Holyrood committee rejects default 20mph speed limit

ktache wrote:

Thanks for letting us know giff, shame about the result.

Yeah. Scotland has had the opportunity to establish presumed liability and a blanket 20mph for the urban landscape and has bottled it. The country is facing a time bomb of diabetes, cardio disease, lung disease, obesity and every other kind of health issue linked to inactivity and they do nothing whatsoever to encourage active travel and make the roads safer. 

Luca Patrono wrote:

Enforcement means speed cameras, traps and fines, which will feed delightfully into the War on the Motorist narrative of the gutter right wing press. Too unpopular to make work.

Enforcement means taking the control of the speed out of the hands of the human period. The EU are bringing in limited measures for new motor vehicles but AFAICT this can be over-ridden anyway.

No need for cameras, simply retro-fit every motor with a device (at the expense to the motorist, just like 'Smart' meters) that can control speed of the motor and install countrywide signals in signs (so no need for GPS reliance). 

On top of that we need a change in the way speed LIMITS are applied, it's clear that lower speed is safer and it can be done that these lower speeds are more efficient for motors, as we see with EVs their optimum speed is actually a perfect fit for the upper limit that should be enforced for urban driving (at the very least).

NSL should be abolished, 60mph on many/most single carriageways is an absolute disgrace, even 70 on some motorways at certain times is excessive and pointless.

All minor roads outside of urban areas should be defaulted to 40, there's simply no need for it to be any faster except to save a few seconds in exchange for a massive increase in danger, particularly to vulnerable road users. There are a few roads near me that drivers bomb along at 60+ and yet it's clearly only just about safe to be doing 40, plod will always state speed wasn't excessive/below the limit when there's a crash, you only need look at what happened when they absolved the killer of four innocent cyclists despite clearly using excessive speed in known weather conditions that even half the speed limit would have been challenging. Then there's incidents were motorists are absolved completely because a vulnerable person made a minor error and they were going to fast to react and/or didn't give the hazard they posed to someone in close proximity any thought whatsoever, a little girl on a bike was killed when she veered off the non segregated and not particularly wide shared use path that was right next to a 60mph stretch of road, how the fuck was it appropriate to have that high a limit right next to an unsegregated lane, the motorist was absolved because there was 'nothing they could do', except there was, she could have acknowleged the close proximity of a small child to the road, she could have slowed down well in advance to the point where she would be alongside the child, she could have driven right of the lane to give an even bigger gap to the vulnerable person not 4 or 5 feet away from her killing machine. But nope, plod won't/can't see that motorists should have a far higher amount of responsibility for safety of others even when the others make errors that puts them in the way of potential harm. 

I was cycling from work last week and two of the office staff walked right out in front of me across a road that goes into the industrial area, niether looked, they simply thought, oh, no sound so we'll just cross anyways, typical pedestrian action and yet I was able to not crash into them despite they doing zero observations for self presevation. If that had been a quiet electric motorvehicle they would have been fucked. 

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

...

I agree, but unfortunately the same counterarguments will be thrown out. Such a retrofitting scheme would undoubtedly need funding, would be spun as motorist persecution and groups would be lining up to suggest better uses for the money.

The real problem, though, is that you would create a strong incentive for drivers to have the restricting device hacked or otherwise defeated so that they can continue to break the law. My background is in software engineering and not mechanical engineering, so I don't know what security measures could be taken to ensure the integrity of any such device, but I imagine there'd be a way around this.

Luca Patrono wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

...

I agree, but unfortunately the same counterarguments will be thrown out. Such a retrofitting scheme would undoubtedly need funding, would be spun as motorist persecution and groups would be lining up to suggest better uses for the money. The real problem, though, is that you would create a strong incentive for drivers to have the restricting device hacked or otherwise defeated so that they can continue to break the law. My background is in software engineering and not mechanical engineering, so I don't know what security measures could be taken to ensure the integrity of any such device, but I imagine there'd be a way around this.

As the people in the know state, it only needs 1 in 4 people to adhere to the speed limits for it to be self policing in most instances. Putting security seals either physical or from a software point of view would be picked up at MOT time, it's then that drivers can be retrospectively charged with an offence, let's say a driving ban and £1000 fine. It won't happen I agree because our government (whichever lot get in power) are more bothered about forcing a massively flawed 'measuring' system for gas/electric and passing on the cost to consumers than they are saving lives.

