Error parsing XSLT file: \xslt\FacebookOpenGraph.xslt Less haste on more speed limits
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Less haste on more speed limits

Date: 13 June 2007

Guy Bird is our editor-at-large and political columnist

Safety groups have hailed Portsmouth's new citywide 20mph speed restrictions as a victory for common sense with other councils set to follow, but Guy Bird's not so sure it's a good idea.

When I first heard about Portsmouth's plan for a virtual blanket 20mph speed restriction within its city limits my immediate response was "what a load of unnecessary nonsense".

So I rang Portsmouth Council to get all angry about it, but ended up speaking to a nice woman in the traffic department who didn't seem anti-car (she even confessed to owning a Japanese two-seater sportscar). She told me the council had merely listened to the pleas from residents who were sick of a small minority speeding through their streets, and that the ban wouldn't apply to trunk roads. She also said there wouldn't be any speed bumps if they can help it because it's a "20mph speed limit" rather than a "20mph zone" ('zones' are physically enforced by often-huge humps and bumps while 'limits' are enforced by a bunch of signs, so the method's relatively inexpensive). A very helpful council PR even got back to me quickly with a full cost breakdown of the enterprise (£450,000 for the record). My rant looked dead in its tracks.

Until I went away and considered how tricky it is to keep a steady 20mph with the gearing of most modern (and increasingly diesel) cars. So I conducted a short road test - an easy thing to do in the heavily speed-humped 20mph 'zones' that surround my residential part of south London - and averaged about 24mph. I felt far from reckless at that speed (except when I tried to set the car's adaptive cruise control at 20mph and found it to be far too fast for half of the time), while 24mph was also coincidentally the average speed on Portsmouth's streets before any 20mph speed limits signs were erected.

“Will all these signs make a blind bit of difference? Other than to make otherwise law-abiding citizens feel a little bit more criminal and less respectful of a law that didn't need to be made (and sounds like it won't get enforced anyway).”

Guy Bird

Furthermore, the scheme only expects an average reduction of 3-4mph (early tests with the new signage report a slight drop to 22.5-23mph) and the council doesn't even expect the police to go round handing out fines for 26 mile-an-hour 'offenders' if it can help it either. Good common sense maybe, but 'sense' that just leaves one nagging question: Will all these signs make a blind bit of difference? Other than to make otherwise law-abiding citizens feel a little bit more criminal and less respectful of a law that didn't need to be made (and sounds like it won't get enforced anyway).

My solution? Give the lion's share of that Government-sourced £450k budget to the police to target excessive speeders and the rest to the council's driver training people. And remember that despite Portsmouth Council's implication that merely adhering to the speed limit can keep you safe, in actual fact it's paying attention to your driving and the environment around you - rather than just the speedometer - that will really keep you safe.



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