Wales lowers speed limit to 20 mph to cut car use and save lives

I'm in favor of lower speed limits, but this will result in a temporary uptick in speeding tickets, followed by loss of interest by local police, which yields no net change. Lowering the speed limit is a band aid fix. It's quick. It's cheap. But it can, by no means, be seen as a permanent solution. If you want people to slow down, you need to make a road that will make people want to slow down. So yeah, I like lower speed limits, but they cannot and do not work alone. It's a step in the right direction, but more should be done.

I wish my neighborhood would do this. 25mph feels really fast on my street. I usually hover around 15-20 when I'm not paying attention to my speed.

Edit: I am surprised that this was my third most controversial comment since I've joined

While it sounds good on paper, in practice, they've screwed it up. They're putting the new speed limits in place on every 30mph road in Wales before they've put the public transport alternatives in place.

There's currently no reason for someone to switch to public transport, especially if the buses are going to be stuck at the same speed as the cars, but stopping regularly too. Our roads are too narrow to install bus lanes, and barely have enough room for single file traffic through lots of the towns and villages. The trains are being upgraded, but that's not scheduled to finish until at least next year, and at the moment they're slow and very unreliable. It feels like every week the trains are cancelled and an inadequate replacement bus service is put on.

I'm disabled, and have to travel from my town, Aberdare, to the main hospital in Cardiff, UHW, on a regular basis. If I had to leave now, it would take 42 minutes by car, or 2 hours and 6 minutes by public transport. The shortest journey is tomorrow morning and would take 1 hour and 31 minutes, more than double the time of the car journey. The closest inpatient hospital is 22 minutes by car, or over an hour by public transport. The difference the new speed limits are going to make is negligible compared to how slow public transport is here.

All this is going to do is annoy and upset people, and turn them off the idea of using public transport, and push a lot of people towards voting for the parties who were against this. Out of the main parties, that mainly seems to be the Conservatives, so that's going to be bad for all of us.

Amazing news, can imagine how much quieter Wales will become as a result of this

That's cool. One of the advantages of lower speed limits is that while they slightly improve safety, they massively improve the perception of safety. When people feel safe walking and cycling, they're more likely to do it. So, lower speed limits decrease the subjective desire to drive, and thereby reduce car dependency.

Try that shit in Burgerland and watch government buildings burn for the sake of the vroom vroom treats.

It happened with even the mildest covid restrictions. It would definitely happen with such strict speed limits.

Fuck cars

This will hopefully ensure less people get hit by cars when the fights inevitably break out on the roads near pubs after Wales lose to Fiji and Australia and exit in the group stage of the Rugby World Cup this month

Finally some good news!

I thought this said whales for a second, and I was very intrigued how whales were causing the speed limit to be lowered. Maybe a whale carcass nearby at risk of exploding? Maybe a bridge that whales like to spout on?

It was funny watching this get passed, because the main opposition to it in the Senedd has been Andrew RT Davis, a Tory MS who campaigned for it in a few years back in Penarth and is transparently against it because it's a Welsh Labour policy.

I do not get the 20mph speed limit here. E-Bicycles get to do 15.5mph in Wales, apparently. On a perfect, no traffic, no obstruction 1 mile stretch of road the speed difference here would save you, what, 30 seconds at most?

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The Welsh parliament has passed a law bringing down the speed limit on all residential roads and busy streets to 20 mph (30 km/h).

Wales will introduce a default speed limit of 20 mph (30 km/h) in built-up areas from next year, in a bid to lower road collisions and noise pollution, as well as encourage people to walk or cycle.

The Welsh parliament voted on Tuesday to back the plan, which will bring down the speed limit currently set at 30 mph (50 km/h) on most busy streets and residential roads.

Both Labour and Plaid Cymru, who have a cooperation agreement and hold almost three-quarters of the 60 Senedd seats, backed the plan, but it has been met with criticism too.

Reasons for opposing the scheme ranged from concerns it could “annoy” drivers to an increase in journey time and congestion.

“They are quite rightly very concerned as they believe that pollution is increasing because cars have to drive in a lower gear and wait longer at traffic lights, there have also been more accidents,” he said.

The original article contains 609 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 71%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Also way to make money from the shitload of speeding tickets lol

Another tally on the list of why Wales should be the real England

Sorry to nitpick but.

the Welsh Parliament

It's called the Senedd. Both in English and Welsh language documentation, calling it "Welsh Parliament" has its ties in antidevolution groups.

@Tywele

MPH or KPH?

For 🚲 🚲 🚲 too? 😀

Make cars use more gas by having operate at speeds they aren't meant to operate at constantly. Check.

Make people sit in cars longer resulting in longer commutes and more pollution. Check.

Claim that some number printed on a sign magically saves lives. Check.

Do literally anything to actually address the issue at hand. Not check.

Wouldn't this, in the end, make cars have to shift to a lower gear, thus keeping about the same RPM, and thus eating about the same amount of fuel, which results in about the same volume of the sound produced by the car?

This feels like a terrible fix.

good on them for using real units of measurement for their speed limits.