Pretty much tantamount to corporate manslaughter.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

Luca Patrono wrote:

Enforcement means speed cameras, traps and fines, which will feed delightfully into the War on the Motorist narrative of the gutter right wing press. Too unpopular to make work.

Enforcement means taking the control of the speed out of the hands of the human period. The EU are bringing in limited measures for new motor vehicles but AFAICT this can be over-ridden anyway.

No need for cameras, simply retro-fit every motor with a device (at the expense to the motorist, just like 'Smart' meters) that can control speed of the motor and install countrywide signals in signs (so no need for GPS reliance). 

On top of that we need a change in the way speed LIMITS are applied, it's clear that lower speed is safer and it can be done that these lower speeds are more efficient for motors, as we see with EVs their optimum speed is actually a perfect fit for the upper limit that should be enforced for urban driving (at the very least).

NSL should be abolished, 60mph on many/most single carriageways is an absolute disgrace, even 70 on some motorways at certain times is excessive and pointless.

All minor roads outside of urban areas should be defaulted to 40, there's simply no need for it to be any faster except to save a few seconds in exchange for a massive increase in danger, particularly to vulnerable road users. There are a few roads near me that drivers bomb along at 60+ and yet it's clearly only just about safe to be doing 40, plod will always state speed wasn't excessive/below the limit when there's a crash, you only need look at what happened when they absolved the killer of four innocent cyclists despite clearly using excessive speed in known weather conditions that even half the speed limit would have been challenging. Then there's incidents were motorists are absolved completely because a vulnerable person made a minor error and they were going to fast to react and/or didn't give the hazard they posed to someone in close proximity any thought whatsoever, a little girl on a bike was killed when she veered off the non segregated and not particularly wide shared use path that was right next to a 60mph stretch of road, how the fuck was it appropriate to have that high a limit right next to an unsegregated lane, the motorist was absolved because there was 'nothing they could do', except there was, she could have acknowleged the close proximity of a small child to the road, she could have slowed down well in advance to the point where she would be alongside the child, she could have driven right of the lane to give an even bigger gap to the vulnerable person not 4 or 5 feet away from her killing machine. But nope, plod won't/can't see that motorists should have a far higher amount of responsibility for safety of others even when the others make errors that puts them in the way of potential harm. 

I was cycling from work last week and two of the office staff walked right out in front of me across a road that goes into the industrial area, niether looked, they simply thought, oh, no sound so we'll just cross anyways, typical pedestrian action and yet I was able to not crash into them despite they doing zero observations for self presevation. If that had been a quiet electric motorvehicle they would have been fucked. 

Could admin impose a word limit please?

Luca Patrono wrote:

Enforcement means speed cameras, traps and fines, which will feed delightfully into the War on the Motorist narrative of the gutter right wing press. Too unpopular to make work.

Very true.  And there is little chance of it being accepted, when sociopaths like this are considered 'heroes':

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/man-blocks-police-van-sp...

Mungecrundle wrote:

I'd like to see more 20 zones where appropriate and where they can be policed effectively. But blanket anything leads to unintended consequences and absurdities. Speed limits themselves do not tackle the core problem of poor driver attitude and ability.

There is already a blanket speed limit, 30mph, so what are the unintended consequences and absurdities arising from that?

burtthebike wrote:

Mungecrundle wrote:

I'd like to see more 20 zones where appropriate and where they can be policed effectively. But blanket anything leads to unintended consequences and absurdities. Speed limits themselves do not tackle the core problem of poor driver attitude and ability.

There is already a blanket speed limit, 30mph, so what are the unintended consequences and absurdities arising from that?

Exactly. The committee of MSPs even say in the article that they don't think a one size fits all approach is appropriate, so they'll leave things as they are thanks very much  (with, er, a one's fits all approach...?).

RMurphy195 wrote:

If someone's doing 40 in a 30 limit, then a 20 limit won't make any difference to that.

In practice it isn't the speed limit thats the problem per se, it's the lack of willingness to drive responsibly, especially when there are vulnerable road users about.

I normally drive at the speed limit for the particular road unless

a) Its unsafe to do so for various reasons, or

b) There are vulnerable road users about, when its slow down, wide and slow, then resume speed if safe.

It doesn't matter if the road's speed limit is 20, 30, 40 or 60, its all the same to me.

To the fools around, it doesn't matter if its 20, 30, 40 or 60 they just blithely go their way with not a care for anyone,  and changing the speed limit won't change what they do.

