I live in Cardiff - I don't object to 20mph where it is sensible - my issue is that the implementation has been ham fisted. For example, there are places where 'distributor' roads were specifically designed to separate pedestrian and vehicle traffic and allow access to residential developments. These roads are wide, clear and designed for 30mph (sometimes 40mph), yet they now have 20mph limits. Similarly, some trunk roads now have 20mph limits in areas where there is very little pedestrian traffic. Of course, we want lower limits around schools, residential side streets, busy high streets and the like, but the current implementation is so bad that people do not respect it.
Spot on mate, I'm on the end of the valleys and there are several important roads that take the majority of traffic that are now 20s, and people overtake like absolute nutters because of those sticking to 20mph. It's also diverted traffic to a much smaller street because people want to avoid the 20mph zone, but this street is narrow and has a lot more pedestrian traffic, and kids use it to walk home from school. I agree with a lot of the principles, but the implementation is shocking
@@Electrodium A friend works for a bus company after the 20mph limit was introduced the average speed on some routes dropped to 4mph so effectively it's faster to walk.
I was forced to drive in London recently, and the whole area was a 20 zone. I don't mind driving at that speed in crowded areas, I wouldn't drive at 30 in them anyway. But I found I was constantly looking at the speedo to make sure I didn't creep over the limit, more than I felt comfortable doing. Plus I had a BMW SUV glued to my bumper for 10 minutes until it could overtake and speed off at 40mph. When I'm driving through a busy area in a 30 zone I can go between 20 and 25mph and never once have to check my speed or take my eyes off the road. It feels much less stressful.
I had to drive in London recently and even some wide dual carriageways were 20mph limits, which were probably 50mph limits not so long ago, You end up with drivers bunched up and lane hogging as they are focused so hard on sticking to the limit and not on general good driving; and then you get everyone else who chooses to ignore the daft limit and blast past at 40mph+, often illegal e-bikes weaving all over the place. I've never felt so vulnerable and not in control of my driving as I've done in a long time.
I drove and rode in London in the summer and found it much better with the lower limits. Far better on the bike certainly, but even driving was less of an issue. People seem less pushy (generally). Especially in London where there are so many junctions and traffic, reducing to 20mph has little or no impact on journey times. I don’t understand why people have their eyes glued to a speedo at 20, but not 30. What’s the difference? Either you can maintain a speed or you can’t.
Using cruise control is a great idea, it keeps the car at the speed that you set it at so you don’t have to keep on looking down at the speedo, it also saves fuel as you’re not on the accelerator.
Here in the Netherlands we have a decent amount of 30 km/h zones (which is about the same as 20 mph). A lot of them are designed in such a way that it's actually a logical speed to be going, but near me there are a couple that are just straight roads. My observation, as somebody that will always stick to the limit, is that people rarely stick to them and get really impatient if they're behind you, even if it's just a short section (I've regularly been overtaken, right before the 30 zone ends, only for them to drive slower than the 50 limit after it). Personally I think they have their place (for example in residential areas), as long as the roads are designed for it. If it's just long, straight roads, it actually becomes more dangerous due to impatience.
Who knows what goes through the minds of those kinds of drivers. I've been stuck behind people doing 35-40 on a 60 mph bendy country road. And when they enter a village (30 mph), they stay at 35-40 - so it is most definitely not about safety. They do it deliberately.
@@thromboid I don't agree that 25 mph would be a compromise. The 30 mph is absolutely fine and should stay as it is. If people break it, punish them. But don't punish those who do obey the speed limit by forcing us to drive at stupidly slow speeds.
@thromboid When I was on holiday in Sweden, I did encounter a good number of 40 km/h roads. It certainly feels like a good in-between speed. Not too fast that it becomes dangerous, but also not so slow that it feels like you're crawling.
thats the problem though isnt it.. where that is an issue. the generally acceptable speed is closer to 20 than it is 30... (unless your driving like a prat and actually doing the speed limit) but as a blanket rule. it has created roads that would otherwise be 30 or 40 limits that never see foot traffic ever.
@@billyskoda6839 That's why 30km/h limits are being implemented throughout Europe as well, all the scientists showing they are massively safer are all liars.
@@Gazzxyit's not blanket, it's built up areas which by definition are likely to see pedestrians and cyclists. By default it only applies to roads that were 30 before. A 40 road would only be dropped to 20 if someone decided to do that. There may be some larger roads that should stay at a higher speed and that's what they are looking at in the review.
I live in north wales, since the introduction of the 20s quality of driving has drastically gone down, a lot of drivers seem to be zoning out more and getting complacent like you said, using phones whilst driving, people still seem to be bad at judging speeds at junctions to name but a few of the problems. I’m very much in favour of 20s in relevant areas, all the school areas were already 20s and most of the housing areas so they haven’t really changed, a few bits could have been expanded and I think the balance would have been struck. It’s also interesting how learner and P drivers confidence seems to have gone down, driving at much lower speeds in 30s/40s and generally driving much more cautiously. I passed 5 years ago and I know from friends that the expectations especially from P drivers haven’t changed much. 60down to 20s round corners have also been dangerous in a few areas and they had to change placing and add increments after accidents though some are still in place, fine if your local but dangerous to the many visitors. I’ve also seen multiple people, 3 just in the last couple of months, go the wrong way round a major roundabout in the centre of town! Roundabout that’s been unchanged for 15years, can’t say that’s because of this but I’ve never seen it before the 20s 🤷♀️ and all this has been pretty much the same for everyone I’ve spoken to on the subject.
The bigger picture is we've lost the ability to drive to the conditions ( not just weather but junctions / road surface/ type of vehicle ) we are now transfixed on the speedo in case there are camera's and vans ready to issue a fine. Plus the automated car systems are easy to rely on ( now mandatory on new cars ) . Speed doesn't kill Inappropriate speed kills
@richardlloyd2589 incorrect. The sudden lack of speed is what kills... no one would die if they drove on the m25 continuously at 70mph... for example. Hitting something and suddenly losing that speed instantaneously is what kills.
Driving to the conditions is absolutely the key point. Take for example a straight section of 70mph motorway. Daylight, perfect visibility, dry road, well-kept car and light traffic, you could safely do 100mph. Rain and strong wind, heavy traffic at night, now even 50mph is unsafe. (cf France where the motorway speed limit reduces in the wet) Speed limits are a crude, simple measure designed for the average person to easily understand what the modal safe speed for the road is. They need to retain that identity - they should not be set based on ideology, nor on a blanket basis. And drivers should remember they never replace the key rule: drive to the conditions.
Just to point out that as you approached into Buckley, you completely missed the 20mph signs. So going up the hill towards the lights before turning right, you were over by 10mph. This clearly shows that it's overly complicated. It's 20mph, then it's 40mph, then 20mph oh no it's now 30mph.
Yea, he was constantly creeping over the 20mph limit (albeit his speedo may over read a bit). You do 22mph in a 20 limit, go past a camera and bingo, fine, 3 points. That’s the trouble and we all know the cameras are placed exactly to catch us in the most awkward or unlikely spots….for Kerr-ching 💷💷💷
As someone who lives in North Wales who passed their test about a month or two before the speed limit changed , I have come to find that way too many roads are now 20 mph that should never have been changed , I'm all for residential , hospitals , schools etc being 20 mph , however long open stretches of road that used to be 40-50mph are now 20 mph , making traffic & driver impatience much worse , if you drive in wales daily you'll come to notice that most people do not drive at 20mph , even the police cars here can be seen driving at 25 - 30 mph , it's mostly tourists and the occasional driver who stick to 20 on the dot Like I said I agree that certain roads should be restricted to 20 mph , however it was horribly introduced and way too many roads have been affected
Yes spot on. I also live in North Wales and it’s more common to see people going above the limit that not. Maybe you may come behind 1 car in 10 driving 20mph.
Nope. Only 30mph roads were changed to 20mph, and even then after review by the local authority. No other roads were changed. That was the clear and explicit policy. As for the tired old 'only schools and hospitals' argument, to be frank, I find the implication that my children and elderly parents are fair game elsewhere to be insulting and alarming.
@@YDysgwrAraf if you think it was just the 30mph roads that got changed I’m afraid it wasn’t , plenty of roads were changed and it wasn’t noted in the policy , as for talking about schools and hospitals , do you not think we should go slower around these areas?? , making everywhere a 20 isn’t the answer , protecting children and the elderly is still important , but that doesn’t mean we need to safe proof all of the country’s roads
The fundamental criticism of blanket speed limits is they don’t reflect the characteristics of the road. It makes no sense for an ‘A’ road and a residential street to have the same limit. One should be 30 or 40. The other certainly 20 or less because of the risk to children. Where I live the Labour council are happy to accept 45-50% compliance. More selective limits would make more sense and probably increase compliance.
There were actual official planning department documents on that topic, especially with the design of road layouts in new housing estates. That was well before the idea of increasing the use of 20 limits, so it was things like pinch points, humps, narrow sections etc, in such a way that it’s essentially automatic with no need to enforce.
The 20 limit only applies to roads that were 30 before. It's not blanket. There may be some roads that were dropped that shouldn't have been and that's what they are looking at in the review.
To highlight one particular segment, the big roundabout at 2:12 - 2:34 Ashley spent most of the above the 20mph limit, up to 20% over. Yes I'm aware that the speedo will be slightly above actual speed, but that's not the point. 20mph limit is fine in specific areas only.
As soon as I saw him approaching that roundabout it was immediately apparent that roundabout is far too big for 20mph to be the appropriate limit. It's a classic example of where the design isn't appropriate for the speed limit. If you really want people to be doing 20 on that section of road then you need to design for it, for example by making the roundabout a lot smaller with the entrances less sweeping. But of course that would cost money, rather than the badly implemented cheap option they went with.
As a point of interest, Buckley was part of a 20mph trial in Summer 2023 and Liverpool Road (the first road with the 30 sign) was changed to 20 but, after residents complaints, was later changed back to 30 when the default 20mph came in force everywhere. In contrast, initially the main road between Buckley and Mold was initially made an exemption and remained 30mph, but changed to 20 last September despite being more of a main route.
