In this latest opinion piece, Gary Digva, founder of Road Angel, says it is disappointing to see “such a pushback on life-saving policies”, such as 20mph speed limits.
With the mounting evidence that the transition to 20mph limits will improve road safety and save lives, it is a shame there is so much uproar in the motoring community.
The latest government figures show that for the year ending June 2022, 29,742 people were reported killed or seriously injured on Britain’s roads, an increase of more than 2,000 from the previous year.
There were also 1,711 fatalities deaths on British roads last year, which was an increase from the year previous.
Road fatalities and casualties are on the rise, and the introduction of 20mph roads across the UK could save hundreds of lives a year. Road safety should be the top priority with the high rate of deaths and serious injuries on Britain’s roads.
Pedestrians are also proven to have a much higher chance of survival if hit at 20mph with a 2.5% chance of death, compared to 20% when travelling at 30mph.
In 2021, Spain rolled out a national 30km/h (18mph) speed limit on most urban streets after the percentage of vulnerable road traffic victims exceeded the percentage of people killed while in vehicles.
Spain saw a 20 per cent mortality rate decrease after implementing the lower speed policies, so there is substantial evidence that this will work to make our roads safer, and potentially save hundreds of lives a year.
The World Health Organisation and the UN General Assembly also support the transition to 20mph streets, calling on policymakers to act for low-speed streets worldwide, agreeing it is the right speed limit for people and traffic to mix safely.
Despite this, there is growing opposition against the introduction of 20mph speed limits. The Welsh implementation has sparked a lot of debate across the UK, and a petition opposing the new 20mph default speed limit has had a record-breaking number of signatures.
It’s important that drivers understand the new 20mph policies are not anti- motorists, they are anti-death.
Introducing the default speed limit on residential roads and busy pedestrian roads will reduce collisions between vehicles and vulnerable road users, and make them safer for playing, walking and cycling.
Ultimately, the higher the speed, the higher the chance of being involved in an accident due to increased braking distances and shorter reaction times.
Not only does lowering the speed limit reduce the impact force of a collision but it also dictates if a driver is able to stop in time to avoid a crash.
It is disappointing to see that there is such a pushback on life-saving policies when they could save hundreds of lives each year.
Although the changes may seem inconvenient to people in a rush, these policies will ultimately save lives and should be considered more seriously across the whole of Britain.
The long and short of all this that most drivers don’t know when to reduce speed. They take a basic test of competence for driving on the roads and still don’t know about reducing speed! In the early 1970S i spent time with Hendon (Police) Driving Instructors. Their highly sane principles still apply to being safe on the roads today. One said the art of driving fast (there was no national speed limit for open roads then) was knowing when to SLOWLY. You can remove the word ‘fast’ and it comes to the same thing. What has long intrigued me is the number of bend warning signs with qualifying plates underneath telling drivers the maximum recommended speed for the bends – which means the average driver does not know how to access the right speed for a bend and yet a vehicle is only on a straight line for perhaps 50$% of the time. If drivers were more alert to possible dangers and were willing to lose speed a lot of this speed stuff would not be necessary. A further fundamental comment from another Hendon instructor was that the temperamental make up of a good driver involves ‘self-discipline and restraint’. There generally seems very little of that around today and if there were I have no doubt the roads would be a far safer place More of those principles embedded in road safety projects is where a real difference could be made and then we might get away from some of this ridiculous stuff driven (sic!) by apparently serious road safety proponents who are clearly off-piste. You end up wondering where some of these avid people in road safety are actually coming from, apart from seemingly being analytical from behind a desk. And no one has yet mentioned the increased fuel cost of driving with a higher (ratio) gear engaged. So who is going to start the programme? Oh, and by the way in anticipation of the re-introduction of the 1865 (Amended 1878) Locomotive Act I am starting a red flag business. I already have two potential Welsh agents (who might end up being millionaires) but if anyone else would like to be ahead of the game please let me know.
Nigel ALBRIGHT, Taunton
0
This statistic is not representative at all. In 2020 and 2021 the road accidents were obviously lower, because it was LOCKDOWN. No one can have a road accident at home. It’s like the motorist accidents are much higher in the 21st century then in the 19th century and before.
