• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

What are your thoughts on the introduction of 20mph speed limits in built-up areas?

Turning away from the bigger picture and looking at how this effects people on a personal level it's easy to see why people are unhappy about the change.

I myself have a 45 minute commute (both ways) each day. This is already more than I'd like to be doing, as it takes up a noticeable amount of my time in the week. Public transport isn't an option (even though I'm in an are with good Public transport) and the alternative is giving up on a job I love. Moving closer also isn't an option.
If all the 30 roads I have to drive down became 20 my commute would extend to an hour each way. Obviously I wouldn't be happy about that, and their are thousands of people in the same situation.

Yes, a human life is worth more than a few extra hours of commuting. But when adding up all the thousands of people driving more and harder to quantify factors like the additional pollution. Plus the dubious claims that 30 to 20 saves many lives when most fatal collision involve people going over 30 anyway, you can see why people are not happy about this change.
Some roads, like cut-throughs of villages and dense built up areas do need to be reduced. But my commute doesn't include any roads like that, and the one area that is built up has those illuminated signs warning drivers when they are speeding, which from what I've seen works well on all but those who will wilfully speed no matter what the signs say.
 
Of course it will say that, the company behind the research was commissioned by the Welsh government a while ago to help develop the roads strategy:

agilysis.co.uk

Agilysis to Support Wales with Ambitious New Road Safety Strategy

Agilysis has been commissioned by the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) to undertake the writing of a new strategy for road safety in Wales following a […]
agilysis.co.uk agilysis.co.uk

It’s in their interests to say it’s working.

You only have to read all the comments to that article and responses to it on various social media channels to hear what the public really think of it and how much longer their journeys are taking.
 
It's not really journey times that are the issue. A rather nonsensical study over a week (?!) that means very little.

I've done some general driving around since the change (outside of commuting). Some roads absolutely need to be 20mph and I feel it's safer on certain roads. However there are a few large main roads in my city where 20mph feels very unnecessary, you have a mass space around you, it feels like you're crawling along the road, it feels more dangerous, with a lot of tailgating and I've had cars overtake me, making it more dangerous than anything.

I disagree with the blanket change across the country. The Welsh Government should have explored soemthing more adaptable, where roads are assessed individually. The way this has been approached and Mark Drakeford's contempt towards public opinion the past week says it all.
 
To be fair to Drakeford I don't think much of general public opinion since about 2016, let alone post Covid.

These days it seems public opinion sides with whoever spouts the same opinion as them so their side can claim the victory with minimal logic. Hence why you get people leaping to the defence of those under severe allegations.

Though occasionally you get a potential policy floated and people get angry so it's not implemented. Guess Drakeford didn't want to appear to have similar style of governing to Johnson & Co.
 
The petition has now exceeded 433,064 signatures. Wait till the road charging comes in for Wales. There were protests in Cardiff over the weekend - there will be riots on the streets with road charging.


I was reading an article the other day that automatic cars (and buses) are really struggling with the 20mph limit as their gearing isn’t set up to do it for such long periods of time, forcing the vehicles to frequently switch between gears and the driver constantly having to break especially downhills due to the nature of the automatic gearbox. Anyone with an auto box found this yet in 20mph zones?
 
Last edited:
The obsession with 10 mph increments is outdated and unnecessary.

A 5 mph reduction on all roads would have significant air quality, environmental, and maybe even safety benefits. Fair play to Welsh Labour for trying a reduction, but it seems that populism and the "attack on drivers" narrative might override science/logic once again.
 
GaryH said:
The petition has now exceeded 433,064 signatures. Wait till the road charging comes in for Wales. There were protests in Cardiff over the weekend - there will be riots on the streets with road charging.
Click to expand...

Of course, it could be political double speak, but it seems that Drakeford is not seeking road charging?

It's certainly a rousing image, though; Inspired by the powerful direct action recently seen taken under the oppressive governments of Iran, Peru and Brazil, the residents of Caerphilly finally crack over the premium for additional drives to ASDA.
 
Last edited:
GaryH said:
The petition has now exceeded 433,064 signatures. Wait till the road charging comes in for Wales. There were protests in Cardiff over the weekend - there will be riots on the streets with road charging.


I was reading an article the other day that automatic cars (and buses) are really struggling with the 20mph limit as their gearing isn’t set up to do it for such long periods of time, forcing the vehicles to frequently switch between gears and the driver constantly having to break especially downhills due to the nature of the automatic gearbox. Anyone with an auto box found this yet in 20mph zones?
Click to expand...
"Riots on the streets"...You will be telling us we are heading to WW3 next.
Stick it in sport, it holds 20mph absolutely fine.
Strange but true.
Source...my speed awareness course a few months ago.
 
Plastic Person said:
Of course, it could be political double speak, but it seems that Drakeford is not seeking road charging?

It's certainly a rousing image, though; Inspired by the powerful direct action recently seen taken under the oppressive governments of Iran, Peru and Brazil, the residents of Caerphilly finally crack over the premium for additional drives to ASDA.
Click to expand...


To be fair, a trip to the Asda if worth rushing for.
 
Plastic Person said:
Of course, it could be political double speak, but it seems that Drakeford is not seeking road charging?
Click to expand...