I broadly support the change. The issues which I have with it are largely around implementation: the guidance which Welsh Government gave to local authorities was interpreted very differently in different parts of the country, so you have places like Gwynedd, where there are plenty of exceptions where the 30 mph limit was retained, and places like Denbighshire, where there are barely any roads which were excepted, and there's even a stretch of dual carriageway with a central crash barrier which is 20 mph. I think the 20 mph limit is appropriate in the vast majority of places where it has been implemented. I live in a medieval market town, which is full of narrow streets, terraced houses, and on street parking. 20 mph feels a lot safer here than 30 mph ever did. The issue is that there are a few roads where it feels excessive, and my feeling is that when you annoy drivers by lowering limits where it isn't really necessary, some will get it into their heads to ignore the limits wherever they go. So there is room for improvement, and I hope the review will lead to both better guidance from central government and better implementation by certain local authorities.
I live in England and am surrounded by 20 zones. In my opinion they don't work because of other drivers. I get tailgated all the time and have had people get very angry at me for obeying the limit, including overtaking and slamming on brakes. I find traffic approaches at 20-30-40-50 which makes judging gaps harder. Applied in the right places I think they could work but over use means they get ignored.
I have a speed limiter in my car and I find it really useful. I don't have to stay transfixed to the spedometer but I do get tailgated all the time. So, swings and roundabouts. Having to manage the people who are protesting going at 20mph by not going 20mph. I'd like for the fancy motors to have a safety system that makes it impossible to drive too close to the car in front. The sensors work whilst parking. Active cruise control already measures the distance. Something like a stopping distance warning seems like a thing that could be easily implemented.
A lot do to be fair. I've got an E Class from 2019, so the older (nicer) model and it goes mad if you get close to someone and I don't just mean tailgating. It breaks on its own and everything so I imagine this is fairly common because they certainly weren't optional features and as I say it's not a new car anymore
@@me5969 thank you, to be fair if I'm being tailgated by a Merc it is usually a Sprinter or one of those giant SUV/restaurants people drive or white A classes. I mean, that sounds awesome. My collision avoidance system lets me away with tailgating, it flashes and beeps when I get close and I hope not to test that it brakes but doesn't make me stay a safe distance. The one you have sounds better. If they don't add a visual onto those huds you see in cars, I don't know what they are even doing. The car can weigh itself and knows when it was last serviced and the road condition. Thank you very much for explaining. I feel I understand why it's more ... Other brands
It seems a little excessive to have a 20mph limit on a main road through towns and villages, 30 would seem more appropriate with 20mph limit for all of the narrower residential side streets off that main road.
Living in Wales I can honestly say that it encourages cars behind to overtake. Everyone gets right up your bumper when you are in a car. Lots of pressure from other road users
@@TomboTheTornado If there's a line of cars I always seem to be at the front of it, with someone tailgating me! I was overtaken in a 20 limit in Carmarthen last night!
Your point about complacency could have been used back when seat belts became compulsory. Did drivers become complacent when thye knew the seatbelt was protecting them? Probably. But making seatbelts legal was a good idea. The big difference is when you atop in a Welsh town and walk or cycle around. The streets feel massively safer with the cars slowed down. And the stats confirm the roads are safer. As for driving, the 20 limit is no problem: when driving through Wales, youre never in a 20 for long: most country roads are still 40 or 60 for the most part. England and Scotland should follow suit.
My understanding is the default limit is 20mph so anything different would need reminders, the same as we are reminded of 20/40/50/NSL on roads in other parts of the UK
That's all well and good, but my local authority seems unable or unwilling to install/replace repeater signs at the appropriate intervals. Most councils can't handle fixing potholes, so repeater signs are way down their priority list.
@@123MondayTuesday Depends on how good the instructor is at seeing your speedo from their bike 👍 Unless of course you are talking abour wearing 23 pairs of speedos for your test then I think that is just a fashion fail
That is exactly how it is (or should be implementation is a bit non-standardised). What I find worrying is that Ashley didn't know that as a professional driver, so how are your every day punters supposed to know?
You raise an interesting human factors point that is not often considered. As has been seen in aviation there is a balance between too high a workload and too little a workload. Both can cause problems. Too low a speed may generate an attention deficit. For me a 40mph temporary limit on a motorway due to works can be challenging after a hard day’s grind. Not because it’s hard, but because it’s not and everyone has entered a dull autopilot.
Going into autopilot when driving is extremely dangerous, Ashley has mentioned before about routine and non-routine, you should always drive in a non-routine manner, reacting to what you see and what you can’t see.
@@WayneTulip-zm9gw The problem is that cognitively it’s often a non-voluntary process. This is why having sufficient tasks/processing requirements are important. Otherwise our brains do start to switch off.
Portsmouth has had 20 mph zones on residential roads since 2007. They were the first council in the UK to introduce them. People hardly ever stick to them.
I recall 20mph residential zones in 1998, and I don't know how long they had been there. I think it was in Cheltenham, basically somewhere between Chippenham and Wolverhampton travelling on the old roads to avoid Friday night M5 to M6 fun. I wonder if the new speed limit will stop the police taking out my barbers in Fratton Road
I am a driver of 40 years and counting and personally I feel much safer as a pedestrian crossing the road in Wales in 20mph zones. The limits are generally observed (up to about 22 or 23 mph anyway) and that's a lot safer for pedestrians. Gives everyone more time to react. Motorists in side roads get more opportunity to pull out safely and generally I feel the limits make drivers act more responsibly and considerately. In most Welsh towns and villages around where I am the actual practical speed limit is only about 20 or so anyway because of parked cars and narrow roads. Good topic for a video Ashley.
I actually find motorists tend to pull out of side roads closer to you with 20 than 30 so actually take more risk not thst I can't deal with them be it at 20 or 30
I have noticed since the 20 came in drivers slowing to let me cross the road which simply didn't happen before unless they were in a queue. I seems to have helped diminish the separation between drivers and everyone else.
Hi Ashley. I passed my theory test 2 days ago and decided to go over to your channel to get some knowledge in before i start my direct access course. Very awesome to see you on 2 wheels and I'm eager to get back on the road too. thanks!
You found a quite a good cross-section of 20mph roads there. Some where parking and width make it an aporopriate limit and others where I appreciate the frustration of anyone using more fuel and more time with excelllent vision and virtually empty pavements. There are still places in Oxford where most roads have been 20mph since 2009, where I can find this galling, among many miles of road where few ever exceeded 20 anyway. The point about complacency and disengagement at 20mph suggests to me that the Welsh government policy may have started from an assumption that this ship has already sailed. If driving standards have dropped, a general lowering of speed where people live is one adjustment worth trying - assuming that's what a default limit achieves. A lot of comments have already raised the higher emissions in lower gears. This, I think, is more easily explained for more recent 20mph impositions like the Welsh - they are based on the assumption that zero-emission vehicles are the future. One more thing: my heart lifted when you found the first 20mph limit on a big roundabout at 2:09. That's one blanket imposition I would be in favour of, given the competitive speed circuit treatment of roundabouts still often posted on dashcam channels.
The correct fix for poor driving standards is to improve driving standards, not drag all the competent drivers (the vast majority) down to the level of the worst.
@@almightyhydra I agree. How is that going, would you say? It's a serious question. I don't think state arbitration of the rights and responsibilities of drivers has ever been so politicised as it is now. I wouldn't propose 20mph or 30mph roundabouts to infantilise drivers, but to underline the fact that they are junctions, not mere sections of high-speed road.
Every speed limit needs to be justified. A 20mph limit past a school or playground makes sense to everyone, but there are plenty of lower limits without obvious reason. A limit that has no obvious reason, is more likely to be ignored, by many. This leads to bullying and impatience, which increase risk. A blanket limit will reduce the effectiveness of any justified limits. A blanket limit, brings contempt. At 20, many drivers are constantly looking at their speedo, which distracts from the road, where if the limit is justified, their attention needs to be. So these can be counter-productive. Oxfordshire has laid a blanket 20 over nearly every town and village, making progress anywhere tedious. This also leads to more frequent limit changes, requiring the driver to have to remember what the limit is now. Making driving more difficult does not bring better safety. It leads to more people eventually becoming angry, and more likely to exceed those limits, everywhere, making those places where it is justified less safe. My own road has been designated a 20 limit. It is a cul-de-sac with parked vehicles. Few people travelled along above 20mph, and those that did, still do. It has made no difference, but has spent a lot of our tax money. Meanwhile, potholes flourish. Most vehicles are geared to be smooth at the European limits. This is why most Peugeots during the 90s to 2000s are happier at 32mph (50kph) than at 30mph. Also why so many people drive at 43mph (70kph) instead of 40. 20 does not equate closely to any usual limit in Europe, so many vehicles will fight. 2nd gear will be too low, and 3rd gear too high, leading to travel at around 23mph. I'm puzzled as to why we insist on incrementing limits by 10mph. Many places would work well with a 25mph limit. There are many occasions where in a 30 limit, the traffic will travel at 23mph, as 30 is too fast for the conditions. Then people are travelling in 20 limits at 23, because they find 20 so difficult, but 23 easier to maintain smoothly. We need a local authority to experiment with some 25mph limits, and see if that works.
That's a very long justification to act in favour of the bullies. Furthermore, in regard of the assertion "Making driving more difficult does not bring better safety", taking into account the statistics showing the reduction in casualties and vehicle damage, since the 20mph introduction, you are simply wrong.
Here in NZ our national speed limit is 100km/h (yep, slower than France in the 1960s, but hey). Sometimes the road build isn't great though - what's considered a "state highway" is often more like a B road in the UK - and so reducing to 90 would be sensible. But nah, apparently "people can't tell the difference between 80 and 90" (don't their speedometers work??) so they went for 80 instead. Most patronising garbage I've ever heard. I don't think they had any legit research to back up such a ridiculous claim.
I don’t like cruise control unless I’m on the motorway and I need to give my foot a rest, I don’t like to rely on it so I get lazy and not pay attention. My go to daily so I don’t go over the speed limit, especially in average speed zones, is the speed limiter.
