15 schools in Wales to have 20mph limits in new safety drive

I live on a road with a school and a park on. We have had a 20mph for years speed bumps for over 5 years. The majority go over at +30mph I have also seen overtaking because some are just too impatient. That said I drive a lot and have found Southampton to some some of the worst driver attitudes.

I find it amazing that people say speed bumps don't work ?

Obviously these people must have a disregard for their vehicles as well as going over speed bumps faster than 20mph is going to knack your car.

Unless the people of the north east are more amenable to sticking to the speed limits and not driving like knobs.

We've had 20mph in my area for almost a year now. All the points made above are valid and considered - especially the last two.

The issue of enforcement is really down to individuals. Once enough individuals decide to travel at close to 20mph then everyone else has to - or risk overtaking on a suburban road.

It can be stressful but eventually we will be left with calmer roads - ironically moving as quickly as cars can pull out more safely from side roads. There will always be the hard core of residents who ignore it as a curtailing of their right to do what they want regardless of everyone else but the Police are starting to fine them in my area and the message is slowly getting through.

When I first moved to London you could smoke on the Circle and District line. Hopefully speeding in residential roads will one day seem as ridiculous.

(A quick note on 20mph zones and areas. 20mph zones - with expensive and ineffective bumps are being phased out in favour of areas which have a blanket 20mph limit and is enforced by the drivers themselves. Check the '20 is plenty' website for more info. )

Bath has loads of 20mph roads, including outside some of the schools, but they're pretty much ignored as far as I can tell.

Actually obeying the limit can be quite stressful, even with non-aggressive types infringing personal chuffer space.

we've gone 20mph in loads of roads and by and large I stick to it but I do think you find yourself looking at your speedometer more and more, then when you look up there is always some aggressive idiot sitting right up your chuffer, or they overtake...its nuts. None of these roads have schools on though

So people are by and large in favour of 20mph limits but not cameras, speed bumps and other measures to enforce them. This sounds like people want other drivers to drive at 20 but not themselves.

I really feel that speed bumps are not the answer. A few years back, a narrow street, about half a mile from where I live, with a 30mph limit was made a 20mph zone due to complaints from residents that vehicles were speeding. The residents complained again, the 20mph limit wasn't being adhered to. The local authority obliged, this time putting speed bumps in. This failed again, at great expense to the tax payer. The residents complained that their properties were being damaged by vibrations from large vehicles going over the bumps. The local authority removed the bumps and the speeding problem returned, and is to this day still a problem.

Earlier today I went for a ride. I happened to go through a 20mph limit, not the one mentioned above, and was travelling at roughly 18mph, according to my cycle computer. Not one motor vehicle remained behind me, all going past me much more than 2mph quicker and rapidly disappearing to the distance. As I mentioned in my previous post, 20mph all well and good IF the limits are enforced.

tourdelound - Speed bumps with small gaps in between are the answer. It allows the likes of yourself as a cyclists to negotiate the bump whereas the axle's on cars are to wide and as such they have to slow down.

Without the likes of speed bumps it would be impossible to enforce these limits as you have rightly pointed out there isn't enough Police to do it. Even before all the cuts in numbers it still couldn't be done.

20mph speed limits are all well and good but nobody bothers to enforce them, so what's the point?

"In 2011 we reported how Road safety charity IAM said that two thirds of 4,000 people who responded to an online survey it conducted back the introduction of 20mph zones outside schools, but are less keen on physical measures such as cameras or speed bumps being implemented to enforce such a speed limit."..... No surprise there then. I would say however that I don't agree with speed bumps on the principle that I'm not speeding, so why should I have to slow down even more to negotiate these safely on a push bike?

As the police allegedly, "cannot afford to enforce these limits", due to tory spending cuts, the only answer is self funding camaras. As approximately 100% of motorists "allegedly" don't adhere to these limits, there may even be a surplus of cash from such camaras.

All the schools around where i live and work have had 20 limits for a long long time now so why the delay elsewhere ???