20mph in all built up areas in Wales - thoughts?

[The Ham]

Guess what? Much of the time traffic calming is an utter nuisance to cyclists, and at times borders on hazardous.

Like for example speed bumps or cushions which themselves can throw cyclists off their bike, and are normally accompanied by poor surface as the surface around such measures tends to deteriorate very quickly leading to potholes and other issues - which with local government being generally useless never get fixed.

Often a case of people in local government thinking they know best without actually consulting the people they claim to be trying to make life better for. It doesn’t help that many such roles seem to attract activist types, who spend far too much time trying to impose their *own* views on things, rather than actually doing their job.

As someone who cycles I'm very much aware that traffic calming can also be a disadvantage to active travel users.

Take a personal experience, cycling through a cycle bypass to a priority giveway the van coming along behind me cut me up as it squeezed back into their side of the road too avoid the one car coming the other way who was at the giveway marking for the priority giveway.

 

[Jolly47roger]

My suggestion to the Senedd would be to make 30mph the default for all bus routes. These are usually the trunk routes that support the economy and would restore the benefits of public transport.

 

[slowroad]

Based on what?

It’s based on a review of official transport statistics. But relatively low car occupancy in the Netherlands is illustrated here:

Figure 10. Occupancy in EU by country in 2015. Extrapolation based on...

Download scientific diagram | Occupancy in EU by country in 2015. Extrapolation based on traccs data. Source: EUCALC Report As depicted in Fig. 6, in 2015, the car occupancy levels in EU varied significantly from 2.1 persons/car in Poland to 1 person/car in Czech Republic, with an average...

www.researchgate.net

Low modal share for buses (and high share for cars) in Netherlands is shown in chart 4 here:

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52023DC0510

 

[Enthusiast]

48% of home-to-work trips in Amsterdam are by bicycle ,

I'm not surprised. And for pedestrians it's an absolute bloody nightmare. Bikes come at you from every angle, whether you're crossing the road or walking on the pavement. Every railing, fence and lamp post has bikes chained four deep to them. The pictures of the quaint little bridges crossing the canals are utterly misleading. Every one of them has the footway on both sides completely blocked by bikes chained to the railings meaning one has to walk in the road where - you've guessed it - bike riders come at you from both directions. I've visited the city twice and have vowed never to go again. If the sort of conditions that prevail in Amsterdam are seen as preferable, I truly despair.

 

[lachlan]

I'm not surprised. And for pedestrians it's an absolute bloody nightmare. Bikes come at you from every angle, whether you're crossing the road or walking on the pavement. Every railing, fence and lamp post has bikes chained four deep to them. The pictures of the quaint little bridges crossing the canals are utterly misleading. Every one of them has the footway on both sides completely blocked by bikes chained to the railings meaning one has to walk in the road where - you've guessed it - bike riders come at you from both directions. I've visited the city twice and have vowed never to go again. If the sort of conditions that prevail in Amsterdam are seen as preferable, I truly despair.

I've been to Amsterdam and yes while it can feel like you're going to get run over by someone on a bike, that's preferable to cycling/walking in the UK where I always feel like I'm going to get run over by a car

 

[stuu]

It’s based on a review of official transport statistics. But relatively low car occupancy in the Netherlands is illustrated here:

Figure 10. Occupancy in EU by country in 2015. Extrapolation based on...

Download scientific diagram | Occupancy in EU by country in 2015. Extrapolation based on traccs data. Source: EUCALC Report As depicted in Fig. 6, in 2015, the car occupancy levels in EU varied significantly from 2.1 persons/car in Poland to 1 person/car in Czech Republic, with an average...

www.researchgate.net

Low modal share for buses (and high share for cars) in Netherlands is shown in chart 4 here:

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52023DC0510

Again, it entirely depends what you are trying to show. If you want to show that it doesn't matter what you do because everyone drives, then use the passenger km figures which hugely skew in favour of cars. But what really, really matters is the whole journey.