From DfT Vehicle Speed Compliance Statistics, Great Britain: 2017: On 20mph roads (under free flow conditions - which may not be typical of most 20 mph roads), 86% of cars exceeded the speed limit.

So, not worth the signs it's written on! It needs more than that i .e. spending money on traffic calming etc.

I love my bike wrote:

From DfT Vehicle Speed Compliance Statistics, Great Britain: 2017: On 20mph roads (under free flow conditions - which may not be typical of most 20 mph roads), 86% of cars exceeded the speed limit.

So, not worth the signs it's written on! It needs more than that i .e. spending money on traffic calming etc.

So we should scrap all limits because people ignore them?  20mph zones do reduce vehicle speeds, collisions, injuries and deaths, and encourage walking and cycling.  I think they are worth it, but please feel free to disagree.

burtthebike wrote:

I love my bike wrote:

From DfT Vehicle Speed Compliance Statistics, Great Britain: 2017: On 20mph roads (under free flow conditions - which may not be typical of most 20 mph roads), 86% of cars exceeded the speed limit.

So, not worth the signs it's written on! It needs more than that i .e. spending money on traffic calming etc.

So we should scrap all limits because people ignore them?  20mph zones do reduce vehicle speeds, collisions, injuries and deaths, and encourage walking and cycling.  I think they are worth it, but please feel free to disagree.

I don't see how. As demonstrated, the vast majority of people will do 30 in 20 zones because it is socially acceptable to do so. 20 is considered by many drivers to be a unreasonably low limit. 30+ limits see more compliance for this reason.

burtthebike wrote:

I love my bike wrote:

From DfT Vehicle Speed Compliance Statistics, Great Britain: 2017: On 20mph roads (under free flow conditions - which may not be typical of most 20 mph roads), 86% of cars exceeded the speed limit.

So, not worth the signs it's written on! It needs more than that i .e. spending money on traffic calming etc.

So we should scrap all limits because people ignore them?  20mph zones do reduce vehicle speeds, collisions, injuries and deaths, and encourage walking and cycling.  I think they are worth it, but please feel free to disagree.

its not that black & white though, Ive lived in 20mph zoned areas for nearly 20 years and that 86% of vehicles who still exceed the limit is a figure Id certainly say is pretty close to the mark, sometimes it feels higher, because the limit has never been enforced in that time and probably never will.

and yes you can go on the stats and say but there have been no injuries or deaths recorded, so the 20mph zones must be working , but adjacent 30mph and even 40mph zones havent had that many more injuries and certainly no deaths, they have more crashes, but arguably thats due to volume of traffic as much as speed.

so I dont feel I live in some walkers and cyclists safe slow zone paradise, I know if I drive at 20mph through this zone, I can guarantee even if there is nothing behind me  at the start,by the time Im half way there will be a car behind me tail gating closely.

And if I cycle it, even at 20mph and I can ride the speed bumps quicker than most vehicles dare take them anyway, though youd be amazed at how many try, I know Ill be overtaken, usually dangerously close passed to boot as the road is half width due to all the parked cars (they try to nip or force through in the gaps which I cant cover), or worse as I do try to keep in prime to stop that kind of thing, Ive actually had cars resort to driving on the pavement to get passed and any pedestrians walking there be damned, you then get to the end of the road and they are still sat trying to get out of the junction.

and those are just the ones trying to overtake, the ones coming towards you, will actually accelerate and drive head on at you, its very rare for vehicles to actually pause for a few seconds in a gap and let you by, they see it as your job to get out of their way and theyll use speed to do it.

and the worst time of the day to use the road, is during the school run, the whole reason the area is 20mph in the first place is because of nearby schools,but you get kids dropped off in cars by harrassed parents,teachers late for class, etc. The council bin lorries all now refuse to collect during that time due to the amount of abuse and sheer danger from cars refusing to yield & drive around them at speed that they were being put in.

so do 20mph limits work ? YMMV but I think theyd work alot better if they were enforced properly

Awavey wrote:

burtthebike wrote:

I love my bike wrote:

From DfT Vehicle Speed Compliance Statistics, Great Britain: 2017: On 20mph roads (under free flow conditions - which may not be typical of most 20 mph roads), 86% of cars exceeded the speed limit.

So, not worth the signs it's written on! It needs more than that i .e. spending money on traffic calming etc.