There was already a 20mph limit around schools and hospitals in Wales before the blanket 30 down to 20. This was after the installation of sleeping policemen (speed humps) on most 30mph roads. So now we have humps and a 20mph limit. A sensible targeted approach seems to be the way to go.
lets put it this way a couple of years ago I was a taxi driver and witnessed a serous incident a car hit a kid, the kid was very seriously hurt. Now speed was a factor it was not the car drivers fault in the sense they were doing the limit the problem was the reaction time the road and the speed all in one. like a fire you take away one element and you don't have a fire the same with car incidences (they are not accidents it implies there is no one at fault) reduce the speed you reduce accidents. After being a taxi driver in Wales I can also say in the summer who the hell can doing 30 in any of the towns??? but I digress the other main effect my slowing people down is reduce incidences thus reduce strain in the NHS, Police, Fire Service, Social services and many other services that are involved in some of these incidences. I heard a stat the other week which was quite shocking any incidence that involves deaths usually costs between 2-2.2 million pounds if this stat is true or even close if we reduce deaths and injures by even half we could save us the tax payers hundreds of millions which could be spent on upgrading schools, roads and other infrastructure In 2023 there were 4,348 road casualties reported by police forces in Wales, an increase of 2% compared to 2022 but a decrease of 25% compared to 2019 (prior to the COVID-19 pandemic). Of these casualties: 98 were fatal (2%). 1,028 people were seriously injured (24%). 1,126 (26%) were killed or seriously injured (KSI). 3,222 (74%) had slight injuries. ^^^^^^^ reduce this and we don't need to spend hundreds of millions!
3:30 You mention your cruise control not working. This is a big issue I've heard: my Skoda Yeti will allow CC at 20 but many vehicles will not. In built-up areas CC makes keeping to 20 much easier and gives you more time to look for danger. It's all too easy to exceed 20, especially with modern powerful cars so without CC you need to keep more of an eye on your speedometer.
There is a fundimental problem with blanket 20 mph limits. Your question about the casualty stats demonstrates it very well, because there is a useable reference to these changes. Back in 2012, the government changed the rules allowing councils far greater flexability in the introduction of 20 mph zones, and the number of them increased dramatically in a very short period. The people who should have benifited the most, pedestrians in urban areas, revealed the depth of the problem. Against a background of largely static casualty figures, pedestrian deaths increased every year for the next 5 years, resulting in a 17% increase in that period before they stablised. There were no other factors that I am aware of in that period, that would have affected those figures. The basic problem appears to be that as you will probaly agree, a driver or rider's ability to react safely to a developing situation, is significantly more important than the speed that they are travelling at. It has been suggested to me (by a leading traffic psychologist), that "20 mph limits make drivers docile, and docile is a bad thing". Driving at 20 mph is, for the best part, boring. The mind wanders, and once is has wandered, it has trouble switching back to the task in hand. The trouble with 20 mph zone is the take their reasoning from basic physics. The lower the speed, the less the damage and the greater the time to prevent the accident. However, 96% of all traffic accidents are as a result of driver/rider error. The cause of these errors are the complex continual decision making processes of the drivers and riders. THe scientific field of this is psychology, not physics, and this is an under-researched area. There is a quotation that fits 20 mph limits extremely well. "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong." H.L. Mencken.
Perhaps this could be summed by saying the focus has been on how hitting a pedestrian at 20mph vs 30mph is much safer, without considering the human factors of the speed limit change from 30mph to 20mph and it's effect on the collision happening in the first place.
As someone who lives in Wales this is probably a bad example as you've used rural largely residential/village roads in this video. The main issue to why the 20 mph limit is so controversial is due to the way it was blanket applied to the street light NSL, some roads that should have been made exempt like town/city artery roads, bypass and dual carriageways haven't been and as you can imagine during rush hours the slower traffic flow doesn't help. There is also some confusion particularly amongst what I guess is a small number of misinformed English tourists to where the 20 limit applies, I'm finding myself constantly stuck behind "Harold & Hilda" who are doing 20 mph on 60 mph NSL's. I think media fanfare has a large part of blame in that, where people take headlines like "Blanket Ban" as gospel and you do get some people doing 20 mph literally everywhere.
Driving is becoming extremely difficult in areas with constant changes in limits. Signs are sometimes obscured with bad maintenance of hedges, etc. We are becoming more reliant on focussing on the speed recognition systems (which sometimes miss changes) and distracted by constantly checking the speedo. These factors together with camera warnings, distract reasonably good drivers concentration on observing the road and surrounding hazards. I don't know what the answer is but I often dread driving through new areas or revisiting places with lots of new signs/restrictions.
I agree. There are random roads in my city that go to 20 mph. I slow down to obey them but still end up doing 25 mph as I feel pressured by cars behind. It just feels pointless and created more trouble than it solves. But that's the nature of arbitrary rules.
I was on a cycling trip in Wales recently and as a cyclist I loved the 20MPH limits. Most of my trip was pretty rural, but I was on a lot of B roads that would wind through many villages, and the lower speed limit just made everything more comfortable as a cyclist. I also did some driving in Wales last year, and personally I didn't see an issue with 20MPH zones, and I'd agree with you it seemed like traffic flowed a little better, but I'm not a regular enough user of Welsh roads to make a proper before and after comparison.
Living in Wales and seeing this on the roads it’s very tough to drive a car. You get a lot of people that want to get up behind you as close as possible trying to force you to go faster or you get people that overtake at speed in a very unsafe manner, it’s very nerve racking to be out on the roads and doing 20 because you really don’t know what the car behind or the one behind that, is gonna do.
I 100% agree. The reality is that 20 is too slow for many roads that are now governed by this limit. And so the reality is you get one person who is sticking to the limit, and then a pile of traffic bunched up behind that person and following closely. Often you will see frustration boil over, with someone overtaking in the 20 zone. This is the lived experience for anyone who lives in Wales and drives these roads on a daily basis. There are of course some areas where a 20 limit absolutely makes sense. For those areas we already had a solution, which was to have a 20 zone there. The idea that we would rip all that up and make 20 the default, with all the expensive signage change that goes with it, is complete and utter stupidity in my view. Many many roads now have 20 limits where it is simply not required. And most people, in my experience, are not abiding by the limit. It's chaos and disorder. All brought on by the stupidity of Welsh Government.
Yep, it's stressful and has made driving such a chore. I suspect being on the bike has given Ashley a nicer perspective as I guess people know it's dangerous to tailgate a bike!
@@brianhoskins1979 So the problem isn't the limit, it is the people who break the law. Sort of like how that happens in 30mph limits, 40mph, 50mph etc.
I’m sorry to disagree with you, but visiting Wales on a mid week when the roads are quiet doesn’t show the try reflection of a blanket 20Mph limit introduced by the eejits in the this Liebour welsh government. 20Mph would be fine outside schools and certain built up areas, but on roads that don’t need to be 20Mph at busy times hasn’t gone down well. Examples of this are you see drivers doing less than 20Mph, then when the speed limit increases to say 30, 40, 50 etc, these drivers continue at 20Mph or maybe only do 30 in a 40. It’s extremely frustrating driving behind fellow drivers who are doing less than the speed limit and braking to slow down. I think you should revisit wales again at a busier period and do a follow up video. and for example maybe drive the road from Mold to Wrexham where this section of roads goes from 60, 70, 30, 20, 40, 20, 50, 20, 40, 50 and you’ll then understand and appreciate why this new road policy 12 months on hasn’t gone down well in most of wales. Technically around about 37% of welsh roads are now at 20Mph. It’s just pure madness. But thank you for your latest video, I do find them extremely informative. 👍
3:40 Agreed. Cruise control in 30mph zones is a brilliant way to prevent speed creep and remove the burden of constantly feathering the throttle to maintain. Also I don't think many cruise controls WILL function below about 25mph. People could argue that "cruise control" is removing your focus from driving. I agree. If it keeps my focus on the little kid that runs out from behind a parked car I'll take all the focus I can get. Extreme, but you can even cover the brake pedal while cruising.
Ideally, 20mph would be great in many places. Many drivers greatly exceed the 40mph here in The Valleys. Living in a typical terraced street, drivers routinely use our street as a shortcut at way over 20mph with little ot no chance of being caught. .
So introduce more severe punishments for the few that DO get caught, which will serve as a deterrent, rather than punish the majority of safe drivers by frustrating them and trying to catch them with fines.
This is one of those situations where low traffic neighbourhood designs are pretty rad, honestly. Cut out all the horrid rat running and keep most traffic on roads designed to handle it!
@@samal3196 If only it were that simple. Blocking off our road leaves only one other road through to the next 2 villages and the next town. The bypass stops at our village. Most people drive sensibly but the usual suspects don't give a damn.
I don't think you understand how breaking the law works. If they're breaking the law for the speed limit then they'll certainly do it for another. They're not suddenly going to become law abiding citizens because the speed limit changed. To get into the mind of these people then it's safe to assume that they'll probably just be left feeling frustrated at being stuck behind someone doing 20 and then feel the need to make up for "lost time" and instead of breaking the limit by 10, they'll be breaking it by 40 and we know that's the case. Anyone who does a fair bit of driving knows this, even if we don't do it ourselves then we've certainly all noticed that most road users drive according to the road not necessarily the limit. By that I mean there's roads, and we've been in them, where we think "this should definitely be a 20 this". And most people just do that, so changing speed limits does do anything. I'm in Wales quite a lot and as much as everyone is spewing faux altruism pretending to be Christian road users, the fact is anyone who drives in these areas regularly will know that most people speed around until they spot the white lines of the road for a speed camera and then they just speed up again and this is even more true for the locals because they know where the speed cameras are. In practice, the reality is all it really does is just cause congestion. At least it certainly would be in England anyway, Wales granted isn't quite as.. packed. So ultimately nothing really gets solved apart from slowing down the law abiding road users. It won't make a blind bit of difference to people who are speeding and we know this because the very act of speeding shows they don't care
So, I was recently in Wales- the sudden 20 from a 50 was a bit of a catchyouout… I drive for a living so am able to react quickly to such changes. Tbf, some locations it’s good, narrow lanes with many residences and no footpath. Others, not so much. Ho hum, if they can address one safety issue it makes the roads safer until another begins to prevail. That’ll be mobile phone use. A real pet hate of mine! Now we have active lane departure control on cars (hate it on mine, especially when one lane splits to two) we’ll see more and more mobile use. I remember watching a documentary that covered road safety:- a rail crossing in Canada would have X fatal collisions between cars & trains a year. Some bright spark cut back a wedge of trees vastly improving the view on approach. The next few years saw between 2X & 3X collisions. Why? Because the increased view meant people approached faster misjudging their stopping distance. Safety features often breed contempt. People are not too bright when it comes to risk assessment
I think you're experience was a lot better because you were on your bike. Sticking to 20 in a car results in being tailgated and a queue of traffic behind you. It actually can be very stressful as some people get extremely close (taxis and delivery drivers being some of the worst). I'd suggest trying this again in your car instead at a busy time in a main area. The blanket approach is annoying. Areas like the main street in Mold you drove through make perfect sense. But there's stretches of road with no houses that are 20mph. There a lot of roads like this in North Wales because of how spread out a lot of rural areas are.
