postulating), then we should go with that. Crowd behaviour isn’t always what you’d expect.
But I’m in favour of a default 20 in build up areas, and people will soon get used to it.
As noted before, though, these measures shouldn’t be in isolation, but be accompanied by initiatives to make public transport more attractive, cheaper (ideally free), easier to access, and with more coverage.
Elpenor
Dancing as fast as I can
orient slacker
Well-Known Member
The Council Highways gangs have been out this morning in my part of Pembrokeshire swapping the 30mph signs to 20s. Most of them had been done by the time I drove to a local supermarket.
It will take a while to get used to after decades of driving at 30 in towns/villages. I had to keep brain engaged and it felt very slow and ‘wrong’ to be chugging along at 20 (our urban roads aren’t that busy most of the time) but it’ll come.
It will take a while to get used to after decades of driving at 30 in towns/villages. I had to keep brain engaged and it felt very slow and ‘wrong’ to be chugging along at 20 (our urban roads aren’t that busy most of the time) but it’ll come.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
If cyclists are not expected to obey speed limits I expect it was because 30 was the lowest limit and few if any cyclists can achieve 30, even downhill with the wind behind
Now with a 20 limit I expect the code will be modified to include cyclists where speed limits are concerned (if indeed they are excluded at the moment) after all we expect cyclists to obey traffic lights and give way rules so it would be most strange if they were excluded from speed limits.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Why do you think speed is such a factor in London with this 48% when across the country it's 19% or 25%, according to an article you've already posted?If it needs spelling out:
Speed was a factor in 48% of fatal collisions in London in 2020.
Collision data from around the world is very clear. It shows that the faster a vehicle is travelling:
This is why we're lowering speed limits across London.
- The more likely a collision will occur because the driver has less time to react, stop or avoid the collision
- The more severe an injury resulting from the collision will be
Changes to speed limits
We're lowering speed limits because if you hit someone at 30mph they're five times more likely to die than if you hit them at 20mph.
Safe speeds
Speed is a factor in at least 37 per cent of collisions where a person is killed or is seriously injured on London's streets. This is why we're lowering speed limits across London.tfl.gov.uk
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