A variety of community stakeholders came together last week in Liverpool for a pilot ‘Road Side Education’ initiative to inform and educate drivers about 20mph speed limits (Bay TV).
The 20 Effect is a campaign run by Liverpool City Council and Liverpool Primary Care Trust (PCT) in partnership with Merseyside Police and the Fire Service, created to influence behaviour change around proposed reduced speed limits on residential roads.
There was also an information bus on site where visitors could see artwork by pupils from Mosspits Lane Primary School about The 20 Effect and the importance of driving at 20 mph.
Councillor Tim Moore, Liverpool City Council’s cabinet member for transport, said: “The 20 Effect campaign continues to make great strides in educating people of all ages about the dangers of driving at speed.
“The first of these Road Side Education events connected with and engaged with even more people in the community; the involvement of community members including young people will help drive home the message and have a real impact on motorists.”
Click here to read the full Bay TV news report.
What worries me is that if local authorities water down the total blanket spread of the 20 mph limit to just residential roads (in general) and not arterial roads then we will not see any reduction of smidgys.
In fact I would hazard a guess that such accidents happening at T junctions between a minor road and an arterial one will in fact increase.
Bob Craven Lancs
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All safety devices, policies and procedures have both positive benefits and negative side effects therefore a competent safety engineering evaluation should recognise both in any evaluation of net effects. Unfortunately, in the above article, the referenced story and the video there is no mention of any possible negative side effects of the policy.
There are words that describe one-sided arguments, especially when the authorities present them to support their use of laws and enforcement, such as “propaganda” or ”spin”. There is a danger that the activities in this story might be seen as such, particularly if a subsequent questionnaire is performed to confirm that the public have believed what they’ve been told and therefore to suggest public support for the authorities actions.
Ps I think Hugh and I probably agree more than we disagree, though we might not want to admit it!
Dave Finney, Slough
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Hugh
Messages are bound to get diluted and misunderstood when something is introduced for reasons of “behaviour change” rather than for road safety. There are other examples here – “educating people of all ages about the dangers of driving at speed”. So the message is no driving? “at speed” means different things to different people.
Eric Bridgstock, Independent Road Safety Research, St Albans
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Re: para 5 “..the importance of driving at 20mph..” I wince when I see this sort of thing. It’s an upper limit not an instruction. Let’s hope it was a typo and not meant to be the real message.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
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