20 in most residential areas makes total sense IMO, havign lived in london a few years now it often feels strange goign 30 in similar area, not to mention how much quieter 20 is vs 30 for residents. That said I think Wales has gone a bit OTT with the role out of the rule, as we can see from some parts of the video, that one at 12:00 is a bit nuts at 20, that road has been designed for a higher speed
20mph limits might be appropriate in built-up urban areas, but then we find we're rarely able to do more anyway.. Applying them to open roads is a complete nonsense and as you discovered, it's not even clear on many roads as to when the limit changes leaving motorists at risk of fines and penalty points.. As for the emissions aspect, I recently found myself on a country road on the outskirts of West London, 2 miles of wide, mostly straight, tree-lined country road, no intersections, very low risk section of roadway.. and a 20mph limit with cameras.. insane. Later, having returned to civilization, I performed a simple test: Drove 2 miles at 30mph..: 3rd gear / 1500 rpm / 4 min to complete the distance. Total Engine Rev = 6000. 20mph...2nd gear / 2000 rpm / 6 min to complete the distance. Total Engine Rev = 12000. Exactly twice the emissions at 20mph.
Precisely! For a similar emissions reason, I think, is when HGV's for a while were limited to 40 mph instead of 50 on single carriageways, and most vehicles in this category struggle to do this in higher gears, causing much more emissions. This law still applies in Scotland, though.
I was in S Wales in late August & there were no 20 limits on through roads in any of the towns & villages I drove through. Every junction off it into a residential or industrial area was 20 though. Has this been mis-represented or have all the areas I drove through been changed back to 30 already?
Emissions are not directly related to revs. A modern engine - and "modern" in this context means "anything with fuel injection and a computer brain", so virtually every ICE vehicle on the roads today - does not burn a fixed amount of fuel per revolution. Otherwise, your fuel economy would also halve doing 20mph. Is that the case in your experience?
@@BlazeFirereign OK.. I've no intention of boring people to death with trivia regarding gasflows etc.. I'm not stating that the emissions would be EXactly double.. but it's definitely in that ballpark.
I think somethings could be learned from France here, both good and bad. There are now a lot of 30kph limits in towns (where 50kph would previously have been the default). These, for the most part, make everyone safer and are widely respected, and this looks to be because sensible people have looked at which roads *need* the lower limit. On the other hand, out of town two way roads all now have a default 80kph limit (where once it was 90) and these limits are, for the most part, resented and ignored, thus making roads that *need* to be limited to 80kph more dangerous because they cannot now be distinguished. So for Wales (or London) setting 20 limits is fine where this is necessary, and most would adhere to them, but setting a 20 limit by default everywhere built up, and for no good reason of road safety, is far less ideal.
As someone who travels 90% of the time on a motorcycle, particularly in London I'm concerned that too much of my time is spent on determining the speed limit, monitoring the speedometer, checking the small signage to determine if the Bus lane is open to me or not and monitoring my mirrors for vehicles travelling very close behind me. I'm concerned that I spend too much time trying to avoid fines and not enough time on my safety and the safety of others, this increase when I'm in areas that I'm not familiar with. I feel I might be missing more immediate dangers.
@@StanleyRestall Do you not find it difficult to maintain 20 mph on a motorcycle? I find it requires almost constant monitoring of the speedometer or my speed will increase to something in the upper twenties without any perceived input of the throttle. I think it's the ability of powerful motorcycles to change speed in an instant that makes this a particular problem. Of course it can be done, but at the cost of other activities like life savers etc, I feel like I am having to compromise on observing what is going on around me and focusing on the speedometer and the personal consequences of even a low speed collision on a bike can be very high.
@@drcl7429 On a recent trip across central London I found this very difficult, the noise,, traffic moving at different speeds all around me, pedestrians everywhere, hordes of cyclist obeying the highway code, just the usual busy city stuff. I also don't know what technology they have deployed there to catch people who wander over the limit! The highest speed I noticed I had creeped up to was 26 mph, on roads like the ones featured in this video I think it is much easier and especially if you are in an area you are familiar with. But in a busy city where everyone is keen to make progress, I felt my time should be spent monitoring other hazards, on a bike its skin and bone, not airbags and crumple zones, focuses the mind a bit more on staying alive.
Bullshit, if you are spending too much time looking at your speedo, that means you keep speeding and are trying to not get caught. I ride bike in London too, and I know that it is 20mph pretty much all over. And the few thoroughfares I use I know the limits by heart.
The issue isn’t that the speed limits are too high, it’s that so many drivers (especially motorcyclists) completely ignore them, or they drive too fast for the conditions. Here in London almost everyone drives at 25-30 mph (when not in queueing traffic…) even though the limit is 20, and they drive so aggressively too.
I live in a busy area, and they implemented a 20MPH zone for the local school. The thing is, during school times, with all the parked car's you would be lucky to reach 20. The problem we now see is that outside of school times, some cars do 20 but are often overtaken inappropriately by impatient drivers, which i think is worse. When we had a 30 limit, we didn't see the overtaking. Yes, there were some drivers that would speed, but they still do now. I really see an improvement tbh.
Interesting to hear your prospective Ashley. As both a car driver and motorcyclist myself I have found 20 zones to be a massive issue in Cornwall. 9 times out of 10 i find myself being tailgated when I stick to the speed limits. I don't think these speed limits are a massive issue when applied correctly, however it seems driver attitudes cause issues. Often i find myself feeling less safe doing 20 MPH because of other drivers than i did when the roads were 30 MPH.
I can't comment on Wales but do cycle and drive in Cornwall which has many 20 zones in villages, I've also seen a few places in Buckinghamshire with 20 zones. I am generally in favour of them and hope that any decisions about them are only based on real evidence and safety, not just opinions of a few impatient motorists.
The decisions are based on firebrand council members on a mission to control the behaviour of their residents rather than provide them services. A directly parallel issue is the way some local councils reduce the frequency of bin collections, as if that would reduce the amount of rubbish people generate.
In France a lot of villages have a red lights along the main road, timed to turn green if you keep to the speed limit in that section (which can be 50kph/30mph or 30kph/20mph - note for pendants: I'm approximating!). A sign at the start tells you so.
I’ve heard that Spain has that in some places as well. Brilliant idea, especially around schools and shops etc. There is a school near me on a long straight road and some of the speeds cars travel past is nuts. Even with 20mph lights flashing.
@@craiglang3492 they also have loads of "shared use zones" where there are no pavements and pedestrians are on the "road". The pedestrians have priority and the drivers are very polite and patient. Saw this in Spain and Italy (Rome especially)
Welcome to my world, M. Neal! The owner's manual happily informed me, after I bought the current car, that the cruise control will refuse to operate below 21mph. I understand the engineering difficulties that there would be to make it work for a wider speed range, but it does mean that like you I don't get the convenience of letting the robot keep to the speed limit in the 20mph areas.
Good video: In Wales after a national default 20mph urban/village limit was implemented a year ago, some of the official figures are: ☼Speeds are down by 4-6mph ☼Casualties are down 29% ☼Insurance claims down 20% ☼Insurance companies are setting lower premiums - £50 less for average driver
for me it's not the limit but the mindset, I like the 20's in towns and villages up here in Scotland. Another issue I see is that of I'm bigger than you with certain types of cars. Nice video
I think there has been an awful lot of misinformation in the press (who depend on car advertising) and social media (surprise!) 20mph limits in residential areas makes perfect sense and encouages residents and children to walk more. I don't have objection to that so long as it's sensibly implemented.
@@Emotional_Support_Twink I don't know, I wasn't around then but maybe you can tell us... Was everything else the same back then? Same number of cars parked obscuring views? Same number of cars driving? Same driving standards? Same size and type of cars (SUVs around when you were a teenager 100 years ago?) with the same blind spots? Were 5,000 people dying each year in traffic accidents back then? Are you objecting to driving at 29 in a residential area? On what basis? Does it make a huge difference to being able to do 30 (which most people will treat as a target not a limit, and many more will treat as a floor)?
It's about perspective, 20 mph is almost impossible to kill someone, accidents happen all the time. Now, 30 mph you have some serious dangers. Also, you have to remember the mentality of the few who cause real danger, mostly boy racers, if you leave it at 30, inevitable they'll be going 40-50 most of the time they can get away with it. I would also say on a motorbike your chances of death goes down. A lot of us drive and cycle and even dropping from 20mph to 15mph on a bike makes a massive difference. Lastly, think about being a pedestrian or bus user, think how long it takes to get anywhere in that, now, imagine going 20mph in a car or motorbike, I know which one I would prefer.
All new cars have a warning chime or other device to warn when you go over the limit. The more people who get used to the 20mph limit the more automatic it will become. Same as keeping to any other limit. What I like about this channel is it reinforces that driving is a skill that can always be improved upon. Rarely are people as good drivers as they think they are.
