Friday 11 December 2009

Not Good Enough


From the BBC.

UK cities should have more 20mph speed zones, as they have cut road injuries by over 40% in London, a study claims.

There are still accidents, though. However, if we stop fannying about and cut the speed limit to 0mph, road injuries will reduce by 100%.

What are we waiting for?




13 comments:

Angry Exile said...

Hang on, the study is by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Have they solved malaria, elephantiasis and dengue fever then? Have they got drinking water sorted out for everyone in the 3rd World who didn't have it till now? No? So what the fuck are they doing branching out into road safety and who signed the fucking cheques? I'm not saying they can't or shouldn't, but I'm curious. The TRL in Crowthorne should be the ones studying this kind of thing and while I've little time for demarcation I wonder why these mozzie squashers are talking about this instead of the government's supposed experts. Is it possible that the TRL have either failed to research this or that they have and came to a different conclusion? Or might the TRL have said the same already and weren't terribly convincing, hence the need for a 'yeah, me too' report?

Personally I'm all for the idea. All those drivers staring down fearfully at their speedos, all those pedestrians who step into the road engrossed in their phone conversations, newspapers or iPods..... what could possibly go wrong?

Anonymous said...

As a non driver could I suggest
driving in reverse gear only in
residential areas.
As for the lonely hearts fans using mobile phones in moving
vehicles,scourging,7 days solitary
confinement and 28 days with access
to blogsites only
Car ownersip to be restricted to
those working in export driven
productive industry.
Oh, and while we are at it, female
dog owning smokers between 9 and
69 to be sterelised,free

Gauleiter
Graf Willy Von Rauchverbotanhanger
Gross Britanien

Tarquin said...

yay more speedbumps! That's the only way to get people to maintain the annoyingly slow 20mph if the road is suitable to drive at 30, more signs, more road markings etc

There's a road nearby me that enters a town from the back - it's goes 100m at 30, another 100m at 20, then 30, 20, 30, 20, 30, 20

No exaggerating - I counted (what else could I do at such a speed), it drops four times in the course of one straight, urban road

Frank Davis said...

Hang on, the study is by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Have they solved malaria, elephantiasis and dengue fever then? Have they got drinking water sorted out for everyone in the 3rd World who didn't have it till now? No? So what the fuck are they doing branching out into road safety and who signed the fucking cheques?

They've been at it for donkey's years. Sir Richard Doll, the late antismoking arch-guru, was a graduate of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Quiet_Man said...

You know it's odd, but the average speed in central London is 9.3mph not 20mph. It's actually less than it was in Victorian times.
I doubt anyone would notice it if it was reduced.

James Higham said...

Imagine having 80kph limits in built up areas and 140kph on open roads.

Anonymous said...

Oh don't Dick, you'll put ideas into their heads.

Unknown said...

Kerching!

bayard said...

"I doubt anyone would notice it if it was reduced."

But they'd still get very hot under the collar about the idea of reducing it, as this thread demonstrates.

However, abolition of priority is the way to go.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Tarquin: There's a stretch of road near me which is exactly as you describe. With cameras just as you enter the 20mph areas. Toddlers who don't understand the signs must think someone has gone around planting big metal lollipops all along the pavement - there's dozens of them.

Anonymous said...

In order to keep us all healthy, safe, secure and under control for all time, why don't they just pass a law to encapsulate each and every one of us in a huge vat of nutritious goo with tubes running into and out of the necessary orifices enough to keep us alive and then the world rulers can be sure it's all under their control and have one here and one there brought out of pickling when it's time to suit their fancy, then put back in again when they're through. It would be the ultimate outcome at the rate things are going. Al Gore, UN, EU, ASH, Nu Lab, EPA, Soros - they could all do some science and use the resulting numbers to convince everyone to agree.

Pogo said...

A couple of things spring to mind...

(1) I'm sure that I've seen some stats that show that although there's a reduction in the number of accidents in20mph zones, those that do occur are of greater severity;

(2) There's no legal requirement for a car's speedometer to record accurately a speed of less than 30mph. 20mph zones have to be "enforced" by speed bumps and other car-damaging trancklements. So to change massive numbernof 30 zones to 20s is going to involve huge amounts of construction work - and a probable equal increase in the number of back problems reported to the NHS and suspension problems reported to the local garage!

Anonymous said...

With the traffic in London you would be hard pushed to ever get up to 20 mph.