As an exaggerated example, if 2 people need to buy food, and 1 person walks 100m and another drives 100km, the journey purpose and usefulness of the journey are identical, but if you measure it in km terms, 99.9% of journeys to get food are by car

 

[AM9]

Flintshire has adjusted some of the 20mph sections back to 30mph, mainly on through routes, with a mix in places.
These are signs that a more logical set of speed limits will appear after a while.
The blanket 30->20 was never a wise policy, although I understand it was legally easier to introduce that way.

I think that is the right way to do it, i.e., 20mph by default unless a safety case can be made for increasing it to a higher speed.

 

[slowroad]

Again, it entirely depends what you are trying to show. If you want to show that it doesn't matter what you do because everyone drives, then use the passenger km figures which hugely skew in favour of cars. But what really, really matters is the whole journey.

As an exaggerated example, if 2 people need to buy food, and 1 person walks 100m and another drives 100km, the journey purpose and usefulness of the journey are identical, but if you measure it in km terms, 99.9% of journeys to get food are by car

Again, the issue was whether increased active travel could meaningfully reduce highway use. In your example, a very radical change in the way people shop, work and socialise would be the key change from the status quo which in turn facilitates active travel. No real world examples exist of countries having achieved this at the scale needed to have an impact on highway demand at the national level (as my second chart indicates).

 

[stuu]

Again, the issue was whether increased active travel could meaningfully reduce highway use. In your example, a very radical change in the way people shop, work and socialise would be the key change from the status quo which in turn facilitates active travel. No real world examples exist of countries having achieved this at the scale needed to have an impact on highway demand at the national level (as my second chart indicates).

So the 30-odd percent of all journeys being by bike has had no impact on highway demand? None at all? What would highway demand look like if they weren't going by bike?

 

[slowroad]

So the 30-odd percent of all journeys being by bike has had no impact on highway demand? None at all? What would highway demand look like if they weren't going by bike?

The answer is that it would be minimal/barely detectable at the national level. The main effects are abstraction from walking, buses and car passengers - and nearly all for short journeys (based on the Dutch example). Which is not to deny some small beneficial effects on traffic in particular locations.

In my opinion the main benefits are likely to be in terms of health and wellbeing rather than measurable traffic reductions. But those benefits are real and potentially important.

 

[TPO]

Very late to the party on this so please excuse any repetition on earlier posts.
I live in Wales and these are my observations.
Ditherers now do 15mph causing huge tailbacks, it can take me up to 5 minutes to get out of my local side road in a morning and often have to risk it in a small gap to stand a chance of getting out. I see pedestrians do the same when crossing the road, some of these are school children going for their buses.
Some drivers get so fed up with ditherers they overtake increasing risk off an accident. This rarely happened with a 30mph limit but is a regular occurance now.
The 20mph limit on the main road through the village is ridiculous and painfully slow, many drivers admit they lose concentration so are more likely to have an accident.
Cyclists often take to the pavement as they are going faster than the cars increasing risk to pedestrians
Some drivers accelerate like they're starting a grand prix when speed limit changes to 40mph (often to greater than the speed limit) between two villages then slam the brakes on for the 20mph, this causes an increase in pollution particularly brake dust particulates and, yes, electric vehicles release these too!
You can argue about this as much as you like and that people shouldn't do the things listed but, in the real world, they do. In reality is it's not a good idea and more likely to cause accidents than reduce them.

Indeed. I have seen much the same on routes I use regularly (once a week or so) which have gone from 30mph to 20mph. Also a BIG increase in aggressive tailgating from SUVs.

Within the first month of the new limits, doing indicated 20mph in a 20 limit (satnav value puts my car ar a ~2mph overread, so in reality probably 18mph) I experienced 2 dangerous overtakes and several instances of aggressive tailgating, not happened through there before the speed limits changed but has become quite frequent.

My other half has commented how it's much harder to cross the road now as the traffic is more bunched.