“The bigger picture is we've lost the ability to drive to the conditions (not just weather but junctions / road surface / type of vehicle), we’re now transfixed on the speedo in case there are cameras or vans ready to issue a fine. Plus the automated car systems are too easy to rely on. Speed doesn't kill, inappropriate speed to the conditions kills.” - Another commenter on here
I live in a town called Risca which is a few miles north of Newport in south Wales and I have no objection to 20mph limits in the right places such as town/city centres, near schools and hospitals but the way the Welsh government has gone about setting these limits is absolutely disgraceful and without thought towards common sense. There are many roads that used to be 40mph passing through places with 4 or 5 houses in the middle of the countryside that are now 20mph and serves no purpose. In other places, you can have speed limits change 3 or 4 times within the space of 100 yards. It's of no help whatsoever! And honestly, the ones who speed through the 30 limits are not slowing down one bit for the 20's and they don't care as they won't get caught. If it was about safety then the government should look at others ways to reduce accidents and casualties such as speed cameras at every single school and being more proactive in catching the ones using mobile phones while driving. Let's see what happens with the figures...
I have some serious concerns with the 20 MPH speed limits, 1st of, you are a professional driving instructor and on the bike, you struggled to keep your speed to the limit, so that is the 1st point. I have been driving for many years, I consider myself to be a quite good driver & always keep a good awareness of what is going on around me, but I know, at 20mph, my concentration levels on driving are going to be virtually 0. I can see so many more people grabbing their phones for something to do whilst they are bored at 20 MPH. Now more importantly, my main car, like many others is a diesel, at 30 MPH I can easily run in 4th gear & run at virtually idle speed when driving. At 20 MPH, I am stuck in 2nd gear, higher revs, which means, engine is not running as efficiently and also kicking out more emissions than it would at 30. So Im using more fuel & causing more harm to the environment. We live in an age where we have to be more environmentally conscious, this goes against that. Are we going to actually going to put the speed restrictions on bicycles & make sure all road users stick to the same limits?
@@ashley_neal Are you advocating that people ignore them or get a 3rd party GPS for speed readout? I doubt it. People have to use what is in the car. I know my speedo is about 3 mph over at 20mph which given the current fine leeway might mean I could drive at 27 as reported by my speedo - madness. This means that many people slavishly stick to the speedo value which exacerbates the "slow" feeling since that drop by another 10-15% is really noticeable.
@@ashley_neal hopefully your speedo at 30mph is 10mph off (where you missed the 20mph signage). Might want to adjust the ego with some of these responses Mr Neal.
As a civil engineer, I have been aware of 'shared space' road designs (originated in the Netherlands) for many years, and this is the origins of the 20 mph limit in the UK. Shared space is great in purely residential areas (such as housing estates with just local traffic) and, as such, I think the 20 mph limit works well in most (relatively quiet) residential areas (although there are concerns from the blind and partially sighted community about shared space, which need to be addressed). Where 20 mph becomes a problem is on main (A and B) roads, as traffic can be much heavier. Drivers become frustrated, but at the same time pedestrians become complacent. I have seen a few 'near misses' where drivers were closer to 30 mph and pedestrians stepped out. You also get absurd situations, such as when I was riding my motorbike on the A466 through Llandogo. As I approached the limit I caught up with 2 racing bicycles. By the end of the limit (I stuck to 20 mph) the bicycles were about 1/3 mile ahead of me! They certainly would have caught out any pedestrians who assumed traffic would be going about 20 mph (not that there are many pedestrians in Llandogo). I would keep limits to 30 mph on main roads, and ensure good pedestrian crossings are available where needed (other than in very pedestrian heavy areas, such as close to Tintern Abbey, where 20 mph would be sensible for about 1/4 mile).
Just because it's an A road should in no way dictate the speed that you go at. In Abergavenny the A40 goes through and there are many areas when even when the limit was 30, it was safe to do only 20. Going at 20 all the way through makes more sense as you aren't constantly changing speed up and down and as Ashley showed at the beginning of the clip, it gives pedestrians and other motorists a lot more time to plan and act.
@@johncranna9427 Thanks for the comment. Whilst I agree to a point, the trouble is that although many will keep to 20 mph, a minority will do 30 mph or more. This of course leads to more risk to pedestrians, as they are not expecting that speed. Far better to keep to 30 mph and enforce it (i.e. speed cameras, police officers)! I would however agree with the 20 mph limit in parts of Abergavenny, as roads are narrow and have lots of pedestrians.
@@johncranna9427 I think the point is that powered vehicles have a speedo, others don't and can speed through the zone and become a danger to themselves and others as its easy to not see bikes you don't expect them to be so much faster than cars. What I would say is that A roads should be of a standard suitable for high speed travel, and most towns have been bypassed for this reason. What I find annoying is where people build houses along rural A roads, and then the speed limit gets dropped from 60 to 30. It wouldn't happen on a motorway, so why don't councils demand that houses need a non direct or suitable entrance to the A road.
1 In those 20 zones they want you doing (indicated) 19-20….not 21-24 2 I can engage my cruise control at 20….thats the lowest it will activate…however once activated, I can manually adjust it as low as 18….on the flat it’s pulling about 1,100revs and down an incline sounds like a very subtle J brake on a truck as the cruise uses the engine braking effect….but this only holds the car back to a point…on steeper grades, I have to apply the brake. This car is petrol-automatic CVT if anyone is wondering. So yes, generally it can do the 20s very well….but not for everything. 3 I imagine in a manual car, you’ll be in between gears at 20…depending on the cars gearing…..prob creating more pollution than driving at 30 4 I also have both manual & automatic speed limiters….ISL. the manual one is self explanatory. The ISL is 1st generation so only reads speed signs….theres no link to an online map system. So if it misses the speed signs or hasn’t seen one for a while, it no longer knows what the speed should be. Trees etc overhanging signs are common here & it can’t cope with that. Both systems are options and are OFF by default…tho the ISL always attempts to read the speed signs & display the speed on the dashboard but it’s only advisory-it doesn’t restrict the speed. When in use, both limiters take the power away from the gas pedal just before you hit the speed limit….feels as if the car is seriously broken. I can’t override it temporarily by flooring it…or kickdown….that doesn’t work on mine. I have to switch the limiters off with the steering wheel toggle button…..at least it’s not on a touch screen! Like the cruise control, both speed limiters will engine brake and retard the engine going down hills….but like cruise, it only works for gentle declines…any steeper and it gives up…..u feel it disengage-but it will shout at me with a warning sound & graphic…APPLY BRAKE NOW! This situation also happens when going from say a 50 into a 30 zone….the system can’t engine brake enough or quickly enough. *I don’t generally use the speed limiters but having the roads max speed always on the dashboard is useful*
20mph limits have made a positive difference where I live in south Wales, but it also seems to have emboldened a lot of idiots intent on doing 30, 40 even 50mph. Getting overtaken on residential 20mph roads happens a lot more often now. If people actually stuck to 20mph I'd feel safe enough to ride my children to school.
Many years ago, one of the first 20Mph limits I'd seen was in Ascot. Just coming out of the zone a speed camera caught me for 23Mph in a 20 zone. There's a lot of places around the UK that I feel SHOULD be 20Mph but aren't and many that are 20Mph that really shouldn't be. In London, 20 zones tend to encourage people pulling out in front of you as they "know" you can stop.
There seemed to be only 2 roads on the video where 20mph was a realistic limit, the town centre at round 13mins and the country lane at the end which I'm guessing was a 60mph road, the rest should be put back to 30mph. The blanket limit doesn't seem to be justified on the vast majority of the roads you rode on, wide and straight, open junctions, properties s et back from the road, hardly any pedestrians and then randomly going back to 30mph when the road is the same, as in the industrial estate type road at the end of the video. They've made a proper mess of what could have been a positive step to increase road safety where 30mph is too fast, instead it's a confusing mess hotch potch of limit changes.
My only thought re 20mph limits is that speed limits alone can not compensate for bad or inattentive driving, which is what causes many accidents. The reduced speed might reduce any injuries if a collision occurs, but I would like to see much more emphasis on improving driving standards. Keep up the good work.
The town that I most often drive in is Swansea to see friends. With few exceptions the main roads I use are 30 until I turn off into minor roads. The main roads that are 20, it's reasonable. I think it's excellent. Cardiff had lots of 20mph limits anyway before this came in, but some towns have not implemented the exceptions correctly (e.g. Wrecsam) so you find yourself driving down a wide road with no houses, no pedestrians, no cyclists and it's 20, which is frustrating. But then I have a car with speed limiter. Set it to 20 when you pass the signs and compliance is easy.
Personally, I have no problems with 20 limits, but I don't live in Wales, and where I now live, there are very few. Where I have encountered them in England, I found myself subject to continual harassment for driving at that limit. It was good to see so many drivers just knuckling down and dealing with them properly. There is a problem with most modern vehicles of sticking to the limit; it's very easy to quickly go over, but I've always used a speed limiter myself, which lessens the risk - except on down-hills or if I forget to engage it. At 20, playing the percentage game gives a far smaller margin before hitting prosecution levels (and of course, 1 mph above any limit is strictly illegal). Ten percent of a smaller number gives a smaller number. My understanding was that the same law applied in the whole of the UK, that the default in town was 30 mph in town, and I noticed that the 20 limits in your clip had repeaters, not the converse. However, the gov uk website makes an exception for Wales, so perhaps 20 is the default and doesn't need to be marked with repeaters. Whether they achieve their goals remains to be seen, but the data will show that, not opinion.
I can't comment on the efficacy of 20mph limits everywhere however a direct comparison between Cardiff and London is easy to do - in Cardiff everywhere is 20 so you can focus on reading the road, traffic and pedestrians. In London every street changes between 20 and 30 with speed cameras everywhere so you end up focusing solely on looking for those little roundels and not seeing other signs, like bus lanes, directions, priority... it makes it far too easy to miss an important sign or a pedestrian or a cyclist or a bus pulling out, whereas in Cardiff you can sit at 20 and focus on the hazards around you, knowing you're not going to get an angry HGV steaming up behind you expecting you to be doing 30mph for the 50 yards you're allowed to.
This. Consistency is key, when there's no doubt about the speed limit and no pressure from other road users, focusing on everything we need to focus on when driving/riding is so much easier and we do it way better.
@@pg5200 but that does feed in to what Ashley says about becoming complacent, there's a balance to be found and at the moment I prefer the 20mph limits everywhere to the constant chopping and changing of England. And I say that as someone who has been and occasionally still is an absolute speed freak (when appropriate).