Same with the 20mph limit. This is not the solution for the problem. 1st of all now everybody speaking about to be green and the pollution. Slow down the traffic raise the air pollution in the area. Also if we reduce the speed limit to 0mph, then the road accident problem solved, no accidents at all, we saved the world! Really?
Győző, Southampton
--5
Its disappointing to see Pat Bates constantly sniping at 20mph limits. His latest comment below is a “corker”. Apparently if you can find a section of road that has never had a road casualty for 30 years then that limit can be classed as an “anti-death” limit.
Rod King, Lymm
0
Picking up on the ‘walking in front with a red flag’ notion, perhaps drivers who have acquired points on their license for speeding, should be compelled to have a red flag prominently displayed on the front of their vehicle, so we can all be on our guard when we see them approaching.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
+1
Most Local Authorities will have their electronic copy of the police Stats 19 personal injury road casualty records going back to at least 1990, perhaps earlier. Many of the roads in Wales that were until recently roads with a 30mph speed limit have ZERO Stats19 records over that 30+ year period. Many other roads have only one or two low impact shunt type car-on-car collisions that result in ‘slight’ category injury to vehicle occupants and do not involve any pedestrians or cyclists etc over that same 30+ years.
With such low casualty records over such a long time on these roads, I think it would be justifiable and fair to say that the 30mph speed limit is also an anti-death policy.
Pat, Wales
+9
Mr Digva’s argument is seductive, but I think it is a little early to refer to a “life-saving policy”. Thank goodness we have an Under Secretary of State for Roads and Local Transport who is a little more cautious. PACTS is concerned about Richard Holden’s approach and is about to wave the “LUSTRE” report at him. Perhaps, however, Mr Holden is aware of one of its more important conclusions concerning sign only schemes, namely:
“… that the effect of introducing 20mph speed limits without physical measures (i.e. sign only) has a significant effect (a reduction of approximately 12%) on slight casualties but the effect on fatal and serious casualties is uncertain.”
We need to know why that is, before we continue with the current willy-nilly approach. That is, if we’re really interested in road safety rather then the promotion of superficially attractive ideas.
Andrew Fraser, Stirling
+3
20mph on every road in a built up area is a backward step, it’s fine near schools and in areas of high volumes of pedestrians but even then it should be time sensitive. As for the other roads keep it at 30mph.
Phil Jones, Abergele
+1
Already it would seem people are picking up on the headline ‘increase in fatalities’ 2021 v 2022; in reality there was a DECREASE in fatalities’ 2019 v 2022 as quoting the COVID years as a comparison is simply making stats fit the narrative. Meanwhile there’s appears to conflicting evidence regarding the benefits to collision stats with a blanket 20mph limit policy.
Ben Graham, Reading
+3
Not only does lowering the speed limit reduce the impact force of a collision but it also dictates if a driver is able to stop in time to avoid a crash.So lets drop the speed limit to 6 mph and require someone with a red flag to walk in front of each motor vehicle.
Life and death is a matter of risk and balance. 20 moph speed limits are aleady adversely affecting bus services in areas where they are imposed. Life as a whole, travelling for work, pleasure and commerce is much more effective withou someone with a red flag in front of every motor vehicle. In my youth HGVs had a 20 plate on the back,most of them weren’t capable of exceeding the limit then. Nowadays technology has improved things. 30 mph is a much more realistic speed limit in urban areas, We can’t let Twenty’s Plenty rule the country, t would ruin the economy
Robert Bolt, St Albans
0
Almost full circle: Keep going and with one step more we will be back to to the Locomotive Act of 1865 (Amended 1878) otherwise known as The Red Flag Act. Changing behaviour does not necessarily change mindset and it is mindset which will make the difference. This is road safety gone ludicrous, albeit it with the best of intentions, partly because if you (a) do not have the agreement of those concerned and (b) if it can’t be universally enforced, and consistently, then it just encourages an abuse of the law and can, therefore, ultimately counter-productive. I will await the unusual negative comments.
Nigel ALBRIGHT, Taunton
+4