It's the difference between what happens in the real world vs the "ideal" theory. It's a badly implemented idea, based on an over-simplified premise I.e. that everyone obeys all of traffic rules all the time. What's more, there's been no evidence about whether previous collisions have been caused by people obeying the previous rules or not. Which is concerning because if the net effect of the speed limit change is to increase frustration and rule breaking, then in principle, the change could increase harm.

I am not condoning disobeying the rules and in fact I am careful to comply with the new speed limits, but humans being humans, there is always a level of irrationally present which can lead to perverse consequences. I fear we are seeing this.

 TPO

 

[Richard Scott]

Indeed. I have seen much the same on routes I use regularly (once a week or so) which have gone from 30mph to 20mph. Also a BIG increase in aggressive tailgating from SUVs.

Within the first month of the new limits, doing indicated 20mph in a 20 limit (satnav value puts my car ar a ~2mph overread, so in reality probably 18mph) I experienced 2 dangerous overtakes and several instances of aggressive tailgating, not happened through there before the speed limits changed but has become quite frequent.

My other half has commented how it's much harder to cross the road now as the traffic is more bunched.

It's the difference between what happens in the real world vs the "ideal" theory. It's a badly implemented idea, based on an over-simplified premise I.e. that everyone obeys all of traffic rules all the time. What's more, there's been no evidence about whether previous collisions have been caused by people obeying the previous rules or not. Which is concerning because if the net effect of the speed limit change is to increase frustration and rule breaking, then in principle, the change could increase harm.

I am not condoning disobeying the rules and in fact I am careful to comply with the new speed limits, but humans being humans, there is always a level of irrationally present which can lead to perverse consequences. I fear we are seeing this.

 TPO

One thing I did forget to mention was the issues for emergency vehicles, I saw one recently really struggle as so many cars to get past it caused the ambulance a real issue. Wonder if Drakeford ever thought about any if this? Come to that wonder if Drakeford has ever thought about anything?

 

[Lucan]

It's a badly implemented idea, based on an over-simplified premise I.e. that everyone obeys all of traffic rules all the time. ..... if the net effect of the speed limit change is to increase frustration and rule breaking, then in principle, the change could increase harm.

It is like many things that start as a good idea for certain applications, but those responsible for implementation don't know when or where to stop. Rules and laws are generally obeyed if people find them reasonable, but tend to be disregarded if they are not and people think they can get away with it. Placing 20mph limits in housing estates and country villages with narrow twisty roads is reasonable; placing them on wide main roads already provided with pedestrian crossings is not. In my rural area of Wales there are even some 20 mph stretches with fields on both sides of the road.

Following the first few weeks of their introduction around here they are now widely disregarded where drivers are confident of no enforcement. If I have a car behind me when I slow for a 20mph limit, and nothing is coming the other way, 5 times out of 10 the following car promptly overtakes me, usually accelerating to do so.

In Wales, First Minister Drakeford is retiring soon. The 20mph limit will not outlast him for long on the scale of its present implementation.

 

[The Ham]

My other half has commented how it's much harder to cross the road now as the traffic is more bunched.

If the traffic is more bunched then there's got to be bigger gaps elsewhere, in that if you have a platoon of 20 cars, the gap to the next platoon will likely be bigger, as the safe gap between cars can be smaller. If you're getting longer platoons of cars then, unless traffic volume has increased, there's going to be larger gaps between the platoons and whist you may have to wait for a longer time for the gap, arguably it's easier to judge a safe gap as the gap is likely to be larger.

It is like many things that start as a good idea for certain applications, but those responsible for implementation don't know when or where to stop. Rules and laws are generally obeyed if people find them reasonable, but tend to be disregarded if they are not and people think they can get away with it. Placing 20mph limits in housing estates and country villages with narrow twisty roads is reasonable; placing them on wide main roads already provided with pedestrian crossings is not. In my rural area of Wales there are even some 20 mph stretches with fields on both sides of the road.

Following the first few weeks of their introduction around here they are now widely disregarded where drivers are confident of no enforcement. If I have a car behind me when I slow for a 20mph limit, and nothing is coming the other way, 5 times out of 10 the following car promptly overtakes me, usually accelerating to do so.