@@inyobill Same here in France, and on top of that, we have two different speed limits on roads depending on the departement we're in (80/90 km/h). (Imho 80 is much safer than 90 especially on the 99% of roads with no cycle infrastructure what so ever... And 70 would be even better)
If it wasn't so rushed in the way it was implemented then it would've been fine, there are some roads that becoming 20 have become much safer to drive in (and much safer to live on if you like going on walks). But then there are roads who just never get used as a 20 because they just aren't 20 roads, tonnes of space, long, no turns have no business being 20 outside of a school zone. They haven't really been out long enough to see if they're having a good effect on actual accident/injury/death statistics but I'm not opposed to lower speed limits., I think safety and the most vulnerable road users (pedestrians) should be prioritised and we should work on pedestrianisation. I'd love to be able to walk most places. Anyone who's lived in a pedestrianised place knows it's better.
As a Wales resident, yes - you will see 30 repeaters in Wales if you're in a 30 zone, and you will not see 20 repeaters (I guess you may see the occasional outliers where signs have been left up inadvertently). I habitually drive at 20 on the 20 mph roads and I find that generally people don't overtake me if there is only one lane going in my direction but they do mostly, though not always, overtake me if there are two or more lanes going in that direction. On my Nissan Leaf I have a speed limiter and adaptive cruise control that will both work at a minimum of 20 mph. On 20 mph roads I prefer to use the limiter and keep control of my speed with my right foot, but it backs off the power as you approach and hit 20. You have to still be aware as the limiter doesn't work well on hills. I think they went a bit overboard on the 20 limit. I'm mostly in favour of it, but there are some main roads that they set a 20 limit on, and that causes problems because a lot of people don't stick to that limit, and it's also been bad for bus schedules. I would like to see the rules on what can be faster than a 20 mph road relaxed a bit but not removed entirely and I hope that's what they're going to do. Interestingly, as you mentioned, it is possible to do that speed on a pedal bike (assistance will have cut out at that point on a legal e-bike), and since there is no speedometer on a bike, you can exceed the limit legally; I have done that, though not by much because I'm not fit enough! Hope this helps from a native. :)
@@penmelyn Perhaps I wasn't clear - there's a limit for assistance of e-bikes of about 15 mph, but that doesn't stop you from attaining a faster speed without the assistance of the motor.
In South Wales i found its has been problematic as people have commonly went above this seemingly in protest for the 20 mph speed limit change. Places like Usk, where the road and pathway is narrow prior to the change was 20 mph, now some people go higher when its still 20.
You were doing 24mph most of the time in this video, not because youre reckless or not paying attention, but because it was appropriate. 20mph means you *have* to do 20. At 30, you're probably driving between 20 and 30. You might zone out and do 27 on a straight and the person behind hopefully wont care. If you're doing 15-17, it's far too slow
Yes in street lights assume 20 unless there are 30 or whatever repeat signs. I love the 20 (in most places, there are a few places that don't call for 20 that are but not to worry). I find 20 just more relaxing when crossing the town. I know almost everyone hates 20 with a passion. I can see a lot of benefit. I think there's still plenty to do as a driver, you still have to hold back and weigh up. Obviously there are nutcases who ignore the laws and drive like the are the only ones in the road but that's always the case. I feel like flow might be improved as 20, fewer people are rushing into hazards and tight junctions etc etc. I don't find them a problem, I find them great. Towns are small and there are great roads to (safely) enjoy out of town.
They make sense in some areas, however I've driven from a 60mph road, into a 20 mph with no warning, not only does that give me very little time to react, but no one sticks to the speed around you! The amount of bumper riding, or dangerous overtaking is insane, the scheme is clever in really busy built up areas where there is likely to be unpredictable pedestrian traffic, or dangerous junctions where by views are restricted. But 20mph as a blanket is stupid and moronic.
Having a 20mph limit on that first roundabout interchange 2:15 is quite frankly ridiculous. Also, it makes it harder for slower accelerating vehicles to join the dual carriageway - as they have to stay at 20mph until they've gone past the NSL sign on the slip road and then try and accelerate up the slope - as opposed to carrying a higher speed off the roundabout.
Thats what an acceleration lane is for however and if your vehicle is unable to use said acceleration lane effectively such that you need to "carry speed" onto it from a roundabout, you're likely driving something unfit to be on the road, or have overloaded your vehicle beyond its legal maximum weight.
Good point ! Considering most cars can't do 160mph, that would effectively make villages a no go area for most motorists, and therefore make villages safer with very little traffic.
Speed limits on Wales, there is a lot of confusion about this as if you miss the 20 sign you could be in trouble as there are no Repeater signs or very few . The spacing of the lamp posts mean nothing as the type of roads you drove on can be 20 30 or 40 MPH. There is no way to tell, the roads you drove could have been any of the above limits if you did not see the sign. You were driving at a time when there was very little traffic but if you were to drive on normal working days you would see when trying to pull out of a side turning how difficult it can be with the traffic traveling at around 20. The vehicles start to bunch and it can take some time to get on to the main road. If you need to travel through Wales your travelling time will increase and if you are driving a goods vehicle with a Tachograph it could mean missing your delivery slot. Some busses now miss some stops as a result of timetable changes due to these speed limits. The vehicle I drive on business does not like to travel at 20 in third gear so it can mean sometimes doing 15 in second gear as 20 is to fast for second and too slow for third. I see can in your video that you do not like 20 as most of the time in the 20 zone you were between 21 and 24 and went up to 25 at one point. I think you should do a run in South Wales on a school week day in a light goods vehicle and then you will see the real effect of the 20 MPH limit.
Thanks for this video.I enjoy driving more at 20mph and at times feel pressured by people behind. Some even blast horns. In the urban environment it makes a more pleasant area as pedestrians or cyclists can feel less threatened. On my motorbike I will often activate my brake light to give rear drivers a signal rather than using the gears to slow down. It was interesting to see that you are comfortable going 24 at times and let's me off self flagellation 😮
They introduced 20mph limits all around were I live and as a result my fuel consumption has gone way up. Reason being (besides the congestion they created) is that I drive an automatic. At 30mph it slots quickly into 4th and that means the car potters along at 1200rpm but at 20mph it resolutely stays in 2nd at 1700rpm thus burning more fuel. From an environmental point of view 20mph limits are an own goal. Not as bad as simple maths would indicate because the load is different but quite noticeable.
I drove to Wales not long ago and didn't have a problem with it in the slightest, most people seemed to stick to it - as many as who stick to 30mph in England. Lot of the criticisms seem based on hypotheticals and edge cases whilst the actual evidence overwhelmingly shows the change has led to safer roads for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians (plus fewer insurance claims which should in theory lead to lower insurance rates for motorists (insurance companies permitting, lol)). I'm sure there's a road here or there where it'd make more sense to be a 30mph, but then there's probably just as many (or more) national speed limit roads which should be 40/50s... In all they're just objectively the right thing most the time and a minor inconvenience in pursuit of safety in the remainder (like so much of driving - seatbelts, traffic lights etc).
The thing is that 20 slows everyone down. Its not actually necessary for everyone to stick to the limit to slow the traffic because everyone generally has to stick to the speed of the slowest driver
A blanket change in speed restrictions from 30mph to 20mph will only lead to more drivers looking mainly at their speedometers, instead of looking mainly at the road ahead. Drivers who speed in 30mph zones will continue to do so in 20mph zones regardless. In your video you seemed to be travelling above the speed limit in 20mph zones for most of the time, so I can only assume that instead of checking your speedometer you were guessing your speed and this is why you found the 20mph speed restrictions a non event.
You need the correct limit for the correct location in order to allow for human nature. Artificially low limits cause frustration and when frustrated people will start to behave in inappropriate ways …… because they are human. It is a well known fact that just by making something illegal does not stop it from happening and to think otherwise is absurd. All you need to do is look at the revenue collected from speeding fines in the UK to find evidence that they know full well that reducing speed limits does not make people slow down, ‘Speed cameras rake in £391million from driving fines in just five years’ [Extract for the Express news article] *they want your money* To slow people down you need to change the road layout, the subconscious mind must perceive a reason as to why a reduction in speed is required.
Try to remember there is a place to the north that's had 20 mph limits for a while now. Some make sense, others don't. It's a mindset thing. Getting out of the habit of doing 30 is the problem. Remarkable how many ignore or don't see the 20 limits. Similar to the flashing school signs.
20 limt. First roundabout...24mph. Even in the intro. above the 20mph limit consistently. It is a stupid concept to have a blanket 20mph limit. You can be passed by an e-bike which casn legally exceed the speed limit as they do not apply. in London I HATE the stupid 20mph dawdlers in 30mph limits, because they do not know what to do. Overtook a guy the other day, in a 30mph limit, without exceeding it. Idiot swerved to try and block me. Too many drivers are too badly informed. I absolutely agree with applying 20mph limits around schools or shopping areas where it can improve safety. But not everywhere they have put them. Specific targetted areas would highlight the hazards. Blanket limits just mean everyone is forced to crawl. Or just ignore the speed limit. Which in practice, is what I see.
It's easy to check on your GPS-enabled sat-nav or device. My speed limiter is usually a few mph higher than the limit, so set to 63 for 60, not because I don't want to obey the limit, but because 60 indicated is more like 57 actual. This is well-known. I do however, often check that I'm not going over 60 GPS. It works the same at lower limits, but the error is smaller.
