It’s not often that the nation looks to Wales for lessons in reactive government — Labour’s record there has been startlingly bad — but on one crucial issue perhaps it should. Wales, like London, introduced a 20mph speed limit across much of the country in September. The Welsh responded with the eloquence characteristic of that nation that it was a really awful idea: 470,000 people signed a petition against it.
So back in April the First Minister carried out that well-known motoring manoeuvre, the U-turn. The 20mph proposals are being largely reversed, chiefly on those roads which aren’t much used by pedestrians anyway.
20mph limits don’t make sense where there are mostly motor vehicles and no conflict with other road users
Despite this, the Government is trying to extend 20mph zones. The Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, has said that councils have her “absolute support” in introducing them, plus Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, and there would be more money in the Budget for them. Her predecessor, Mark Harper, was making it harder to do so.
London obviously has had a rolling programme of 20mph zones for more than a decade, with extra roads added to those in the central congestion zone last year. They have reduced pedestrian deaths there, which is of course a very good thing, but then in central London, the joke is that you’d be lucky to get to 20mph during the day anyway. What’s insanely frustrating is to find yourself in a taxi on an empty stretch of road by night, driving at a speed where you’d be overtaken by cyclists if there were any.
There is of course an excellent case for the 20mph limit around schools and hospitals and indeed on small residential streets. What’s problematic is their introduction over large areas including roads where pedestrians use crossing points. As the RAC has pointed out, they don’t make sense where there are mostly motor vehicles and no conflict with other road users. It also makes the obvious point that there’s less compliance with the limit if drivers don’t think they’re right for the road type.
In London, incidentally, taxi drivers say police treat them more harshly than other motorists for the smallest infraction of the 20mph speed limit; they should at least have a margin of error.
The 20mph zones work in some places but by no means everywhere. The Government should proceed slowly on this. Very slowly.