That’s odd because it’s in their strategy document. Think I posted the link to this either in this thread or another unless he’s changed his mind.

IMG_7640.jpeg

Alsty said:
I've yet to see any petition that's resulted in a change in policy.
Click to expand...

Yes very true but it may have an impact come the next Senydd elections though they are not until 2026.

Tom said:
The obsession with 10 mph increments is outdated and unnecessary.

A 5 mph reduction on all roads would have significant air quality, environmental, and maybe even safety benefits. Fair play to Welsh Labour for trying a reduction, but it seems that populism and the "attack on drivers" narrative might override science/logic once again.
Click to expand...

Truth is no one yet knows the impact of the lower speeds on the air quality. London studies showed an increase in emissions of NOX and CO2 while there is growing concern over increased brake dust from extra use of brakes particularly in automatic cars. Car engines are most efficient in higher gears and at a steady speed - but these are early days, I don’t think we will know for a few years yet the real impact on the environment or our health.

20230821_104856000_iOS.jpeg

Source : government paper on 20mph zones (already pasted links to this in this thread)
 
Tom said:
The obsession with 10 mph increments is outdated and unnecessary.

A 5 mph reduction on all roads would have significant air quality, environmental, and maybe even safety benefits. Fair play to Welsh Labour for trying a reduction, but it seems that populism and the "attack on drivers" narrative might override science/logic once again.
Click to expand...
It's not for no reason though, compliant cars with an analogue speedometer must have a notch for every 10mph interval. It's way easier to judge at a fleeting glance when the needle is at or below one of those notches than exactly half way between two.

Unless you want to mandate digital speedometers and provide a lengthy adjustment period, 10mph intervals are here to stay.
 
I wish we'd stop all this GBNews style "dictator" and riots on the streets talk. It's little more than gas lighting and completely ignores how democracy works. If Drakeford is this evil "socialist", as the knuckle dragging petition author put it, and he's hell bent on ruining the lives of drivers and people don't like it - then they can simply vote him and his party out of the Senedd in under 3 years time. Similarly, Londoners can get rid of Kahn if they wish in just 8 months time.

That's exactly what Bristolians did to George Ferguson in 2016. The 20mph speed limit was deeply unpopular at the time. I don't think this helped his case either:

www.bbc.co.uk

Mayor apology for speeding offence - BBC News

Bristol's elected mayor, who spearheaded the introduction of 20 mph zones in the city, apologises after being caught speeding.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

After he had been booted out in favour of Reece, last year the city voted to get rid of the mayoral office entirely. I don't pretend that our institutions have functioned well in recent years, decades even. In fact it looks pretty broken and old fashioned at the moment and in need of rigourous reform. But every politician has to face their electors at some point and pretending we have dictators in charge right across the country and mentioning the option of riots is just downright irresponsible.

I don't much like the fact that a corrupt criminal took over the country in 2019, illegally asked the queen to pierogue parliament, held parties against laws his government signed off and then misled the commons when he lied about them. I didn't like the fact that, without a general election, an incompetent maniac was put in charge by a small amount of right wing party members and wreaked economic chaos and misery that was not in any manifesto that the British electorate had the chance of scrutinising, and plunged the country into crisis that has damaged the lives of many for years to come - just in a matter of a few weeks. Or that, after no election again, another zealot turns up to settle the waters and starts a campaign of blame shifting to foreigners, ripping up manafesto pledges and pretending to scrap policies that he seems to have made up from scratch the night before on the back of a fag packet to whip up fear.

But I'm not going to start a riot, make stuff up to whip people into a frenzy, get sucked in by social media campaigns or call Sunak a "dictator". Instead I'm going to slag him off, call them out for the actual things they've done and said, and join millions of other people in voting them out of office next year.

Anyway, back to Mr Ferguson's fate. Well it turns out that after all the protests, all the social media nonsense and all the hype, no one even talks about it in Bristol anymore. The 20mph zones were reviewed a number of times and do encompass much of the city, but I can't think of a single example of where a 20mph limit is currently in force and is not appropriate. After all the hype being spread and the enormous problems encountered intially when it was introduced (not dissimilar to what's happening in Wales, although granted that is on a much larger scale), it turns out that unless you're a taxi driver traveling around at 4am, it's almost impossible to do above 20mph on most of the city roads anyway. Where it is possible, it's certainly not appropriate to be doing that speed.

I'm no angel and have been on 4 speed awareness courses in the last 22 years. But each time I was to blame. I knew the law, and I broke it. It was a fair cop. Only one of those cases could I argue that the limit was probably too low as the council increased the limit to more than the speed I was doing months later. But then I should have been more careful and the council I elect changed it whilst representing me and other constituents and it was not an excuse, the signs said 50 so that's what I should have been doing less than.

The main road outside my house is used as race track. I'm frequently woken up at night by tyre screams and idiots driving dangerously. I raise my kids here, someone came tearing into my street and nearly hit me a few months ago and my cat was hit and killed by someone 3 weeks ago. I try to avoid driving wherever I can and have grown to loath it. The responsibility of being in charge of a large machine that can kill someone in an instant. But no one is forcing me off the road, especially since I have to drive out of necessity sometimes. I just have to do so responsibly and within the law.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top