How can I get drivers to slow down?

Farway

fred246 said:

I always wonder what 20MPH speed limits are all about. To my mind it has just led to more people totally ignoring speed limits. There is no point putting up 20MPH speed limit signs if you aren't going to put cameras up too. Motorists will always ignore speed limits unless they are enforced. Do the councils get paid more? Is it to prove to some sections of the community that they are trying to improve road safety(without actually doing anything). It was all such a waste of money.

Round here the 20 limits includes speed bumps & road narrowing sections.

OK I know the speed up in between & more pollution arguments, but it does limit speed overall, or make some take another route, which may be at the back of it because the areas I have in mind are roads that children use walking to school

Mercdriver

fred246 said:

I always wonder what 20MPH speed limits are all about. To my mind it has just led to more people totally ignoring speed limits. There is no point putting up 20MPH speed limit signs if you aren't going to put cameras up too. Motorists will always ignore speed limits unless they are enforced. Do the councils get paid more? Is it to prove to some sections of the community that they are trying to improve road safety(without actually doing anything). It was all such a waste of money.

no, no, no.  Gp and find some youtube videos on speed limits and what happens to fines.  

ToxicWomble

Mickey666 said:

ToxicWomble said:

Join the traffic police - otherwise stop getting het up about what other people are doing 

If speeding drivers only put themselves at risk then I doubt anyone would care, but when it increases the risk of someone other than the speeding driver being killed in an accident then it seems perfectly reasonable to get 'het up'.

Which we don’t know as the OP hasn’t returned to answer the questions asked.
Since he didt actually mention a rise in accidents just in perceived speeding - I stand by my comment

Norman_Castle

ToxicWomble said:

Mickey666 said:

ToxicWomble said:

Join the traffic police - otherwise stop getting het up about what other people are doing 

If speeding drivers only put themselves at risk then I doubt anyone would care, but when it increases the risk of someone other than the speeding driver being killed in an accident then it seems perfectly reasonable to get 'het up'.

Which we don’t know as the OP hasn’t returned to answer the questions asked.
Since he didt actually mention a rise in accidents just in perceived speeding - I stand by my comment

Speeding, perceived or otherwise isn't just a problem measured by accidents. For other road users fast moving traffic makes roads feel unsafe and makes them harder to cross. Many parents avoid letting their children walk anywhere because of fast moving traffic probably leading to an increase in school run parents.

Driving at higher speeds rarely achieves shorter journey times and slowing to 20 for short stretches makes no sensibly measurable difference despite the perceived delay.

Takmon

sand_hun said:

Hi, this isn't related to money saving in any way but I was wondering if anyone here has tips in terms of how I might be able to get motorists in my area to slow down and adhere to the 30mph speed limit. It's a residential area on a fairly busy main road between two cities. It was nice and peaceful during lockdown - mainly a steady stream of cyclists going past but now it's almost back to normal - people tearing along in cars at 45mph+. Speeding is even worse in the evenings when the road gets less busy. I wrote to my MP to highlight this issue and he responded saying highways and police are aware of the problem and that they have previously carried out enforcement in the area - however, I've never witnessed anything of the kind in all the years I've lived here. He also stated that back in 2013 all the fixed traffic violation cameras in the region were switched off due to the age and obsolescence of the equipment.

I know the narrowing of lanes is an effective method of slowing down motorised traffic but obviously I don't have the ability to implement anything along those lines. Any other suggestions on how residents can act against speeding?

So what piece of equipment are you using to measure these speeds?

MinuteNoodles

MobileSaver said:

 A genuine question for you and @ToxicWomble, if we didn't have speed limits and/or the speed limits were not enforced do you honestly think more people or less people would be killed or seriously injured on our roads?

Outside of the vicinity of speed cameras and unless you happen to be within the eyesight of one of the very few traffic police we have in the UK speed limits already aren't enforced. Think how many speed cameras you pass in normal driving, how many traffic police you come across and every single metre you drive outside of that is unenforced. I travel 30 miles each way on a major single carriage A road, no speed cameras and I can go months without seeing a police car. Occassionally there'll be a speed camera van but as we've only three in the whole county to cover an area 1.6 times the size of the inner M25 you rarely see those either. In fact in my whole county I could probably count on the fingers of one hand how many speed cameras there are in the entire county and they're mostly in one city and also on just one of the the feeder A roads to it, the A1079 where there's about 15 miles of average speed cameras starting just outside the city limits.

As a lorry driver currently doing between 2000 and 2500 miles per week the vast majority of people I observe already travel way below the speed limit. Most people on my 30 mile drive to work are doing 50 in a 60 limit, on motorways they're not passing my lorry with a 20MPH speed differential, more like 5 to 10 regardless of whether there's cameras or not. And they're not doing it because they don't want to get caught speeding because they don't actually look at their speedos, they do it because it's a speed they're comfortable with. This can be demonstrated by one of the things that annoys the living hell out of me which are people in cars slowing down to 50MPH on a dual carriageway/motorway or 40MPH on a single carriageway for a speed camera and forcing me to slow down even though they were already driving below the 60 or 70MPH speed limit. This happens regularly on the A1 south of Grantham, their incompetence compounded by the fact they're average speed cameras so slowing down at the camera is pointless. 

