20 mph speed limits from 18 September 2023

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 scarletpimp wrote:

The hot air generated on this thread is laughable.
My wife and I WALK in and around Llanelli quite a lot.
We also live in an existing 20mph (limit PRIOR to the new limits coming in to effect on Sunday).
Do people stick to the limits..do they hell !
I walked Llanelli today and saw people speeding around.
The police are not going to do anything , so as we live in a "free for all " society, people do what they want.
Nothing will change.

Historically,  it was Barbara Castle , then minister of Transport(1965-68), who brought  in restrictions.
In Feb. 1966 Castle addressed Parliament , calling for profound change in public attitudes" to curtail increasing road fatality figures, stating "Hitler did did not manage to kill as many civilians in Britain's have have been killed on the roads ,since the war". The statistics bore out; between 1945 and the mid 1960's 150,00 were killed and several million injured on Britain's roads.
The situation is 100 times worse now, with more and more cars on the road.

According to various road safety organisations including the AA & RAC, many local authorities representing 28 million people in the UK have declared the national 30mph limit as no longer fit for purpose for most of their urban and village streets and replaced it with 20mph limits.

Another interesting statistic, research unveiled  at the recent COP26 climate conference, revealed that a 20mph can reduce Co2 and people harming NOx by more than 25%.
With transport representing 27% of the total carbon emissions in the UK, then reducing it by a quarter, is a substantive measure that can easily taken to reduce climate warming

"Brake", the road safety charity, reported that every 16 minutes someone is killed or seriously injured on UK roads. In total 1,6008 were killed in 2021, with deaths up 20% on 2020.
The police recorded that 30% of deaths were attributed to drivers exceeding the speed limit.

Last year a motorcyclist was very seriously injured turning right in to Walters rd towards Bigyn hill.
Dreadful parking meant that visibility was partly obscured, but what caused the severity of the collision, was the car travelling down Walters rd at speed. This led to the 20mph being introduced.
I also saw a pensioner being knocked over at the crossing, from pottery street to Asda in Llanelli, simply because the car was going to fast to stop quickly. The poor woman suffered a cardiac arrest, and despite our best efforts, died in the ambulance before it could get to Glangwili

As I understand it there is no "blanket ban" and local authorities can administer a 30mph were  they think appropriate. There is no doubt however that 'technically' our streets are safer at 20mph, but as I stated in my opening intro..it will make little difference as people still do as they like.

Cars are 'Gods' in todays world are we are  afraid not attempt to step on the motorists shoes.
Back in Barbara Castle's day, she introduced the 70mph on motorways, and met the same outrage as the people who signed the recent petition. 
The metaphorical comparison, of course is of a blinkered dray horse plodding on blissful unaware of what is going on around it.
Until it affects them , specifically, if their child or elderly parent was killed or badly injured in a collision, by someone driving too fast, people  will shake their fist in protest that their "freedoms " have been appallingly infringed upon.
We are living in a rootless society devoid of morality and conviction. People will even block disable person access with their car, as has happened to my elderly  neighbour on a few occasions. A complete lack of thought , consideration or compassion

To digress, the law, is a joke when it comes to  offending linked to driving at speed 
A man recently killed 3 people, after driving furiously being well over the limit, and received just a 17 month jail sentence. How can that be fair ?
I have said for a long time that depending on the severity of offence, lifetime driving bans should be introduced for drink drivers

The Tories in the Senydd are also to be condemned. Andrew T Davis what  a scumbag (and big Boris fan) he is. Initially there was cross party consensus initially, when the 20mph limit was proposed, and trialled in eight different locations , going back some time. Since then Davies and his rag tag bunch of toe rag Tories have sniffed out a political opportunity and are now banging the drum in opposition to 20mph, telling lies about blanket bans.
Yes, its the same Tories who opposed the setting up of the NHS, the introduction of the minimum wage, and even devolution itself , and yet there they are banging the drum.

To conclude on a almost comical note ,apart from the fact its deadly serious.
We have been debating on here about the 20mph limits.
One of the thing that has amazed me recently that with the proliferation of electric scooters, how long is going to be before someone gets killed or injured on these things?
I am not of course referring to vespers/mopeds, but the type of scooter that as a child you used to propel with your foot.
Most of these are operated by children around our streets , without a helmet, and are incredibly dangerous, both for themselves  and pedestrians.
How can parents be so irresponsible to allow this, but if (god forbid) an accident happened then there would be a fuss.

Its just another example of the Laissez-Faire attitudes which prevail today

 pretty sure mote than 150 000 people from the uk died in ww2 to be honest. Speed cameras will catch speeders not police on patrol. You be lucky to see any police out and about now tbh. A few more may help cut down on all these lunkheads driving like they are in  fornula 1 

Edited by RR1972 - 20 September 2023 at 2:16pm