A reasonable proportion of modern cars have a speed limiter button which can be useful in areas with low limits.
I’ve driven one ever with a limiter - a loan Fiat 500X which had it. I’ve driven several brand new zipcar VWs this last year and they didn’t (unless it was well hidden.)
yes that is because every single road connected to a GLA Road has a bit of GLA Side Road attached to it. here is Devonshire Road for example. The GLA Side Road bit is the few metres marked with red lines. All the rest of that road is Lewisham controlled and subject to the 20mph limit. There’s a big sign written on the road in case of any doubt…
Things I’ve learnt today. Why roads off red routes have red lines.
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Many drivers feel entitled to ignore the 20mph limit because they know they are capable of driving faster. Pretty much every one of us with a licence are comfortable driving at 70mph and every speed below that.
And because we used to be able to drive those roads at 30 - and did so without incident - nothing has really changed in terms of our perceived capabilities. But wider sensibilities have changed…
It took decades for drink driving to become socially unacceptable and seatbelts to become automatic - and there are still quite a few die-hards out there who deny any degradation in competence after a drink. Until the last decade, car ads etc were all about speed and driving fast, it’s no real surprise that it will likely take a generation for driving more slowly to become more normal.
Then again, there was an article earlier today asking whether we’d all end up in driverless cars in the next 15-20 years as it would effectively become cheaper and easier. With fewer young adults (especially in cities) bothering to learn, they might just be right.
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This all comes to no surprise to me. Without ruthless enforcement any speed limit is pointless and makes barely a difference to peoples’ behaviours . Many drive as fast as they physically can, quite literally, and this even includes buses. Even those who don’t still ignore 20 mph across the board.
Give powers to the councils to undertake the enforcement and keep the fines within their borough, and see what happens then to the average speed and accident statistics.
Also, if near this guy from the AA is saying that the speed limit needs to reflect the nature of the road, this strikes me as a very last century wisdom. Indeed, it is the road that should reflect the nature of the speed limit, so that ideally you shouldn’t even need any signs at all.
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It would certainly make sense for side roads to be 20mph, but this isn’t necessarily the case, according to the 2016 Traffic Order:
The 20mph restriction has been very welcome on our local streets.
I’ve witnessed a pedestrian being knocked down whilst the motorist was exceeding the speed limit (pre 20mph).
He was accelerating from the top of the road when commuters were about to cross. He must have been doing 40/50 mph & hit somebody, who had initially stepped back, but they hit him & then crashed.
The irony is I actually had to attend to the passenger in the car that crashed, who had been in a recent RTA and was recovering from a previous injury, from a car crash.
I kept him warm with my coat, which had my wallet & house keys in, only to get a barrage of abuse from his family when they arrived.
Are you suggesting this person might have adhered to the 20mph limit, had it been in place at the time…?
I don’t think so. If anything persistent speeders aren’t deterred by anything. It’s actually quite scary getting out of my car on Waldenshaw. Speeding is out of hand.
I should add I also think 20 is daft. 25 would be a better compromise. I don’t mind doing 25 but 20 is hard as people just overtake which is crazy dangerous
When we were last in London we drove past our old house on Waldenshaw at 20mph so we could have a bit of a gander. I had someone so close up my chuff I thought we may have been related. We turned left up Manor Mount, they wheelspun right down it. We seemed to be the only ones doing 20.
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I suspect a lot of this will be generational change - if you are brought up driving now and 20mph is the normal, it will be like it was for people for whom 30mph was the norm. It’s hard for some people to get out of habits - not an excuse, but a reality I think, same with wearing seat belts and other changes, they take time, but then become the norm.
As I’ve said before, I would much prefer targeted limits (lower than 20mph in fact) near schools, park entrances etc and other areas, and for some of these to be variable. I personally don’t have an issue with anyone going past Dalmain school at 3am at 30mph, but at 10 minutes either side of 9am or 3.15pm \ when it’s swarming with kids, I’d much prefer a 10mph or 15 mph limit in an area around the school and near the crossings.
I’d also like to see far more police cars on the road, as the standard of driving, be that from scooters, cyclists, motorbikes, cars, lorries, buses is at times frightening and doesn’t get picked up by speed cameras.
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There will be a generational change, but I don’t think it’ll be the one we’re hoping for.
The generation below ours will be watching our driving.
They used to see 48% of us keeping within the limit when it was 30mph.
Now, with the blanket 20mph limit, they’ll see only 13% of us respecting it.
I think this will have a profound effect on young people’s attitudes to speed limits. Adults don’t take them seriously, so kids will learn not to take them seriously either.
Disrespecting a blanket 20mph limit may not present much danger, but disrespecting 30/40/50mph limits certainly could do.
We have to set appropriate limits that people will respect. Or people will stop respecting our general authority to set limits altogether.
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I might be being optimistic here, but perhaps it’s just possible our children will be some of the first of generations that don’t drive at all - because the cars will drive themselves. I’m no futurologist, but if the progress of the last 20 years is any sort of indication, maybe it’s achievable in the next 15-20 years.
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Yes! I’ve been saying this for years. There’s an obsession with numbers that end in zero. Most vehicles cannot maintain a steady 20 MPH. 20 is a transitional speed between 2nd and 3rd gear on every car I’ve driven; it’s too fast for second and too slow for third gear.
Instead of the ludicrous plethora of signs 30-20-30-20 everywhere, just reduce the overall urban speed to 25.
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The speeds may be chosen to match those tested in EU standards for emissions which are shown here, courtesy of Wikipedia:
By Orzetto, CC BY-SA 4.0
The four ‘urban’ test speeds (humps at the left of the graph) have plateaus at:
| km/h | mph |
|---|---|
| 15 | 9 |
| 32 | 20 |
| 50 | 31 |
| 35 | 22 |
I guess an electric or hybrid vehicle with direct drive or a planetary gearbox should be able to hold any speeds efficiently, but other cars may not operate at the best efficiency when driven at 25mph.
Most towns in the US have a 25mph limit (let’s not even begin to compare what they drive over there though, my old Suburban had a 6L V8 and did 12mpg). I would say that if you post a 25 limit people will do 30. Ditto here, 20mph and people seem to push 25 as ‘reasonable’ so I suppose if we set it to 25 then they’ll do 30.
I know on my bike past the cameras on Peckham Rye common by the school I’ll be doing 20+ if I glance at my watch, and people still overtake as soon as we’ve passed the cameras - they’re pretty sensitive though. I’ve seen them flash a fair few times.
I prefer cameras to speed bumps though as the latter force you to drive in second gear between 10&20mph - really bad for fuel economy.
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An interesting , perhaps slightly tongue in cheek take on how to get more speed cameras.