Safe Speed Forums

Should these be 20mph 24hrs a day, 7 days a week??

Opinions please.. (don't know how to do a poll)

Should they exist at all?? If it's only safe to do 20mph, people should only do 20mph, 30mph is MAX speed limit assuming it's SAFE.

Should there just be warning signs, ie, Children, OAP's, School, Playground, Airplanes etc..??? and let people make their own judgement.

In theory Waynedl, drivers should be slowing to 20mph or lower if the conditions require it, but the trouble is the majority don't. If people inderstood the consequences of their driving and actually thought about what they were doing then we wouldn't really need speed limits at all.

As for your question about whether or not they should be 24/7, I guess the answer is, it depends WHY its a 20mph limit in the first place. For instance, outside a school you could argue that it was only necessary to implement the limit during school hours or drop-off/pick-up times. However, if its in a housing estate with narrow streets, lots of parked cars etc then you could argue that yes it should be 24/7.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

This is IMHO why and how the so called road safety ads are causing problems.
Take the "hit a kid" ad - instead of the car on a clear road, lets have the car on a narrow street with kids playing - and emphasise the need for driving at a speed (not set by a needle in a dial) but where you can stop .(or slower if not sure)
Back it up with something like "that could be your kid/grandkid etc running out "

In short , get away from the impact speed and focus on a speed where the driver is in control of speed, not speed is in control of the driver,but the driver don't know it till it's too late.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

On the most dangerous roads in Southampton (in my opinion post war residential) all speed limits go out of the window. I often glance at my speedo, as you do, but when driving along these narrow streets with parked cars I have to concentrate on avoiding parked cars and holes at the side of the road where there were once kerbs!

It's the whole SafeSpeed principle of driving according to the conditions rather than the speed limit. Funny how this narrow little residential street has the same speed limit as reasonably straight D2 roads in the city, some of which have no adjacent property whatsoever (Bitterne bypass).

Once upon time there were triangles showing such hazards.

Now ist just







Ist no wonder we end up with



und hostilty to who does not deserve this anger.

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Andrew.

20mph zones are a terrible mistake. It's not that we shouldn't have 'dead slow' places. It's the idea that a 20mph speed limit creates such places, or truly manages problems in such places.

Obviously they think that the number specifies appropriate behaviour, but as usual it does not.

Think instead of the way folk behave in the average supermarket car park. It's probably true that no one is going over 20mph - but this isn't because of a speed limit. It's because of the design of the environment, the hazard density and the space being shared by drivers and pedestrians.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

As are 10mph limits even 5mph limits! This was discussed before I know but these silly limits really annoy me, probably more than they should (as Basingwerk pointed out at the time of the original topic).

In car parks etc where you need to be so alert for cars coming out of spaces a look to see if you are doing 5 or 10 mph is probably enough to lead to a collision on occasions. My arguement must also transfer to over checking of the speedo on normal roads.

I was in Brighton Cemetery this Sunday* and noticed an 8 mph speed limit here. Why 8 exactly?







* Like all habitual speeders, I'm intrinsically evil and have to perform certain rituals to my diabolical master (Jeremy Clarkson) every now and again - cemeteries seem the best place.

Actually I was part of a group of chronically hung over men who needed a walk somewhere really quiet - cemeteries again seem the best place.

So you speed AND drink?!? My god, you must be the spawn of Satan himself!

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Private roads don't have speed limits. They may well have a pretty-number-in-a-red-circle sign but it means nothing without a traffic order.

Actually I believe Poole Park does have a by-law giving it a speed limit of 8mph up to the sign, and then a 20 limit for the rest of the road, this is punishable by "a fine of no more than £2". After being taken to court, obviously, due to the Bill of Rights. That's enough to put you off speedin' through Poole Park isn't it?!


I do hope he didn't excede 8mph while walking through the cemetary drunk. I say the cemetary needs a speed camera!

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Andrew.

Goodness me no, I stick to the limit when I'm drunk

Ahh, that's OK then

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

where the speed cameras are. on the safest stretch of that particular road
go down the road to where there are residences on the side of the road (where i lived until 25th March) there are people having to dodge cars travelling at anything between 30MPH and 50MPH

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Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

Easy way to stop drunks exceeding 8 mph in cemetary - install a SID( for pedestrians) -imagine the effect ( no please - i do drink, i do get hangovers , so i can sympathise, just wait a day to drive )

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Going back to the original question (bit radical, I know), the answer is no.

Here in Somerset, the County Council introduced 20 MPH limits outside schools a couple of years ago. I have no problems with the basic idea, BUT - the limits are in permanently in force.

So, at 0100 on a Sunday morning during the school holidays one is still expected - nay, required - to drive past these schools at 20 MPH rather than the general 30. To my mind this simply brings the whole idea into disrepute; it is so obviously stupid. Down in Devon they have similar limits, but these are only in force when the flashing lights on the sign are turned on - far too sensible an idea for the anti-car lobby in charge of SCC.

And if the local Cash Machine Partnership wants a bit more money it's a guinea to a gooseberry the b******s will send a mobile scamera to just such sites - at 0100 on a Sunday morning during the school holidays!

In Solihull they enforce the 20mph zone (which is theoretically a through road although there is at least one school on it) using monster Speed Humps, which are in action 24x7.

I only discovered this because I decided to let the Sat Nav show me the quick route one day rather than following my normal route. Needless to say I won't be going down there again which of course is the intention.

Ahh, our old friends the speed humps, always good to slow down ambulances and emergency vehicles..

It's amazing, I read a short time back about a child being ran over and killed, was it by an ambulance?? NO, an emergency vehicle?? NO, by me in my car that I pay my hard earned cash to maintain?? NO, it was by some muppet (foreign illegal who was supposed to have been deported) in a stolen car (doesn't care about the shocks / springs then?? speed bumps?? oh you mean that cool ramp over there?? ) with no licence or insurance... He WAS speeding it was deemed when he hit the child in the 20mph zone..

How could we have saved this kids life??? Answers on a post card (or in replies).. it was a 20mph zone so how could we have got this guy to be doing around 20mph in this area in a stolen illegal car??

our friend the camera? our friend the humps?? ahh Plod maybeh??

In my view there shouldn't be 20 mph zones.

What's needed is better education on awareness of hazards and anticipation. The whole problem with the typical "20 zones outside schools" is that it tends to encourage drivers to think more about children outside schools (obviously not a bad thing) but then often at the expense of thinking about children away from the areas of schools.

We need to say to drivers, "If there are children by the road, wherever this may be, back off and be prepared." as opposed to saying "Don't exceed 20 outside schools."

I know of one residential area in South Belfast that has a 20mph zone. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that the 20mph signs were accompanied with children's artwork. Nice little pictures of a tortoise family crossing the road and a picture of a snail and below it were the words, "Please go as slow as a snail."

Yeah right, nice little community project and all that! Add to that, the Government has probably thrown money at it. I'm concerned about that as I think it's either misleading or illegal to add information of that nature to a legitimate road sign.

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Anyone who tells you that nothing is impossible has never bathed in a saucer of water.