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About the 20mph speed limit in Wales built up areas? Which goes live tonight..

Winot said:
I didn’t know this (quote from article):

“Wandsworth’s trial of civil speed cameras on 20mph roads — in response to complaints about speeding motorists — was deemed unlawful by the Department for Transport.”
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Wandsworth tried to go it alone and installed two of their own speed camera's. Anyone caught would be issued with a fine; no speed awareness course, no points.
 
Winot said:
I didn’t know this (quote from article):

“Wandsworth’s trial of civil speed cameras on 20mph roads — in response to complaints about speeding motorists — was deemed unlawful by the Department for Transport.”
Click to expand...

Yes, apparently only the police can deal with speed cameras. It would be a great thing if councils could do this as now it means that most 20mph roads have no enforcement. Also, the Tories stopped councils using cameras to enforce parking restrictions which was crap.
 
It's been 20mph around where i live and work for over 2-3 years.

it's not an issue as i know where the vans are.
 
I believe it's the same for military roads, like those in Aldershot, where if caught by the military police, they would have to refer you to the civil police for prosecution.
 
SpookyFrank said:
So presumably you can't back up your insinuation that pushbikes doing 15mph represent a comparable risk to cars doing 30mph? And that's why you're now falling back on your old trick of putting imaginary nonsense in other posters' mouths in the hopes nobody will notice the torrent of shit spouting from your own.
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Where have I said that? Who's the one putting imaginary nonsense in other people's mouths? :facepalm:

My mention of the 15 mph speed was simply to illustrate that if people have been killed- however infrequently- by collision with a cyclist at that speed, it is absurd to pretend that being hit at 25 mph by an e-bike is not likely to result in, at very least, serious injuries, as well as the odd death. Is the emphasis to reduce deaths and serious injuries to zero, or is there a degree of tolerable serious injuries and deaths we are more than happy to tolerate if the offender is travelling on a bicycle?

It is quite telling to do a search in this forum about electric scooters and pavements. To my great surprise it turns out that you, Frank (and a fair few others of course), are completely against (15 mph) electric scooters being ridden on pavements, because
apparently they are a danger to pedestrians. I haven't bothered quoting your comments in question, but by all means, please let me know if you would like me to.

So a 15mph scooter colliding with a pedestrian = dangerous and unacceptable. But a 25mph bike colliding with a pedestrian = a perfectly acceptable degree of very low risk apparently, so there's no reason why speed limits should apply to cyclists in 20 mph zones :thumbs:

The double standards of some pedestrian safety champions around here whenever bicycles come into the equation are nothing short of legendary.
 
Fuck me, I wish I could ride my bike at 25mph.

Maybe down a decent sized hill or with near hurricane force winds behind me. I guess Cat 1 riders and above would be able to do that. And I suppose I could do 25mph if being chased by a particularly angry bear.

But talk of your average bicycle rider doing 25mph is simply bollocks.
 
Plenty of e-bikes around here doing more than 20mph, but I presume they are not legal anyway so applying a 20mph limit to them would be pointless.
 
a_chap said:
Fuck me, I wish I could ride my bike at 25mph.

Maybe down a decent sized hill or with near hurricane force winds behind me. I guess Cat 1 riders and above would be able to do that. And I suppose I could do 25mph if being chased by a particularly angry bear.

But talk of your average bicycle rider doing 25mph is simply bollocks.
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I might have got close to that speed coming down Sydenham Hill perhaps when I was younger and more reckless than I am now.

I do see electric bikes that are going faster than I would expect a bike to be going, particularly given the rider doesn't look like they're trying very hard. But even they're not doing 25. They're not steaming along more quickly than the cars. I suspect the conflicting signals perhaps make you think they're going even faster than they are.
 
8ball said:
So? :confused:
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So if you're arguing about what the law should be, pointing to cases where people are breaking existing law is a weak argument. Someone who has tweaked an e-bike to go faster is breaking existing law. They can be pulled over and done for it. Now it may well be that there are areas where they're not pulled over and done for it, but that's a rather separate issue, no?

ETA:

Reading up on the laws around this, max powered assist on a bike is 25 km/h (15.5 mph). But if you switch the motor off and freewheel downhill, you can legally go faster than this. Bikes can't be done for speeding, and it's not illegal to ride an e-bike faster than 25kmh, it's merely illegal to have one set up to power you faster than this.

So there are grey areas. I'm still yet to be convinced that they represent an urgent road safety issue, though.
 
Last edited:
Wow, they're not fucking about. Left home yesterday morning around 10am to visit the in-laws and dropped down to 20 in all 30 zones from home to the motorway just to be safe even though the signs still said 30 (most drivers seemed to be doing the same). On coming home last night at around 8pm we noticed they'd changed the signs to 20 for our town and the village before ours... on a Sunday!

I noticed this morning that the village before ours still had a 30 sign at our end though, so either they forgot one or it's a different speed limit depending which direction you're travelling in.
 
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