The number of speeding offences has shot up as a result of introducing numerous 20 mph zones. Whilst it is most important that people do not drive fast in busy areas where there is a danger of children or adults stepping off pavements or otherwise coming into conflict with vehicles, the comprehensive and extensive use of these zones at all times of the day and night is unnecessarily restrictive, impeding deliveries, people getting to work and other essential journeys.
The Department for Transport has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (189129):
Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what data his Department holds on the number of 20 mph speed limit zones in effect in England as of 13 June 2023. (189129)
Tabled on: 13 June 2023
Answer:
Mr Richard Holden:
Local authorities have the power to set 20mph zones (which have traffic calming) and 20mph limits (which rely on signage).
No central record is kept of the number or length of 20mph zones and limits in England.
The answer was submitted on 19 Jun 2023 at 15:46.
June 21, 2023
Another case of “No central record is kept…””. So there are records, that could be gathered to answer your question but the Transport Department does not care to find out.
I recall in the past the NHS had no central record of how many intensive care beds it had (perhaps it still does not) but it conforms to a pattern, that those able to see the picture overall do not care to look. They do not manage, they just preside.
June 21, 2023
exactly….keep the job, do not allow any sort of performance analysis.
June 21, 2023
You are right in what you say about these speed limits. When I lived in Scotland there was a town with such a limit and it was a right pain. I can remember numerous times early morning or after 6pm when I may have only met a couple of other cars and saw barely any pedestrians but was expected to drive at 20. Its yet another inconvenience to the driver. While on the subject of transport. My elderly neighbour had to wait 2 hours for a bus as hers didn’t turn up for lack of a driver. It’s a regular occurrence apparently. People that expect us all to use public transport need to use it in rural areas. It’s totally unreliable where we are.
June 21, 2023
Itâs not very practical to say to drivers âYou can do 30 if you donât see any people about but must do 20 if there are people about.â
When I am out and about early, I have seen a number of accidents over the years that have taken place very early in the morning. There are always a few idiots who drive at dangerously fast speeds on their way to work at, say, 6.00 am. They assume that because there is not much traffic that there is no traffic – and the some poor paper boy comes out of a side road on his bike and âŠ
June 21, 2023
My local village has a primary school. The normal speed limit is 30mph (if you can do it, given the potholes in most of the road length). At school start and end times the limit is reduced to 20mph, not that you could do it give the numbers of vehicles and pedestrians depositing and collecting children. I have no objection to the limit to accommodate the school. The radar driven flashing speed limit signs adjust appropriately to remind drivers as they approach the school zone. That is sensible use of adjustable limits in a limited zone.
June 21, 2023
Drive through London boroughs – it is a nightmare. You are surrounded by vehicles, cavalier cyclists, pedestrians who dash across roads, Ayrton Sennas on mopeds – and then the road signage which has never been good. Now we must watch the speedometer and juggle in gears with a stick shift to avoid nudging near 20mph, and not touching over! A safety measure? really it is contradictory. Cleaner air? nonsense. Engines not running efficiently at that speed, up and down gears. A revenue boost – oh yes of course it is.
June 21, 2023
Richard Holdenâs reply is tantamount to saying: âCouncils are exerting an unknown level of power out of our controlâ.
June 21, 2023
They are just a hugely inefficient way of collecting taxes. Must cost circa 70% of the money raised in staff costs, signage and inconvenience to the public.
June 21, 2023
All part of the WEF’s plan to make driving a car so expensive, regulated and generally inconvenient that people will give up their car and accept a restricted life. DfT and Local Highway Authorities are colluding in delivering the WEF’s policy.
The plans are here, hiding in plain sight, and not a word about democracy or consulting the people in it:
https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_Urban_Mobility_Scorecard_Tool_2023.pdf
June 21, 2023
Maybe you should ask the question of the sat nav people. They will know even if our government doesn’t want the proles to know.
June 21, 2023
Speed limits in England are a nonsense and have been for decades. In this area we have two major motorways M2 and M20. As you know the limit is 70MPH (other than when they are being dug-up, which is fairly regularly) In a modern vehicle It is quite possible to drive faster than 70 in reasonable safety on a motorway. Yet this arbitrary number is applied 24/7.
Also close by are many un-classified country roads, where the speed limit (unless otherwise indicated) is 50MPH. If you were to drive at such a speed on these narrow, hedgerow bordered roads, an accident or even worse, injury and death could well follow quickly. But at least you won’t be fined for speeding !!
One particular road that I traverse regularly over a distance of around seven miles. Has ever changing speed limits 30/40/50/40/50/30/20/30/50. Drivers routinely get it wrong, because they routinely aren’t sure what limit they are in. Naturally the authorities answer to this confusion is to set-up a speed camera van and fine the confused motorists. It’s a nice little earner ………………………………
June 21, 2023
There are several villages with 20 mph limits in South Somerset. I pass through them when I visit Yeovil. The nearest town to me in West Dorset has a 20 mph restriction. In all cases these are built up areas with narrow roads and limited parking. I am very much in favour of these limits. To be honest when driving through Haselbury Plucknett it is very difficult to stick to the limit. You only have to breathe on the accelerator and you are doing 30. That said my observation is that people drive at 40 in a 30 area and 30 in a 20 area. So a 20 limit does work in the sense that it keeps people to under 30. The flashing red signs that tell you âYouâre doing 25 in a 20 limited areaâ are a necessary reminder that you are driving where people are – with narrow roads and narrow or nonexistent pavements. In my local town I take my life in my hands every time I walk along the narrow pavements and have wing mirrors almost clipping me. One slip, one pull on the lead from my dog and I could be dead. So I am an enthusiastic supporter of the 20 mph limit and am supporting the town council to extend it.
