Safe Speed Forums

In my home town no less:


Time for me to leave?

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

And next week all the buses will comply, with visibility dropping to 10yards.

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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

And so on down to 10 mph, then Red Flag Act, then a ban on all private motoring.

I think this country is rapidly becoming a lunatic asylum with the lunatics in charge.

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Good manners maketh a good motorist

Smeggy - out of interest - what is the lowest that a speedo can be said to indicate -is it 10 or 25 mph ??

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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

Ah, I was wondering if Snail City was complete or not. I guess so.

I thought 20 zones had to be self enforcing?

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Andrew.

My car speedo starts at 10 mph, although the needle doesn't really begin to move until about 15 mph.
My bike speedo starts at 20 kph, although the needle doesn't really register properly until 30 kph.


As for the 20mph limit in Pompey, other than the early hours of the morning it is nigh on impossible to exceed that speed anyway.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

Speedos should not under-read for all true speeds of 25mph and above.
No such legislation exists below true speeds below 25mph. I'm guessing this is where the camera trip threshold will be (20 [10%+2] > 25)

edit: I was talking crap!

Oddly enough, I find it can be faster to scoot around by bicycle!

That was the reason for the question .Thought perhaps it might be lower and they'd boobed in their dash for cash

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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

Usual thoughtless knee jerk "more than my job's worth" type response. Might it have been more constructive to say that the police will monitor the effect of this change and then decide if special enforcement is required?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

I thought they could NEVER under-read but were only tested for the 10% +2.5MPH maximum OVER-read at speeds of 25 and above?

You're right. I just went and checked. Silly me

One thing, it will be interesting to see if the K’s drop, because we know they can fiddle the SI’s.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

I'd like to remind folks of this (issued December 2006):

PR423: The dangerous 20mph zone mystery

news: for immediate release

Safe Speed has today criticised Department for Transport and the Scottish
Executive for failing to consider figures that show 20mph speed limit zones
have crashes which are, on average, more dangerous than those in 30mph zones.

Official figures show that the likelihood of a casualty being fatally or
seriously injured in 2005 was:

11.85% in 20mph zones and
10.26% in 30mph zones

There are a range of possible explanations including:

* A greater proportion of 20mph zone crashes include vulnerable road users

* 20mph zones are created in places where dangers are greatest

* 20mph zones create an illusion of safety, where people take less care

* Some drivers in 20mph zones are so busy attempting to maintain 20mph that
they simply don't brake before impact, possibly because they are looking at
their speedos when something goes wrong.

* 20mph zones encourage drivers to actually travel at 20mph when 10 or 15mph
may have been a better choice.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) said: "It isn't safe to continue to roll out 20mph zones
willy nilly until we have a proper understanding of the higher average crash
severity that they are associated with. As is common with modern road safety
interventions this has not been investigated - they do it because they believe
it should work."

"At first 20mph had to be 'self enforcing' with traffic calming measures used
to create an environment in which 20mph seemed like a natural speed. But since
then there has been 'mission creep' and 20mph zones are being installed widely
without such features."

"If drug companies behaved like this there would be a national outcry, but with
road safety everyone has an opinion. Far too often they claim that 'it's
obvious' that a given intervention should work. This cavalier attitude has
taken us from being the fastest improving country in Europe to the slowest
(in the EU15). Like drugs, road safety interventions come with side effects and
unintended consequences."

"The authorities continue to treat road safety as a problem of vehicle physics
when in fact it is a complex problem of human psychology."

"It's all very well citing examples of 'model' schemes, but with serious
anomalies appearing, the need for properly conducted randomised trials has
never been clearer."

"There's no indication that any of the 'speed kills' policies have made our
roads safer. Speed cameras, traffic calming, speed limit reductions and so on
have all been rolled out across the country with no significant reduction in
road deaths or road crash hospitalisations."

<ends>

Notes for editors
=================

Article in Today's 'Press and Journal':
http://www.thisisnorthscotland.co.uk/di ... mand=displ\
ayContent&sourceNode=149218&contentPK=16224177
&moduleName=InternalSearch&formname=sidebarsearch
or
http://tinyurl.com/yfpcjs


Official figures: RCGB 2005, table 13, last section, casualties:

20mph: (8+128)/1147 = 11.85%
30mph: (990+15,458)/160,342 = 10.26%

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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

This seems really silly to me. What kind of roads are they going to be reducing the limit on - can anyone give an example? If the limits are a p*ss take then they can expect zero compliance. Are they going to be installing 4 million speed humps?

I see the the old 'cut speeds by 1mph, reduce accidents by 5%' lie is still being banded about.

Yet another nail in the coffin for road safey.

More constructive, yes - but a good deal less remunerative.

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Save a cow - eat a vegetarian

Most of pompey is tight narrow coronation street type roads with solid parking both sides and space for one car in the middle. Then there is southsea which is 1930s semis solid parking and two cars can squeeze.
Housing is packed up to every corner.
There are a few tower block estates and then there are arterial roads and a big prom down the sea front. The city is almost an island with lots af bored youngsters. There is a lot of car modding (as it is the only way to have an identity in such a city?) During normal hours the roads are so tight you can't watch the speedo.

I don't agree with the 20 limit, but there is a possible argument that Portsmouth is a special case. The trouble is it will be seen as the roll model for the rest of the uk.

20 limits should be reserved for very short special sites such as shopping streets or out side a holliday camp. Lets face it if it realy requires 20mph you should be looking at the gaps between the parked cars, not the speedo.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

But surely if the roads are already that restricted why pay all this money to place 20 mph speed limits across the whole city and add to that the cost of running the scheme (or will that come out of the more speeding fines) surely if it’s as tight as you say it’s nigh on impossible to travel much over 20mph in any case, as the article states the average speed is 24mph. By the sound of it, it’s more a case of congestion than speed problems. 20mph limits aren't going to solve congestion.

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Useless laws weaken necessary laws.

exactly.

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Speed limit sign radio interview. TV Snap Unhappy
“It has never been the rule in this country – I hope it never will be - that suspected criminal offences must automatically be the subject of prosecution” He added that there should be a prosecution: “wherever it appears that the offence or the circumstances of its commission is or are of such a character that a prosecution in respect thereof is required in the public interest”
This approach has been endorsed by Attorney General ever since 1951. CPS Code

Just because the existing limit is 30mph doesn't mean people always drive at 30mph. It's only the boy racers that tend to be an issue.

As for this "5% reduction in accidents for 1mph drop in speed", we've talked about this before. For example, if the speed limit is dropped from 60mph to 40mph, there won't be any more accidents, as 20mph equates to a 100% reduction. Somebody needs to highlight this bullsh*t for what it is.

As for dropping the limit from 30mph to 20mph, I will now need to drive in third gear rather than fifth gear, meaning that my fuel consumption will increase, and that I will create more pollution.