@@ashley_neal that is a poor excuse, especially from a driving instructor. Would you tell your students that 'its ok, the speedo reads fast so you can go a bit over'? I wouldn't have thought so. You should stick to the limits that the vehicle's own equipment reports. It's ok trying to say "But my SatNav says I was only doing 20" because that won't work if pulled by the police. Believe me I know, because it's happened to me in the past. I've seen in some of your other replies that 'you've mentioned before that the speedo reads over' and I'd like to take a moment to quote my PCV driving test examiner from when I failed because of a fault with the buses crash gearbox... "I know it was the vehicle, but in my view if there's a defect with the vehicle then it shouldn't be on the road". All this is besides the point though, my own vehicle is a modern '24 plate economical petrol-engined car. It has a feature where it 'suggests' what gear you should be in depending on the speed it's travelling at and the torque requirements it is experiencing at any given time. At 30mph it 'suggests I should be in 5th gear whereas at 20mph it suggest 3rd gear as 4th doesn't have the required torque. This means my engine revs are higher in 3rd at 20mph than they are at 30mph in 5th. Also take into account that 1 mile at 30mph takes 2 minutes yet the same mile at 20mph takes 3 minutes, this means that my vehicle, per mile, is pumping out more emissions for an extra minute. I agree with 20mph zones where necessary, but blanket 20mph zone coverage is ridiculous, especially in a culture that keeps screaming about 'the environment'
Firstly, Ashley, brilliant seeing you on a motorbike, first time seeing you on one.. Personally, unless it's on certain restricted areas, 20mph is a terrible idea, I personally think the reason ie to get us out of our vehicles, certain vehicles don't like and adjust well at permanent 20 mph all day..
You might want to blur your speedo. You were mostly over the speed limit and accelerating towards national speed limit sign instead of once you pass it. You'd be really critical if these clips were sent in to you and I know you like to be fair
@ashley_neal surely you should have stuck to the speedo as many normal drivers would. If many drivers think their speedo is accurate then its not unfair to expect people going 16-18 thinking its too slow when they were used tho going 26-28?
@@illegalopinions4082 in the UK speedometers are NOT allowed to under read the vehicle speeds, most have around 5-8% over read, hence why google maps might say 48mph while your speedo says 50. But still, a driving instructor should know this and his response of "I'vE eXpLaInEd My SpeEdO bEfoRe" is pretty immature. Either way the speed LIMIT is a LIMIT not a TARGET. Side note - Most cars i've owned wont allow cruise to be used below 20mph?
@@gavindawson3108 I don't think mine activates below 20 either. I will add that just because the council put a limit in doesn't make it right either. Using the logic of "it's a limit and not a target" we could just have unrestricted roads and punish people who cause harm for not driving sensibly. People should be exercising judgement and driving as the condition suits, which is why Ashley wasn't staying at 20 or below. He didn't stay there because it's silly to drive like that.
Honestly, having drove in Wales a bit, i think the 20mph seems to be well placed, they tend to only put them in busy built up areas and think there a good idea. I also think in a speeding sense it also works because people who do spped dont tend to do over 10mph over speed limit, now, remember that advert about the mortality rates in car crashes at 30 vs 40, so people speeding in a 20 are actually more safe than someone speeding in a 30, in regards to that logic.
as someone who lives in wales, it's a no, the 20 mph is basically everywhere inc places it really shouldn't be for traffic flow, but then it's not in one place that it really should be due to very high foot traffic area, but there's no houses there and thus isn't 20 but 30.
The main reason for 20 MPH speed limits, is that a pedestrian hit at 20 MPH is less likely to be killed or permanently disabled than a pedestrian hit at 30 MPH. However, it's not just speed that is a problem. Car mass is a problem. And too many people have been talked into buying heavy SUVs that are not just heavier, but also have features like bull-bars, instead of crumple-zones that protect a pedestrian hit by the vehicle. As we switch from lower, lighter and safer vehicles, where a child running into the road gets thrown onto the bonnet of the vehicle and maybe breaks their legs, to higher, heavier and more dangerous SUVs, where the centre of mass of the SUV slaps the kid in the chest and then they are thrown under the vehicle, the typical injuries from vehicles going at 30 MPH increases and the monitoring of injuries is going to push governments to respond with lower speed limits. Like you said, if you rode at 30 MPH, but slowed down to 20 MPH for junctions, you would be safer. Likewise, if drivers automatically slowed down when they saw a parked car or pedestrians on the pavement, they would be able to respond to a person tripping and stumbling sideways into the road. Things would be good. Unfortunately drivers are not all taught to have your "solve the problem of other people" approach. There are a lot of people who see the speed limit as an entitlement, rather than the maximum safe speed, for when the road is clear. And the people putting 20 MPH signs up are trying to deal with the people who will edge the top of whatever speed limit applies. Even you were struggling to stay under 20 MPH. And if a good driver like you is struggling, I suspect the 20 MPH zones have a lot of people doing 23 MPH or 25 MPH. But that means we don't have kids going to hospital after their chest or head got smashed by the front of an SUV with bull-bars at 35 MPH. I don't honestly see the police handing out speeding tickets for people driving at 21 MPH or putting people in jail for going at 29 MPH in a 20 MPH zone. But, if we have a few less children spending the rest of their life in a wheelchair, because they saw a friend on the other side of the road and forgot to do the Green Cross Code, that will be good.
Few pedestrian accidents are an impact at full pelt. Most collisions in a 30 are actually nearer 20. Far more important than inappropriate speed limits is the poor brakes on cars. Cheaper versions of the Nissan Quashqai and Ford Puma have bloody drum brakes. How is this legal? How are cheap Eastern tyres with stopping distances 20% worse than others legal?
As someone who works in frontline emergency services in Wales, I fully support them. I have noticed a reduction in collisions and in serious injury in collisions that do happen. Many of our rural villages have no footpaths and lots of tourists. 20mph makes it safer for everyone.
I looked at the longer term numbers from a bunch of areas (such as Brighton and Hove) which have implemented 20 MPH schemes, beyond the 3 years they usually cover in the study of the 20MPH scheme. In most cases the reduction only holds up for the first 1-2 years - partly due to the ever increasing number of road users. One factor seems to be an increase in cyclists being seriously injured or killed - probably because these schemes encourage a moderate increase in people cycling without actually providing a substantially safer overall environment for cycling - in fact trying to pass a cyclist while trying to adhere to the speed limit in a 20 can be more dangerous than in a 30 where the manoeuvre can be carried out quicker and cleaner.
@@Rroff2 it's not inherantly 'has an incident occured' but more the severity. If a pedstrian is struck by a car at 20mph their injuries are likely going to be a lot less severe than at 30mph
I am unsure why there is thing about 20mph in Wales. There are many 20 limits elsewhere (everywhere?) My irritation is the randomness of the implemantation. take local lane built up area 30 school area 20 (estate off this lots of pedestrians and children from the school and other times 30 ??) slightly winding section 20 long straight 20 right angle bend then windy section 20. randomly becomes 40 through right angle bend and narrow section 40 later bult up area 30 past school still 30. You know it makes sense!
As a delivery driver in Wales, it's easy. No problem at all. I don't know what all the fuss is about. I'd say it's been generally well implemented, with just one or two exceptions that could perhaps be revised back up to 30mph, and better signage. Some people say they hate it and see it as an inconvenience... except if it's the one outside their house. Go figure. Since it's introduction people have started to speed up a bit in my experience, a few more speed cam vans would knock that on the head... But generally I think speeds have slowed, if perhaps not to 20, but maybe 25/26, whereas before people were doing 35/36 in the 30s. 36mph to 26mph could be a pedestrians life saved.
But you haven't done a survey about how people feel about speed limits on their road, so it's really just speculation on your part. I suspect people who live on roads with 40 mph speed limits are less bothered about people doing 40 mph on their road than you suggest.
@@undeniabletruth-HIT That's zealot rationale. You can't save the world through ever-increasing rules and regulations. If we were truly concerned with pedestrian lives, we would ban driving altogether, as it kills. But it would not be practical to do that, so we accept risk to a reasonable degree.
@@goodyeoman4534 And reasonable can never be clearly defined, it is a simplistic, individualist notion that one political entity is capable of generalising rules en masse which gradually become socially accepted
As people can see by the responses to my post this issue really does bring the idiot out in people for some reason. I just say, if you don't like it you can lobby your MP to have it removed, but only on the road you live on. Why should you dictate the speed limit in villages you commute through because you feel it's an inconvenience to you? If you can get enough neighbours together and lobby to get the speed limit outside your doors lifted back up to 30mph fine. I bet not one of them will change, because it's my hunch that communities probably prefer cars going slower where they live.
I think that making it 20mph nearly everywhere is likely to foster a "routine" approach to the 20 limit and Ash's comments about why that's the case (having reduced interaction with your vehicle/little to do) make perfect sense. Moreover, I feel that if there are 20 zones in places where it is logical and your average driver (whatever that is) can think "yep, I can see the reasoning for the low limit here", then it is far more likely to be obeyed and have the desired affect on driving style than a blanket limit where there are many places that a driver might think "what's the point of the 20 limit here." There are a lot of 20 zones in housing estates and other built up areas with lots of pedestrians and/or junctions near where I live and I have no problem with that. However, making areas 20 just because "that's what we do" doesn't seem to be a great approach to me. So, I think that the legislation review is a good idea and I hope that they come up with a sensible solution. As an aside, I it is perhaps worth pointing out that, for much of the time in this video, even Ash's speedo was reading 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 in a 20 zone. Ash also said a few times "oops, a couple over" before slowing (and then going back up to an indicated 25 quite soon after on one occasion). Ash spent very little of his time cruising at a steady 19/20. In contrast, when he was in a 30 zone, I don't think I saw his speedo above 29 or 30. I know that speedos over-estimate, and Ash probably knows how much his bike over estimates, or he may have a more accurate GPS running. So, this is not intended as a criticism of Ash. However, I think it does show that sticking to 20 or less, as indicated by your vehicle, is actually difficult. A quick squirt of gas after pulling away or emerging and you're over 20 already. I know that I spend too much time checking my speedo when I'm driving through a 20 zone.
The best way to foster a habit of driving with little speed adjustment is to make the speed appropriate for the road. There's a reason virtually every other country in the world has the average residential street at 30mph or the equivalent 50kph - it feels right. At 20 you're continuously checking to make sure you're not going over, and wondering why you're crawling along a straight empty road. At 40 you know it's too fast intuitively because the road is narrow, pavements on the side, pedestrian crossing up ahead, no centre reservation, etc. Here in NZ the previous government started on the Wales road of going down to 30kph (just under 20mph) in all residential areas, down from 50, by blanket-pasting 30 zones all over anywhere vaguely close (1-2km) to a school. There was no application of any kind of logic or per-case analysis, just blanket coverage. Then the new government came along and applied some pragmatism by saying it will be only within 600m of a school and at school pick up / drop off times only (with a sensible allowance either side) - 👍, perfect. But then at the same time they're like, let's make the speed in areas with loads of pedestrians 40kph... 👎. *That's* where you want the 30 limit, or even 20kph. It's all about matching the speed limit to the road, and none of our governments can seem to get it right. Meanwhile, they should add way, way more pedestrian crossings - and put the light pole out of the way! It is very frustrating trying to find a safe place to cross the road (and no, reducing the speed limit is not the answer to that; it will just encourage more dangerous jaywalking). And so many times I've had drivers not stop for me, or as a driver I've missed that there was someone waiting to cross, because the light pole obscured the view of me/them waiting.