In Wales, First Minister Drakeford is retiring soon. The 20mph limit will not outlast him for long on the scale of its present implementation.

Even if the 20mph limits are not being stuck to, there's a good chance that the 85th percentile speed (i.e. the 85th fastest car out of 100 cars) will be lower.

Not least, whilst people may not be adhering to 20mph there's a fairly good chance that they are going shower than they were before. Even going at 28mph vs going at 31mph will have a noticeable advantage in terms of stopping distances (on the design stopping distances, rather than emergency highway code distances, would reduce it from 43m to 36m).

That's a 16% reduction in stopping distance vs a 10% reduction in speed.

 

[slowroad]

If the traffic is more bunched then there's got to be bigger gaps elsewhere, in that if you have a platoon of 20 cars, the gap to the next platoon will likely be bigger, as the safe gap between cars can be smaller. If you're getting longer platoons of cars then, unless traffic volume has increased, there's going to be larger gaps between the platoons and whist you may have to wait for a longer time for the gap, arguably it's easier to judge a safe gap as the gap is likely to be larger.



Even if the 20mph limits are not being stuck to, there's a good chance that the 85th percentile speed (i.e. the 85th fastest car out of 100 cars) will be lower.

Not least, whilst people may not be adhering to 20mph there's a fairly good chance that they are going shower than they were before. Even going at 28mph vs going at 31mph will have a noticeable advantage in terms of stopping distances (on the design stopping distances, rather than emergency highway code distances, would reduce it from 43m to 36m).

That's a 16% reduction in stopping distance vs a 10% reduction in speed.

On the other hand, the imposition of a limit that is more extensively disregarded may erode respect for speed limits more generally. It may even erode respect for the law in other areas. Imposing a law in the expectation that it will not be obeyed does not seem to be wise public policy making.

There may also be other unintended consequences (eg diversion of traffic onto other roads, compensating speed increases outside limits).

We need to wait to see what the net effects are.

 

[Richard Scott]

There may also be other unintended consequences (eg diversion of traffic onto other roads, compensating speed increases outside limits).

We need to wait to see what the net effects are.

This already happens, a number of people where I work use other routes to avoid the 20mph limit using less suitable roads.

 

[rcro]

We’re still a long way from seeing what the true consequences of this are on public behaviour. E.g. I don’t think Google Maps has updated the speed limits so we don’t yet have loads of “fastest routes” that now go down unsuitable residential streets.

Unfortunately, the behaviour of some drivers will be used to justify the blanket 20mph limits. There have been multiple fatal crashes in south Wales in the last month, some in 20mph restricted areas, for which the narrative is likely to be that excessive speed was a major factor (and it may well be so…). Expect it to start getting enforced more soon.

For most people, anyone who started driving at 20 in September and stuck with it will be so used to it by now that they forget to drive at 30 when they go to England - I definitely have this problem.

I’m still far from a fan, and crossing the road is much harder than it used to be as traffic flow is more constant and gaps between cars not quite big enough… but I’d suggest roughly 75% of drivers are abiding by it, and general noise of traffic is much reduced, and walking along pavements is much more relaxing than it used to be!

 

[Lucan]

unless traffic volume has increased, there's going to be larger gaps between the platoons

Reducing speeds does result in more traffic on the road, all other things being equal. Each journey requires the vehicle to be on the road for longer. This arises in practice in the bus companies saying that they cannot maintain the same service level with their present numbers of buses (in addition to the fact that journeys take longer no matter how many buses they had).

Even going at 28mph vs going at 31mph will have a noticeable advantage in terms of stopping distances

Yes, but at what point does the argument get silly? Why 20 mph? By that same argument 10 mph would be even safer, and 1 mph safer still. Ultimately there needs to be a balance between safety and utility, and my point is that in many cases the application of 20 mph has got the balance wrong - even if we accept all the assumptions about 20 mph always being safer, which is debatable.

