Streetfilms

Wish it happened here too. I've been told by the traffic engineers that 30mph is the base limit, and they can make it lower for certain zones (schools or bad intersections) but they can't just change the city limit to 20. 20 would be a dream come true though. As someone that often drives with the "pace car" mentality (going 0-5mph under the speed limit all the time) I can attest to the many benefits of driving slower in these areas.

Does that mean that a 20mph zone is effectively a 30mph zone, since presently a 30mph zone is effectively a 40mph zone?

everyone knows the unwritten rule of the 10mph of leeway before getting pulled over.

Prominent b.s. objections to the 20mph speed limit will be:
1. Increased congestion
2. increased pollution
3. noise pollution from honking
4. risk of road rage from impatient drivers
5. Arggh! I should be able to drive however I want!

Absolutely! 20 mph will be a major step improving safety and lots more.

And, 20 mph zones should stay effective 20 mph zones.

20 mph is plenty!  It sounds so great, just rolls of the tongue.

Now that school is back in session, the morning route is full of speeding parents, running late, accelerating hard, and railing the corners. What's sad is that these same people probably don't feel comfortable letting their kids walk or ride to school...because the roads are unsafe! Bike lanes just aren't enough for the kids when they have to ride alongside 35mph traffic.

@poncho

"presumably there is some archaic high up rule that says this, could anyone point me to it?"

There is, and it's called the American Automobile Association and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety -- corporate lobby groups who seek to perpetuate car-culture and car-use at all costs.

@MJS,

At the beginning Kodak gave away free cameras to sell its film. Same would exist with oil except that automobiles are a little too expensive for that so the finance and insurance industries have part of the action.

If personal transport vehicles cost less than downpayments on cars finance would not be needed and currently $850 billion in credit is outstanding for the purchase of cars. Insurance would not be needed if transportation systems based on cars were safe.

Media and advertising also have a heavy dependency.

The oil industry is well set up do a lot better if it were to reinvent itself to address the dramatic changes that must happen if there is to be a future with its huge cash reserves and technologies as strategic advantages. And, the value of oil will likely go up for a long time in any case.

Great video Rod. It makes a lot of sense. Environmentally it's a "no brainer" they say.
Best wishes, keep up the good work.
Jim

Remove all the traffic flow devices, eg. stop signs and stop lights, and everybody will have to travel <17mph just so they can yield right of way.

Hi

I would really like to thank you for all your comments. I thought it may be useful to enter a dialogue and perhaps explain a few additional points which may be of interest.

Democratic comunity debate

One of the most important aspects of 20mph limits is that they cannot be implemented in the UK with local city administration support. Hence there has to be a local democratic debate about whether to implement them. It becomes "community driven, but establishment endorsed".

This community debate on "how we share our roads" is an important factor in making comliance a lifestyle decision rather than simply a reaction to a road sign.

Driver benefits

Another important factor is the size of the area over which it is implemented. Drivers who live on a 20mph street themselves get the benefit for their children and family. An important "buy-in" when they drive through other peoples streets. This idea that where people are we slow down, is a vital paradigm shift in the way we relate to the roads. We are really debating whether our speed should be geared far more to the "presence of people" rather than the road width.

Research in the UK has shown that when implemented over a complete town then speeds on roads where previously the average was between 24 and 29 mph dropped by an average of 7mph. All of this being done by a "collective community commitment" to sharing our roads more equitably and a recognition that journey times are not influenced by "how fast you travel" but far more likely "how long you're stopped".

When speaking in towns throughout the UK at public meetings, I am always told that "our town is different". I usually reply by pointing out all the things which are similar rather than different.

If anyone has any specific questions to ask on the campaign in the UK then please do so, or email me directly at rod.k@20splentyforus.org.uk

My best regards and thanks to Streetfilms for all their work.

Rod King
20's Plenty for Us

Patrice, re: http://www.ville30.org

Really nice website of 20 mph / 30 kph cities.

Very encouraging!

Thanks.

I can see how this would be *really* nice if your neighborhood has it and others don't:  You're likely to shift traffic over.  I wonder what the effect feels like when huge areas have the limit, so you're still seeing as much traffic but it's slower.

I wish to have 20 in Plymouth, UK too

Do you actually drive in Manhattan? The capacity of those roads are nowhere near what they need to be to get faster traffic off the avenues. Also the more you drive cars off of one road, the more you overload another.