The people who would be likely to speed if there was zero enforcement already are and interestingly they're the ones who seem to be the most aware of where the cameras are as they slow down before they get to them then go zooming off again afterwards although it does worry me how few of them seem to not understand the definition of the word average.

The speed limit which does get broken the most is the 30MPH limit and that's massively broken yet we're not seeing piles of bodies. The roads which are the most dangerous such as those in Lincolnshire the accidents that result in the deaths or serious injuries are usually below the posted limit and involve someone either driving too fast for the conditions or driver error and doing a stupid overtake that didn't exist.

Supersonos

MobileSaver said:

A genuine question for you and @ToxicWomble, if we didn't have speed limits and/or the speed limits were not enforced do you honestly think more people or less people would be killed or seriously injured on our roads?

If we didn't have speed limits, my bet is even more people would just drive everywhere at 45mph. 

Supersonos

MinuteNoodles said:

MobileSaver said:

 A genuine question for you and @ToxicWomble, if we didn't have speed limits and/or the speed limits were not enforced do you honestly think more people or less people would be killed or seriously injured on our roads?

Outside of the vicinity of speed cameras and unless you happen to be within the eyesight of one of the very few traffic police we have in the UK speed limits already aren't enforced. Think how many speed cameras you pass in normal driving, how many traffic police you come across and every single metre you drive outside of that is unenforced. I travel 30 miles each way on a major single carriage A road, no speed cameras and I can go months without seeing a police car. Occassionally there'll be a speed camera van but as we've only three in the whole county to cover an area 1.6 times the size of the inner M25 you rarely see those either. In fact in my whole county I could probably count on the fingers of one hand how many speed cameras there are in the entire county and they're mostly in one city and also on just one of the the feeder A roads to it, the A1079 where there's about 15 miles of average speed cameras starting just outside the city limits.

As a lorry driver currently doing between 2000 and 2500 miles per week the vast majority of people I observe already travel way below the speed limit. Most people on my 30 mile drive to work are doing 50 in a 60 limit, on motorways they're not passing my lorry with a 20MPH speed differential, more like 5 to 10 regardless of whether there's cameras or not. And they're not doing it because they don't want to get caught speeding because they don't actually look at their speedos, they do it because it's a speed they're comfortable with. This can be demonstrated by one of the things that annoys the living hell out of me which are people in cars slowing down to 50MPH on a dual carriageway/motorway or 40MPH on a single carriageway for a speed camera and forcing me to slow down even though they were already driving below the 60 or 70MPH speed limit. This happens regularly on the A1 south of Grantham, their incompetence compounded by the fact they're average speed cameras so slowing down at the camera is pointless. 

The people who would be likely to speed if there was zero enforcement already are and interestingly they're the ones who seem to be the most aware of where the cameras are as they slow down before they get to them then go zooming off again afterwards although it does worry me how few of them seem to not understand the definition of the word average.

The speed limit which does get broken the most is the 30MPH limit and that's massively broken yet we're not seeing piles of bodies. The roads which are the most dangerous such as those in Lincolnshire the accidents that result in the deaths or serious injuries are usually below the posted limit and involve someone either driving too fast for the conditions or driver error and doing a stupid overtake that didn't exist.

It's like I wrote this - I agree with every word.

I tend to drive at or very near the speed limit (thanks largely to adaptive cruise control) and always find myself at the back of a queue of cars doing 45mph on 50/60mph roads, and with a queue of cars behind me on 20/30mph roads.

sand_hun

Some interesting replies. Sorry for the delay in responding to some of your questions.

How many accidents have there been?

I do not have accident stats, nor do I know the number of KSI's on this specific road. However my car has previously been smashed into whilst it was parked on the road overnight. The driver responsible was never traced. A neighbor reported that she's had 2 cars written off in similar incidents.

How do I know people are speeding?

I do not have any scientific proof, however as a regular user of this road (as a driver and cyclist) I believe I have a good indication of whether or not the 30mph speed limit is being adhered to. I'm not for a moment suggesting everyone is speeding along here (I estimate that some are within the limit). I accept the engine noise of lorries can make it sound like they're going faster than they are. And there's a few high powered sports cars around here which sound really loud. But based on my observations I am certain that many are well above the speed limit - whizzing past, often hitting the brake lights. It gets worse as the evening draws on.  Speeding has made it noisy, unpleasant and it feels less safe for cyclists and pedestrians.

I think @Norman_Castle hit the nail on the head when he wrote:

Speeding, perceived or otherwise isn't just a problem measured by accidents. For other road users fast moving traffic makes roads feel unsafe and makes them harder to cross. Many parents avoid letting their children walk anywhere because of fast moving traffic probably leading to an increase in school run parents.

MobileSaver

MinuteNoodles said:

MobileSaver said:

 A genuine question for you and @ToxicWomble, if we didn't have speed limits and/or the speed limits were not enforced do you honestly think more people or less people would be killed or seriously injured on our roads?

Outside of the vicinity of speed cameras and unless you happen to be within the eyesight of one of the very few traffic police we have in the UK speed limits already aren't enforced.

A good reply and I agree with much of what you say however I do think it is very telling that both you and @ToxicWomble chose not to answer the actual question... Is there anyone here who hand on heart believes scrapping speed limits would lead to fewer people being involved in KSI incidents? Similarly, as pointed out by @Norman_Castle, serious accidents are only part of the reason why speed limits are a necessary evil.