I am not some petrol head by the way. I am in a rural area and one of the things that needs to be addressed is people driving too fast on narrow twisting single-track country lanes. I have always advocated a default speed limit of 30 mph on all roads with no central line marking. There are also many "main" country roads (non-trunk A and B) where there should be limits of 40 or 50; I live on one myself with the national default speed limit (ie 60mph here) and there is a speed crash within half a mile of me (ie close enough to hear it) once every two years on average. The authorities just shrug their shoulders, although for a time it did have those "High accident risk road - [n] crashes in the last 5 years" signs on it. There are plenty of road safety issues that need to be addressed instead of wandering around sticking 20 mph signs in the ground, although the latter is easier I suppose.

 

[Richard Scott]

We’re still a long way from seeing what the true consequences of this are on public behaviour. E.g. I don’t think Google Maps has updated the speed limits so we don’t yet have loads of “fastest routes” that now go down unsuitable residential streets.

Unfortunately, the behaviour of some drivers will be used to justify the blanket 20mph limits. There have been multiple fatal crashes in south Wales in the last month, some in 20mph restricted areas, for which the narrative is likely to be that excessive speed was a major factor (and it may well be so…). Expect it to start getting enforced more soon.

For most people, anyone who started driving at 20 in September and stuck with it will be so used to it by now that they forget to drive at 30 when they go to England - I definitely have this problem.

I’m still far from a fan, and crossing the road is much harder than it used to be as traffic flow is more constant and gaps between cars not quite big enough… but I’d suggest roughly 75% of drivers are abiding by it, and general noise of traffic is much reduced, and walking along pavements is much more relaxing than it used to be!

The reason for accidents is the frustrated drivers taking chances overtaking, more enforcement won't stop this.
It may well be a sensible limit on residential streets but main roads where few people walk anyway is plain daft and leads to frustration and people doing silly things causing more accidents with unfavourable outcomes than previously.
This is reality, in Drajeford's make believe world everyone does what he wants, in the real world they don't no matter how much he tries to encourage powers that be to enforce it.

 

[bramling]

The reason for accidents is the frustrated drivers taking chances overtaking, more enforcement won't stop this.
It may well be a sensible limit on residential streets but main roads where few people walk anyway is plain daft and leads to frustration and people doing silly things causing more accidents with unfavourable outcomes than previously.
This is reality, in Drajeford's make believe world everyone does what he wants, in the real world they don't no matter how much he tries to encourage powers that be to enforce it.

Something the likes of Drakeford fail to understand (and is too ignorant to care even if he did) is that introducing measures for which much of the population have little respect is a dangerous slippery slope. Combined with the poor example set by politicians over recent years what happens is people decide they no longer feel part of the unwritten contract of mutual respect between people and state.

Or to put it another way, they lose respect for the law, and decide they no longer feel bound by it.

 

[StKeverne1497]

Something the likes of Drakeford fail to understand (and is too ignorant to care even if he did) is that introducing measures for which much of the population have little respect is a dangerous slippery slope. Combined with the poor example set by politicians over recent years what happens is people decide they no longer feel part of the unwritten contract of mutual respect between people and state.

Or to put it another way, they lose respect for the law, and decide they no longer feel bound by it.

I know this has been promoted as Drakeford's personal crusade, but can we stop with the personal attacks? (not just you, others too) If it was such a bad idea, it would only have taken a few rebels in the Senedd to prevent the bill going through.

And at the risk of making this more political than it deserves, he had already announced he wouldn't look for re-election and he has now given a date for handover, so the next person can boot it if they want to, and if it's really such an unpopular policy among the general public then perhaps they can elect a few more non-Labour AMs and make the next government at least a coalition, or maybe - shock - even put a different party in charge (please no snide comments about any of the other parties).

