Reduction of the speed limit to 20 MPH in ALL built-up areas. Idiotic!?

Question

What on earth are the government thinking about?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7046200.stm

The reason why there are pedestrian deaths on the roads is overwhelmingly as a result of stupid pedestrians stepping into the roads and getting hit by cars.
The solution to this is not to force car drivers to slow down but to educate pedestrians to stay on the pavement!

What's next? A return to having a bloke with a red flag walking in front of every vehicle, and driving with your handbrake on at all times.

Idiots!

In fact, maybe the best approach is to increase the speed limit on built up areas to 50 MPH to attempt to educate thick pedestrians that if you step in front of a car it WILL KILL you, and that therefore this is something that is best avoided at all costs.
Won't work with children though I suppose, so I'll put that idea on hold.

Answer 1

I can see your point, any adult that walks in to the path on an oncomming car deserves to be run over... but a 3 year old kid does not know that is i dangerous, it really only for children, where there are kid it should be slower say 20mph..

but the motorways should be like the autobahn ..no limit!

Answer 2

You are of course correct in that there are very few occurrences of pedestrians being killed by cars on the pavement. Those pedestrians who are killed by cars are inevitably walking in the road!

Roads were intentionally made for wheeled vehicles (albeit horse drawn originally), not people on foot. For the most part, all roads and pavements were, and still are being paid for by vehicle users, so why is there such great animosity toward legitimate road users?

Most vehicles are far less efficient in their use of fuel when they are driving at slow speeds, and the vehicles are now too highly geared to be driven in this manner anyway. So if the government really want to make everyone drive more slowly, they should try passing some laws forcing car manufacturers to produce vehicles designed for such a purpose. and not cars designed to reach 150 miles an hour!

This latest madness being suggested is just that. Madness!

Answer 3

Agree 100%! Also Adelle raises a good point. Where I live they've put up cycle lanes, which no cyclists ever use, chicanes, bollards and these stupid square humps in the road, so that when I drive up to one, I'm concentrating fully on driving right over it, to save my suspension from more wear & tear, rather than looking for stupid people in the road. Pedestrians should stay on the pavements, I'll stay on the road, so says the Highway Code!

Answer 4

I live in an area where nearly all the roads have a 20mph limit...it certainly don't stop people slowing down.
All the speed humps are of the "pillow" type....meaning (if you have a wide enough track on your car)you can swerve inbetween or around them.
In fact I know of many people who deliberatly buy larger cars to get around this problem.
Kids use the humps as ramps for motorbikes and scooters to jump over.....and the only transport that has to slow...are buses.

On my way home from work in the early hours of the morning..I was going a little quickly through one of the local roads when I spotted a police van come out of a side street after me.....all I had to do was nip down a "pillowed" road....and the police can't keep up!....sort of defeats the object of the thing.

Answer 5

Whos the one who has had the training and been tested? The driver.
I agree that the speed limit should be brought down in urban areas to 20, it will save a lot of innocent kids.
But the limits on motorways and dual carriageways should be raised to 90 and improve the roads we pay taxes for.
I hope no-one you care about gets killed on your street because someone was doing 50 in a 30 zone.

Answer 6

Here in Texas the city solution is road humps that wear out suspension so cars have to slow down to 20 miles an hour bump over the hump and accelerate to the next hump. And the road crews place the asphalt humps under trees shadowy areas so you cannot see them until your car bottoms out and sparks fly. This is done on roads marked less than 35 miles an hour. Residential thru roads and I can say it does slow traffic down.

Answer 7

I survive a 20mph street via fact there's a time-honored college and a nursery college there. There are additionally umpteen gadgets of street humps on the line to sluggish the site visitors. I even have yet to work out any motive force doing 20mph. some automobiles do decelerate slightly to recover from the humps then velocity up returned. Lorries and buses do no longer decelerate in any respect. i attempted utilising at 20mph and the automobile in the back of me became into virtually in my boot, he became into so close.

Answer 8

Why do you worry about it? Very few drivers are able to stick to a 30 limit and they get away with speeding 99.9% of the time, make all the speed limits 20 and who do you think will enforce them? Most drivers will continue to drive at 35-40 and get away with it.

This govint introduce new laws with no idea how to enforce them - look at the number of drivers who still use mobile phones whilst driving.

Answer 9

Don't know where you are, but all of our local sideroads were reduced to 20 mph this year - doesn't make a lot of difference, the average speed around town before the restriction was 12 mph, now is about 14 mph.

Answer 10

people were here 1st! not cars! if a person is in the road then the driver should slow down and let them cross! i hate it when drivers bib at me to hurry up across the road!

when you take driving lessons and you have to read through books on driving,it clearly states that if someone is in the road what do you do as a driver A.SHOUT AT THEM B.SOUND YOUR HORN.C.WAIT PATIENTLY UNTIL THERE ARE OUT OF THE ROAD"AND DO NOT REV YOUR ENGINE"!

and the reason why there are so many deaths on the roads is because there are stupid careless drivers that are to ignorant to wait!