Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has given the green light to expanding 20mph speed zones and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, with a promise of fresh funding in the upcoming Labour Budget. The Mail has the story.
In comments set to irk drivers, Louise Haigh said she would allow local areas to decide whether to install what critics dub ‘anti-motorist’ measures.
She said she wanted to “end the culture wars” over transport policy, and hoped “unprecedented” levels of financial backing for active travel would be announced in the Budget.
Low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), which include pop-up cycle lanes, wider pavements and closing streets to cars, have been hailed as a success by many councils.
But they have divided communities – with critics saying they are often imposed with little consultation and push traffic elsewhere, worsening tailbacks and increasing pollution.
In some places, their introduction has sparked violence – with vigilantes dismantling them. …
In Labour-run Wales, ministers last year imposed a blanket 20mph limit on “restricted roads” – which are 30mph by default in England – affecting 7,700 miles.
But a poll this week found seven in ten (72%) of people opposed them.
The YouGov survey found only a quarter support the policy, and four in ten drivers admitted to exceeding the limit “most” or “all the time”.
The Tories had pledged to end the war on motorists – with plans to stop over-zealous councils from unfairly hitting drivers with a growing array of fines.
They also said last autumn that they would change Government guidance so town halls would have to “properly listen” to local opposition to LTNs.
But Ms. Haigh told Bloomberg that traffic speed limits would now be “entirely up for local areas to decide”. …
She said if local authorities want to adopt 20mph speed limits then “that’s got my support”.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: According to Wales Online, seven out of 10 people in Wales oppose the default 20mph speed limit, with four in ten drivers saying they regularly break it.
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The climate commies want total control of you, your car, your food, your drink, your health, your holidays, where you go and at what speed. There is nothing these people do not want to control all for “the children and grandchildren” and all “for the greater good”. They would regulate how you cut your toenails and provide you with a receptacle for the clippings if they could get away with it. We will all soon be driving around like in an episode of Stepford Wives.
Agreed
“for the greater good” = for their greater good, not ours.
The Greater Good:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUpbOliTHJY
I think you have been generous in referring to ‘holidays’ varmint. These will have disappeared by 2030, for the plebs at least.
I hope the 10million+ people that voted Labour enjoy crawling along at 20mph, and receiving fines/not being able to park anywhere/not being able to drive anywhere.
4 in 10 breaking the 20mph limit is laughable. In my area of South Wales, it’s probably only 1 in 20 who actually adhere to it.
The overwhelming majority continue at 30, only slowing for the strip of road right in front of a speed camera.
Same here
Ditto, and easier in rural areas to completely ignore the whole 20 mph/control thing – and give the camera lens a nice lick of paint [so I’ve heard…]
I have come to the conclusion we should try doing without speed limits
That would mean no fines and therefore all that money “taken out of the economy” (ref. Gordon Brown).
Jilted John was right, all those years ago.
lol – all that money taken out of state control so it can be used for pleasurable or productive purposes
I apply the rule – drive to suit the conditions of the road.
As do most people- and from what I’ve seen those that don’t are not put off by stupid signs
On rural roads with national speed limit applying, appropriate speed can vary from 0 to maybe 70mph and the driver has to determine what applies at any given time as on country lanes there is often no guidance. People manage.
No ToF
You and HP (and others) can’t be trusted.
You need to be told what to do.
Repeatedly.
A lot of people seem to want to be told what to do – as long as everyone else is also being told what to do. Maybe they get some kind of satisfaction from that.
Collectivists, I lost a mate over that during the Covid collectivism.
We lost tons of “friends” over “covid”, and stopped talking to various branches of our families. I don’t regret having them as friends, but I don’t miss them now – the past is past and this is a different time.
People would speed everywhere, would just be a few who ruin it for the rest. I prefer get rid of seatbelts.
People already speed. Most people drive reasonably well – at least safely enough not to crash. Increase penalties for causing damage, injury or death if your driving was unsafe. 80-90 mph on a quiet motorway in good conditions, keeping your distance, is safer than tailgating in the wet at 50 mph. People manage to drive on rural roads without causing utter carnage, by using their judgement. The more you have to exercise judgement and the more severe the consequences are for not doing so if you cause a big problem, the better your judgement gets. Speed limits should be a guideline only.
With you 100% on seatbelts.
I already have most of the time
Until you are stuck behind someone who abides by the limit.
That is what is so sick and perverse about state actions of this sort. They confiscate our money and then use it to abuse us.
For anyone who knows H G Wells’ story The Time Machine, we are the Eloi and the state bureaucracy are the Morlocks.
Are pensioners going to be paying for this as well as the inflation busting pay rises for public sector workers, doctors, rich train drivers?
There has long been a policy of requiring max speeds of 20 in some areas, typically in brand new housing estates, for which there was an official standard from the DfT. Much of it was the requirement to make it almost physically impossible to exceed it, except in a racing car, with pinch points, narrow sections, humps etc. However, more recently, there has been a tendency to add such limits where they are just a waste of time, as most people wouldn’t run much faster anyway, on account of parking, tight curves etc. E.g. I came across one in Ashbury, Oxon the other day through the village. No real values from installing any speed limit signs there, but they looked like brand new ones.
Being cynical it all gives more work to the construction industry putting up signs painting 20 mph on the road etc.
Our conservation area complete with beautiful listed buildings is now festooned with stupid signs and paint that everyone ignores
I’ve got a green angle grinder….
Why not instead treat people as responsible adults and enforce severe penalties for people whose behaviour causes serious problems? This in essence is the difference between the two camps. The camp that wants to make it impossible for anyone to do anything wrong is winning. Socialists hate people having agency.
When I worked at LB Sutton I did many 20mph ZONES where the requirement was that they were self-enforcing since the police would not be carrying out any enforcement. This was exclusively by the introduction of road humps or cushions. The zone obviated the need for repeater speed limit signs. A speed limit requires repeater signs if it is not national limit or 30mph and street lit, although I think the current regs have relaxed some of this. I last worked in the City of London that already had a blanket 20mph limit that the morons I worked with wanted to reduce to 15mph and touted it as a policy and wasted staff time on a report to try to get DfT support. It was rejected by DfT as it causes problems with construction & use regs and speedometers – one is not needed if a vehicle cannot exceed 20mph.
It is not just 20mph but in rural areas councils are reducing speeds from national limit to 40mph and have a policy of this. My hamlet has a general 40mph limit that Surrey decided to reduce to 30mph not as a specific proposal but as one of a number of locations. I challenged the Statement of Reasons as being complete bollocks with nothing specific to my locations. It was about reducing pollution, CO2 and noise and so I challenged them as to how they were measuring these and how they would follow up post 30mph. Of course their reply offered nothing. How much difference has the 30mph signs made? None whatsoever, so effectively a complete waste of taxpayers money.
“so effectively a complete waste of taxpayers money.”
We have reached a point where these days we should accept that wasting taxpayers money is an end in itself.
“a promise of fresh funding in the upcoming Labour Budget”
What about Reeves’ supposed £20 billion black hole?
Bigger and blacker than ever.
Is Reeve racist calling a hole black? Surely the wokerati should have woken up to that?