Transport for London (TfL) have announced that 20 MPH speed limits are to be imposed on many central London roads. That will include many of the key arterial routes including:
Victoria Embankment, Upper/Lower Thames Street and Tower Hill, Albert Embankment, Millbank, Borough High Street, Blackfriars Road, Elephant and Castle roads and Aldgate “gyratory” even though that no longer exists.
These proposals are part of the “Vision Zero Action Plan” and Mayor Sadiq Khan’s Transport Strategy which we have strongly opposed (see https://www.freedomfordrivers.org/against-mts.htm for campaign details). It’s just another step in discouraging and impeding vehicle traffic which is adding to journey times and damaging London.
Will it have any impact on road casualties as claimed? Highly unlikely as the City of London wide-area 20-MPH scheme has demonstrated where there was no overall reduction in road accidents and minor casualties actually increased. The solution to road casualties is to look at where accidents occur and re-engineer the roads. Not more speed cameras and lower speed limits.
There is a public consultation and more details of the proposal you can access here: https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/streets/20/ . PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU RESPOND TO THE PUBLIC CONSULTATION ASAP.
These are some of the comments we have already submitted which you can copy:
“There proposals will not have any benefit for those walking and cycling but as it will slow bus journeys, the numbers travelling by bus will continue to fall as they have been lately, thus reducing TfL income.
As regards vehicle users, I think they will ignore the 20 limit as they do elsewhere if they consider the new speed limit inappropriate, as it undoubtedly will be in certain traffic conditions. It will just result in more speeding prosecutions which is already being used by the police to finance their operations by diversion to speed awareness courses – a totally unethical practice.
It will add delays to journeys. To minimise the impact, the solution would be to look at road engineering measures where too many accidents occur instead – and I don’t mean speed humps or tables which have a very negative impact on those with medical conditions. Indeed I would suggest that you are discriminating against the disabled by implementing raised tables.
A 20-mph speed limit will not reduce casualties as demonstrated by the statistics from the City of London’s 20 mph speed limit which actually resulted in minor accidents increasing and no overall benefit.
In summary we are opposed to these proposals in general, and there is no cost, or cost/benefit justification provided – this is yet another disgraceful example of a defective public consultation from TfL, with no simple question as to whether people support the proposals or not.”
Roger Lawson
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Drivers_London
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Indeed. The negative effects of setting limits lower than the natural speed most drivers would choose are ignored. Concentration suffers as the focus goes from the road to the speedometer or the mind wanders when not challenged. It is impact speeds that matter, not travelling speed. Of course lower impact speeds will reduce casualties but these can actually increase if drivers are not concentrating ahead or looking at the road. A driver may hesitate making a phone call at 30 but may risk texting at 20. This is likely why no fall in casualties results but campaigners constantly trot out the simplistic statistic ‘pedestrians hit at….’ and conveniently ignore the intricacies of the natter, often I suspect deliberately as their motives are not to save lives but to attack the evil driver they hate.