So we should scrap all limits because people ignore them?  20mph zones do reduce vehicle speeds, collisions, injuries and deaths, and encourage walking and cycling.  I think they are worth it, but please feel free to disagree.

its not that black & white though, Ive lived in 20mph zoned areas for nearly 20 years and that 86% of vehicles who still exceed the limit is a figure Id certainly say is pretty close to the mark, sometimes it feels higher, because the limit has never been enforced in that time and probably never will.

Most 30mph limits aren't enforced, so should we scrap them?

burtthebike wrote:

Awavey wrote:

burtthebike wrote:

I love my bike wrote:

From DfT Vehicle Speed Compliance Statistics, Great Britain: 2017: On 20mph roads (under free flow conditions - which may not be typical of most 20 mph roads), 86% of cars exceeded the speed limit.

So, not worth the signs it's written on! It needs more than that i .e. spending money on traffic calming etc.

So we should scrap all limits because people ignore them?  20mph zones do reduce vehicle speeds, collisions, injuries and deaths, and encourage walking and cycling.  I think they are worth it, but please feel free to disagree.

its not that black & white though, Ive lived in 20mph zoned areas for nearly 20 years and that 86% of vehicles who still exceed the limit is a figure Id certainly say is pretty close to the mark, sometimes it feels higher, because the limit has never been enforced in that time and probably never will.

Most 30mph limits aren't enforced, so should we scrap them?

NO; spend the money on reconfiguring the roads, so that 20mph, 30mph etc is the speed that motorists drive at or below. Speed cameras only slow down motor vehicles where they are - not either side.

p.s. interesting that motorcyclists are no better than the rest, so their 'look out for us' signs fall rather flat.

burtthebike wrote:

Most 30mph limits aren't enforced, so should we scrap them?

as I say its not that binary, would I scrap my 20mph zone, absolutely not, do I think it could be a damn sight more effective, yes, but only with enforcement.

I love my bike wrote:

From DfT Vehicle Speed Compliance Statistics, Great Britain: 2017: On 20mph roads (under free flow conditions - which may not be typical of most 20 mph roads), 86% of cars exceeded the speed limit. So, not worth the signs it's written on! It needs more than that i .e. spending money on traffic calming etc.

From the 2018 report "GPS journey speed data suggests 47% compliance in residential areas and 65% in city centre areas. Whilst a substantial proportion are exceeding the limit, the majority are travelling less than 24mph".

So not 100% compliance but not bad.

tarquin_foxglove wrote:

I love my bike wrote:

From DfT Vehicle Speed Compliance Statistics, Great Britain: 2017: On 20mph roads (under free flow conditions - which may not be typical of most 20 mph roads), 86% of cars exceeded the speed limit. So, not worth the signs it's written on! It needs more than that i .e. spending money on traffic calming etc.

From the 2018 report "GPS journey speed data suggests 47% compliance in residential areas and 65% in city centre areas. Whilst a substantial proportion are exceeding the limit, the majority are travelling less than 24mph".

So not 100% compliance but not bad.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/757302/20mph-technical-report.pdf

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

I hear Hawthorns can go right through car tyre rubber and puncture them, there's a lot of it round here, I wonder if the puncture fairy will give him a visit or 4 ...

Oh yes, scatter tacks, always justified by the other party's guilt.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

I was passed t'other day by a large volvo SUV driver at speed, the guy lives in the next street to me, he says he was nowhere near me but it was the speed he came off the mini roundabout that was the issue, if he'd have come past me at even 30mph it wouldn't have been so bad, at 20mph he could be only 3 feet away and I would feel very safe.

But fat knacker doing at least 40 and gunning it so he could brake sharply for his street not 30metres away does not want to learn or can grasp that he's driving like a cunt.

I hear Hawthorns can go right through car tyre rubber and puncture them, there's a lot of it round here, I wonder if the puncture fairy will give him a visit or 4 ...

This result just shows you what a bunch of two faced lying twats polis are, it's rancid no matter where you are, they don't give a fuck and the evidence is already clear, not to mention that electric motor vehicles are at their most efficient between 18-20mph so there's even more reeason to blanket drop the speeds.

I had a very similar conversation with a driver just recently. To illustrate the point I offered to swing my dlock at his head with the same passing distance. He didn’t like that Idea and said it wasn’t the same. I said dame right it’s not the same your 2 tons terrorist weapon is far more deadly.