June 21, 2023
A Somerset village near where I live has a 30mph speed restriction in place which reduces to 20mph when the lights are flashing to indicate that children are leaving the local primary school.
Now that is sensible; blanket 20mph limits unless the roads are very narrow (as they often are in west country towns and villages) seldom are.
June 21, 2023
Please come and drive in London’s 20 mph limits. If you carry on at 21+ you will be off the road within days, building fines and points at a rate of cameras.
June 21, 2023
The Dept for Transport are saying nothing. They can see vast job opportunities when said limits are dropped to 5 MPH and there is a need for myriad red flag wavers to precede each vehicle. Those the gods would destroy they first drive mad.
June 21, 2023
I challenged my council as to why the whole area had gone 20mph, and they replied that central government provided the funding and it was a major step in their mandatory net-zero plan âŠwhile I see it as a weapon to fine commuters, control & restrict car usage and draw extra revenue
June 21, 2023
Ask them whether they aren’t in fact causing substantially more pollution through the low speed limit. Driving in second gear is very inefficient.
June 21, 2023
Yep, it’s central government imposing its eco-fascist ideology, Glen. And bribing local authorities with taxpayers’ money. It’s not a matter of responding to the wishes of local people themselves.
June 22, 2023
Glen
20mph in a low gear is far more polluting than 30mph in a higher gear so their argument is simply wrong
June 21, 2023
Drivers would obey the ridiculously low speed limits if they only applied at appropriate times.
In the USA they have 20mph limits outside schools which only apply when schools start and end their day.
That makes sense and is supported by drivers.
Simple and inexpensive technology exists to have LED displays of speed limits that only apply at busy times, yet they are not used anywhere in the UK, other than for variable speed limits on motorways.
The reason they are not used in towns is because the revenue from the cameras is too good to give up, yet it harms the economy, taking money out of people’s pockets.
June 21, 2023
+1
June 21, 2023
Like parking, once you let the local politicians have a little bit of power and the ability to raise money they will abuse it to fill their coffers, mostly it seems to finance their councils’ pension schemes. Why do we need 20 mph at 2 am? It would be quite simple to impose them round schools at certain times? Why do we need them when schools are on long and frequent holidays? Whatever happened to the rules that parking fees had to be spent on maintaining and improving parking? It all seems just another tax raising scam and for the green zealots to order us about, even though a car dragging along in second gear is going to do more harm than good.
June 21, 2023
Agree, its not about road safety but social engineering and revenue
June 21, 2023
A sensible comment Graham. I feel rural country roads where people are driving at very high speeds on narrow roads with sharp bends are more dangerous than towns at quiet times where 20 mph is a nonsense.
June 21, 2023
Yesterday on UK motorway, a motorway restricted to 50mph to “improve air quality” everyone just restricted to two lanes trying to keep their distance of the four-lane smart road, the driver, “I’m going to be later than expected, will this impact on my productivity because I was stuck in that jam yesterday for two hours?”
June 21, 2023
And yet our own government reports say that our air hasn’t been cleaner since the 1970s
June 21, 2023
We’ve had a 20mph speed limit in our village for years. Nobody takes a blind bit of notice of it. We even have a sign on our cul-de-sac which is so short it would be difficult to achieve 20mph.
June 22, 2023
Yes, Christine, those 20mph cul-de-sac signs were a big waste of money. I’d like to see someone try to do 20mph on most of them with all the parked cars.
June 21, 2023
John, I agree that there is a general trend of more and more permanent reductions in speed limits on more and more roads at all times and for all conditions. This “precautionary” principle reminds me of the story of the first cars having to have someone out front crying “danger” and waving a red flag. It is completely disproportionate and the exaggerated safety case crease real practical issues, hardships and economic costs. It makes sense to have temporary 20mph restrictions near school, but even there no 24×7, 365 days a year. Only during term time, Monday to Friday and at going to school and leaving school times.
June 21, 2023
Where I live the 20mph limits are everywhere and ignored by most drivers, including the police, except in obviously dangerous places where there are children and pedestrians, who often wear earphones and cross without looking. However there are a few drivers who stick rigidly to the limits and usually have long tails of traffic behind them. I imagine that these are local authority officials or teachers. Recently some women have taken it onto themselves to borrow speed radars from the police, who have trained them to hide behind trees on a wide road with parking both sides and where drivers tend to go over 20 unless looking full time at the speedometer.
June 21, 2023
What no cameras? Lucky you.
June 22, 2023
Thoroughly agree with Sir John.
Supposed safety features are often not thought through properly. In some circumstances they prove to be dangerous. Speed bumps sometimes block ambulances or badly jolt the patient and equipment in the ambulance. They prevented an ambulance reaching a friend of mine who had broken his neck falling down stairs. Had his wife not been a trained nurse and switched on he would have died.
Low speed limits sometimes make no difference because in peak hour the traffic moves at a speed far lower than the limit, and at non-peak times those liable to behave without due care and attention aren’t around (schools). They can be applied only at the times required rather than 24/7.
But in the background there is the long standing temptation of the police and local authorities to rely on fines as a revenue stream. I remember years ago legislation was required to expose speed cameras and stop this sneaky concealed camera practice.
Since the aim is to prevent death and injury, perhaps the revenue generated should not be retained by the police or local authority but shared by the NHS and the ambulance services.
June 22, 2023
PG, they say they can’t have variables speeds on the same road, until it suits them with bus lanes and bus times; a 30/20 circle clearly explained on tv, so that it is 20 from 8 am to 9 am and 3 pm to 4 pm and thirty at other times would solve most of the complaints about them. But we do need to teach children the highway code better than we do right now. There used to be tv adverts all the time. Now teens think they have the right to step off any curb and they have the right of way without looking over their shoulder since Boris rule changes.