The part I don't like about this study is they are talking about the "reduced traffic" on those roads, but that just means most of that traffic is not taking another road, thus making it more congested. You can't look at the individual roads, or even the residential roads in isolation from the rest of the city. That traffic is probably just going a different way now, and you may have simply moved the problem, or maybe even made it worse overall  in the city.

This also completely ignores design speed and the "relaxing" of the requirement to have speed humps etc... is a bad idea. A posted speed limit is NOT a regulation device to restrict the speed of traffic, it is a guide sign to tell you what speed the road is designed to handle. Countless studies have showed if the posted speed limit does not match the design speed, Most people simply ignore it and drive the design speed anyway.A SMALL minority will drive the posted speed limit. You wind up with a great speed discrepancy then, and accident rates can actually go UP, form setting the speed limit too LOW! The average speed on highways in the US are about the same as in europe, even though the posted speed limits are lower, the design speeds are about the same. 

When you have a place like say manhattan, you don't have room to have feeder roads, and main roads. The whole point of the street grid is to balance traffic load across the city. That is the reason some parts of the US have started banning cul-de-sacs, it overloads a few streets, and makes them dangerous, for the benefit of people on a dead end street. The worst bit of safety in manhattan is all the major tunnels and bridge crossings that come from highways, and just dump into surface streets across manhattan, and then go back to highways. You want to get cars off the surface streets, you need to build SOME kind fo highway route away from pedestrians to get across town. Many vehicles are not even trying to go to anything in manhattan, but are trying to get across it. their is only ONE highway that goes across manhattan. All the other proposed cross town roads were never built. 

We need to learn from Germany and increase our motoway speed limit the Germans manage it with no problems

How many of those advocating for lower speed limits have any knowledge, experience, or a traffic engineering education that qualifies them to advocate for an unreasonably low speed limit? Specifically the speed limit should be set at the safest speed that results in the lowest accident rate. The only way to do this is to follow the standards and their required methods in determining a speed limit. In Florida, the "Speed Zone Manual" states that it is "against the intent of the statute" to set a speed limit on "the basis of opinion by an individual or group"! This was placed in the manual to avoid "feel good" speed limits that are in fact not the safest speed!

I don't think it would be quicker to take a tortoise to work, however slow it would be to drive (I recognize the hyperbole there), but it might make cycling a viable and safer option, for instance.
The advocates are not saying that there are no places where a higher speed limit is appropriate, they're merely saying that on local streets, the speed limit should be 20 mph or less.

They're not saying you cannot have a higher motorway speed limit in this video- because, really, how many houses have driveways feeding directly onto the motorway? How many people live directly on the motorway in this sense? If I were to guess, it would be precisely zero. They're merely saying this is what should be done on local streets.

Building more roads won't fix any of those traffic problems; time and again, experience shows it will become worse after building them. The best thing to do would be a congestion charge-, to really alleviate traffic congestion long term, removing those freeways would help (look up San Francisco highway tearouts- namely the Embarcadero Freeway tearout with its resulting overnight traffic improvement).

I can only presume you mean that municipal council support is either not the only requirement or that said councils are hesitant to support it? Otherwise, I am afraid I do not understand what you are saying.

What happened to common sense! 20 isn't plenty, it is only if you don't anywhere to be or a life to live. I would recommend rather than campaigning for ridiculous you go out and do something worth while.

Further more I would love to see unbiased and realistic supporting statistics. Statistically roads which are 70mph have the least accidents so shouldn't that be we should campaign for. (not really) Common sense says there is a happy medium in speeds 30mph is fine for residential areas. 60mph is fine for national and 70mph is slightly on the slow side 80mph would be safe but I'm not going to waste my life trying for that as it will have little impact.

Road safety has very little to do with speed. Its about time people understood about road safety and tried to make the roads better not just slower. Speed is one factor but if its unrealistic no one will stick the limit. Most 30's people go faster but there are not constant accidents. reducing to 20 will just mean people break the law more.

I strongly urge these groups to be more realistic and either learn to drive yourself to a higher standard where 20 isn't the max speed you feel safe to do or realise that other people have the ability to drive to a safe limit of 30 and not kill/injure anyone.

"s someone that often drives with the "pace car" mentality (going 0-5mph under the speed limit all the time) "

You sir are the problem with modern times. causing congestion and frustration among other road users. Drive safe not selfish. I suggest taking some lesson in road safety to learn that speed is only one factor.