Personally, I was all for expanding the use of 20mph zones. There are plenty of roads where you would rarely be able to reach 30mph anyway, and trying to do so was dangerous. A bit more thought given to exactly where the zones were put would have been good (it did all seem to be rushed through, and the "trial zones" in north Cardiff were a nightmare) and it's frustrating to be tailgated or overtaken by bikes (and then have to try to get past them on the next hill) and even by busses (professional drivers?). I've had several examples of being overtaken in very dangerous places - for example on the zig-zag lines before a road crossing - and I tend to drive the 20mph zones with the speed limiter set to 21 or 22mph, so it's not as if I'm actually doing 18mph. But I was being tailgated when those zones were still 30mph. Not overtaken quite so much, but probably only because it takes a bit more effort at 30mph than 20mph.

The sort of people who are doing these dangerous things are the sorts who were doing 40mph+ in 30 zones before the change anyway. If they now occasionally get held up and slowed up, I see that as a benefit. And as for the "long tails of bunched up traffic" think about it - that only proves that people are going faster than the limit otherwise they would not be catching up with the vehicle at the head of the queue which is sticking to the limit!

Maybe there's an argument for timed zones, (30mph after 10pm on "through" routes perhaps) but that leads on to all sorts of other issues.

Things were slower even before the 20mph expansion; when I worked in central Cardiff in the 1990s it would take me 45 minutes to get in to work at normal office hours, but if I was called out in the middle of the night I could do it in 20 - 25 (good thing too as my contract stated 30 minute response time). Since then the A469 Nantgarw Hill has become 40mph (a section was 70mph), the A470 has gone from 70mph to 50mph before the Taffs Well junction while the bit known as North Road has gone from 40mph to 30mph, and the roads nearer the centre from 30mph to 20mph. There are also a couple of additional sets of traffic lights (or existing ones seem to have been re-timed to prioritise other routes). It now takes 35 - 40 minutes, even in the middle of the night when there's no traffic, and only a small part of that is because of the 20mph limit.

 

[WelshBluebird]

It's worth reminding people that before the Tories realised they could use this to stick the boot in, the 20mph limit was supported cross party. This absolutely is not a Labour only thing and certainly isn't just Drakeford pushing something through.

And I'd also suggest that if someone can't stick to a speed limit then maybe they shouldn't be allowed to drive.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Personally, I was all for expanding the use of 20mph zones. There are plenty of roads where you would rarely be able to reach 30mph anyway, and trying to do so was dangerous. A bit more thought given to exactly where the zones were put would have been good (it did all seem to be rushed through, and the "trial zones" in north Cardiff were a nightmare) and it's frustrating to be tailgated or overtaken by bikes (and then have to try to get past them on the next hill) and even by busses (professional drivers?).

I'm inclined to say that in residential streets (non-thoroughfare) I'd go even slower and look at the Dutch "auto te gast" (car as guest) concept, i.e. absolute pedestrian and cycle priority (effectively the whole street is a virtual zebra) and renormalise the idea of kids playing in the street and cars having to be driven taking that into account.

But also 20 zones in city centres (I really do like it in central London), villages and the likes.

However thoroughfares should be 30 or even 40.

I think to be honest, potentially as with pavement parking*, drop it all to 20 then people will shout about the bits that should be 30 (and they can be increased) is perhaps the line that was being taken and does mean quicker improvements at the cost of some limits being too low for a bit until the administration catches up.

* Where "ban it all then paint bays where the pavement is wide enough for a wheelchair and the ban actually causes problems" may be a reasonable approach?

 

[AM9]

I'm inclined to say that in residential streets (non-thoroughfare) I'd go even slower and look at the Dutch "auto te gast" (car as guest) concept, i.e. absolute pedestrian and cycle priority (effectively the whole street is a virtual zebra) and renormalise the idea of kids playing in the street and cars having to be driven taking that into account.

But also 20 zones in city centres (I really do like it in central London), villages and the likes.

However thoroughfares should be 30 or even 40.

I think to be honest, potentially as with pavement parking*, drop it all to 20 then people will shout about the bits that should be 30 (and they can be increased) is perhaps the line that was being taken and does mean quicker improvements at the cost of some limits being too low for a bit until the administration catches up.

* Where "ban it all then paint bays where the pavement is wide enough for a wheelchair and the ban actually causes problems" may be a reasonable approach?

Both of those I agree with. It's much more responsible creating the situation where a safety case is needed to (potentially) increase a hazard than making a case to improve safety and battle against a chorus of 'but we've always had the right to do that', i.e. making a hazard a grandfather right.

 

[Richard Scott]

And I'd also suggest that if someone can't stick to a speed limit then maybe they shouldn't be allowed to drive.

That's not really a sensible statement, the place where I live has a main road running through it and 20mph is ridiculously slow and pointless. The traffic flow is far worse now, it's much harder to get out of side roads, as a pedestrian it's more dangerous to cross the road due to fewer gaps in traffic and contending with cyclists riding on pavement as they're going faster than the traffic.
The 20mph shouldn't be on this road in the first place, not condoning breaking it, but I understand why people do. 20mph in residential areas is fine, in fact it's almost pointless as there are areas you can't even do 20 and would, in some cases, be dangerous to do so.
Perhaps the politicians who dream up and implement badly planned laws shouldn't be in office in the first place?

 

[The Ham]

Reducing speeds does result in more traffic on the road, all other things being equal. Each journey requires the vehicle to be on the road for longer. This arises in practice in the bus companies saying that they cannot maintain the same service level with their present numbers of buses (in addition to the fact that journeys take longer no matter how many buses they had).

Whist it requires cars to be on the road for longer, there's still the same number of cars traveling over the same length of road.

This may mean that to be somewhere at a given time that you have to leave earlier and so you are on the road between 07:00 and 08:00 rather than between 08:00 and 09:00, and so there's more traffic between 07:00 and 08:00, but by the same measure you're no longer on that road between 08:00 and 09:00.

Where this would make a difference to congestion is that who could typically get were they wanted by leaving after the peak period, but now need to travel during part of the peak period.

Of course, the wider the 20mph limits are implemented the bigger the impact. Which is why there's been a significant impact in Wales.

 

[cheekybifta]

That's not really a sensible statement, the place where I live has a main road running through it and 20mph is ridiculously slow and pointless. The traffic flow is far worse now, it's much harder to get out of side roads, as a pedestrian it's more dangerous to cross the road due to fewer gaps in traffic and contending with cyclists riding on pavement as they're going faster than the traffic.
The 20mph shouldn't be on this road in the first place, not condoning breaking it, but I understand why people do. 20mph in residential areas is fine, in fact it's almost pointless as there are areas you can't even do 20 and would, in some cases, be dangerous to do so.
Perhaps the politicians who dream up and implement badly planned laws shouldn't be in office in the first place?

Surely this main road also has people living on it, probably shops along it, and probably more pedestrians than most parts of a housing estate?

 

[Richard Scott]

Surely this main road also has people living on it, probably shops along it, and probably more pedestrians than most parts of a housing estate?

There are people living along it on one side but no shops and certainly fewer pedestrians than a housing estate. You can drive the entire road and see no pedestrians.

 

[Dai Corner]

There are people living along it on one side but no shops and certainly fewer pedestrians than a housing estate. You can drive the entire road and see no pedestrians.

There is a lot of misunderstanding of what a 'residential area' is.

 

[ABB125]

Over the weekend, I had my first experience of driving in Wales since the change to 20mph limits.
In some places, the 20mph is absolutely fine. Often (but not always) this is where it would be a challenge to exceed this due to factors such as vehicles parked at the side of the road, alignment etc.

However, there is certainly some inconsistency in what is 20 and what is not. For example, this road has a 20mph limit*. And this one is NSL. Both have houses on a separate "access road" parallel to the main road (due to the main road having been upgraded at some point in the past). Both could easily be defined as "residential". Yet only one has the 20 limit...

*and it incredibly tedious at this speed. The alignment and visibility are good for at least 40. Just like this example in England.