I was very interested to see this video, as Buckley is my home turf and we were one of the 'pilot' towns for the 20 mph rollout. A couple of points from your ride: once you'd been through the 20 then noted the change to 30, you carried on up to the traffic lights and turned right, continuing at 30 but querying if you'd missed something. You had. The limit drops back to 20 just after the entrance to the Industrial estate on your left (5:50-ish on the vid), but the signs are completely obscured by foliage and impossible to see. Point 2 - while you say that traffic seemed well behaved, it's not when you do that run the other way i.e. down the hill. I've been overtaken by cycles, tailgated by buses and learned a few new hand signals!
I hate these 20 limits. I find it makes people impatient and in more touristy areas, fewer people stick to them and just do 30. On one of the main roads near Rhyl that I was on, there were numerous people ignoring 30 signs and continuing to do 20 with a huge train of cars behind them. It managed to double a 5 minute journey, too. I feel there is much more to be gained through proper education of road use, proper enforcement and better infrastructure than doing this. It feels like it's pandering to the lowest common denominator and thus lowering the bottom standard of driving. Perhaps there's a chance to improve the driving test for modern times and make it harder. If we improve the standard of driving then I think we'd see less accidents nationwide through both a reduction in cars on the road and an increase in driver quality.
Here here ashley. I think its a great idea. If the speed limit is 30, drivers do 35-40. If the limit is 20 they might just do 25. 25 is the average speed that people should be doing in built up areas. If people stuck to the 30 it never would have been changed
@@Squidgeididdly Roads would be assessed by seeing how fast a car could travel based on the width, bends and pedestrian activity, then reduce that speed a bit for safety, so a 30mph you could probably quite easily do 40mph but it's not safe for pedestrians, any more than that you really need to be careful and probably slow down to 40mph at times to not crash. Some roads are for example really narrow with cars parked both side and 20mph is a perfect limit but to just slap a 20mph sign up to replace 30mph zones by default and call it a day is daft really.
@@StanleyRestall If you look at speed camera conviction photos they show people looking at their dashboards, because people see the camera them look down at their speed at the moment when they are approaching an accident blackspot. The point is that this is human nature, if you threaten people with prosecution their attention will become focused on avoiding the prosecution and not road safety. When you are making safety rules and laws expecting people to not follow human nature is naive and negligent. We are not robots, we are irrational creature controlled by things like emotion and primal fears, and our actions are controlled and driven by our subconscious mind more often that actual real time thinking.
I live in Cardiff - I don't object to 20mph where it is sensible - my issue is that the implementation has been ham fisted. For example, there are places where 'distributor' roads were specifically designed to separate pedestrian and vehicle traffic and allow access to residential developments. These roads are wide, clear and designed for 30mph (sometimes 40mph), yet they now have 20mph limits. Similarly, some trunk roads now have 20mph limits in areas where there is very little pedestrian traffic. Of course, we want lower limits around schools, residential side streets, busy high streets and the like, but the current implementation is so bad that people do not respect it.
Spot on mate, I'm on the end of the valleys and there are several important roads that take the majority of traffic that are now 20s, and people overtake like absolute nutters because of those sticking to 20mph. It's also diverted traffic to a much smaller street because people want to avoid the 20mph zone, but this street is narrow and has a lot more pedestrian traffic, and kids use it to walk home from school. I agree with a lot of the principles, but the implementation is shocking
@@Electrodium A friend works for a bus company after the 20mph limit was introduced the average speed on some routes dropped to 4mph so effectively it's faster to walk.
Then by your logic we'd have speed limits constantly changing up and down in a town or village. Makes much more sense to have one speed limit.
@@johncranna9427 we have that with the current implementation because it was done jobs worth numpties
North Wales coast road speed limits fluctuate like the stock exchange thats how i got a speeding fine about 15 years ago@@johncranna9427
I was forced to drive in London recently, and the whole area was a 20 zone. I don't mind driving at that speed in crowded areas, I wouldn't drive at 30 in them anyway. But I found I was constantly looking at the speedo to make sure I didn't creep over the limit, more than I felt comfortable doing. Plus I had a BMW SUV glued to my bumper for 10 minutes until it could overtake and speed off at 40mph.
When I'm driving through a busy area in a 30 zone I can go between 20 and 25mph and never once have to check my speed or take my eyes off the road. It feels much less stressful.
I had to drive in London recently and even some wide dual carriageways were 20mph limits, which were probably 50mph limits not so long ago, You end up with drivers bunched up and lane hogging as they are focused so hard on sticking to the limit and not on general good driving; and then you get everyone else who chooses to ignore the daft limit and blast past at 40mph+, often illegal e-bikes weaving all over the place. I've never felt so vulnerable and not in control of my driving as I've done in a long time.
@davem9204 if limits are set too low some people will just ignore them. Then when one limit is ignored it becomes natural to ignore them all.
I drove and rode in London in the summer and found it much better with the lower limits. Far better on the bike certainly, but even driving was less of an issue. People seem less pushy (generally). Especially in London where there are so many junctions and traffic, reducing to 20mph has little or no impact on journey times. I don’t understand why people have their eyes glued to a speedo at 20, but not 30. What’s the difference? Either you can maintain a speed or you can’t.
Using cruise control is a great idea, it keeps the car at the speed that you set it at so you don’t have to keep on looking down at the speedo, it also saves fuel as you’re not on the accelerator.
@@WayneTulip-zm9gw and it means you have no engine braking if you want to drop 1 or 2 mph.
Here in the Netherlands we have a decent amount of 30 km/h zones (which is about the same as 20 mph). A lot of them are designed in such a way that it's actually a logical speed to be going, but near me there are a couple that are just straight roads. My observation, as somebody that will always stick to the limit, is that people rarely stick to them and get really impatient if they're behind you, even if it's just a short section (I've regularly been overtaken, right before the 30 zone ends, only for them to drive slower than the 50 limit after it).
Personally I think they have their place (for example in residential areas), as long as the roads are designed for it. If it's just long, straight roads, it actually becomes more dangerous due to impatience.
Who knows what goes through the minds of those kinds of drivers. I've been stuck behind people doing 35-40 on a 60 mph bendy country road. And when they enter a village (30 mph), they stay at 35-40 - so it is most definitely not about safety. They do it deliberately.
30 kph is 18 mph
I often drove my UK car in Belgium and also my Garmin would show the limit around schools in mph.
Agreed. I do wonder if 40 km/h (25 mph) would be a better compromise in those sorts of situations (urban non-arterial non-school/hospital/etc.).
@@thromboid I don't agree that 25 mph would be a compromise. The 30 mph is absolutely fine and should stay as it is. If people break it, punish them. But don't punish those who do obey the speed limit by forcing us to drive at stupidly slow speeds.
@thromboid When I was on holiday in Sweden, I did encounter a good number of 40 km/h roads. It certainly feels like a good in-between speed. Not too fast that it becomes dangerous, but also not so slow that it feels like you're crawling.
Thanks for this video Ashley, very helpful and informative as always 👏🏻
Thank you for your support and generosity 😉
IIRC the main purpose of the 20mph limits is not to protect the people in vehicles; it is to protect people who are not.
thats the problem though isnt it.. where that is an issue. the generally acceptable speed is closer to 20 than it is 30... (unless your driving like a prat and actually doing the speed limit) but as a blanket rule. it has created roads that would otherwise be 30 or 40 limits that never see foot traffic ever.
The main purpose is to generate revenue from fines.... and an attempt to justify it by using safety...
It's just control. There is no rational basis for blanket 20 limits.
@@billyskoda6839 That's why 30km/h limits are being implemented throughout Europe as well, all the scientists showing they are massively safer are all liars.
@@Gazzxyit's not blanket, it's built up areas which by definition are likely to see pedestrians and cyclists. By default it only applies to roads that were 30 before. A 40 road would only be dropped to 20 if someone decided to do that. There may be some larger roads that should stay at a higher speed and that's what they are looking at in the review.
I live in north wales, since the introduction of the 20s quality of driving has drastically gone down, a lot of drivers seem to be zoning out more and getting complacent like you said, using phones whilst driving, people still seem to be bad at judging speeds at junctions to name but a few of the problems.
I’m very much in favour of 20s in relevant areas, all the school areas were already 20s and most of the housing areas so they haven’t really changed, a few bits could have been expanded and I think the balance would have been struck.
It’s also interesting how learner and P drivers confidence seems to have gone down, driving at much lower speeds in 30s/40s and generally driving much more cautiously. I passed 5 years ago and I know from friends that the expectations especially from P drivers haven’t changed much.
60down to 20s round corners have also been dangerous in a few areas and they had to change placing and add increments after accidents though some are still in place, fine if your local but dangerous to the many visitors.
I’ve also seen multiple people, 3 just in the last couple of months, go the wrong way round a major roundabout in the centre of town! Roundabout that’s been unchanged for 15years, can’t say that’s because of this but I’ve never seen it before the 20s 🤷♀️ and all this has been pretty much the same for everyone I’ve spoken to on the subject.
The bigger picture is we've lost the ability to drive to the conditions ( not just weather but junctions / road surface/ type of vehicle ) we are now transfixed on the speedo in case there are camera's and vans ready to issue a fine. Plus the automated car systems are easy to rely on ( now mandatory on new cars ) . Speed doesn't kill Inappropriate speed kills
Or to be pedantic, hitting something/one at speed kills.
I literally just copied and pasted your comment to reply to someone else because it was so well worded
@@Kieran.Robertson Cheers. That's why i follow Ashley's channel as it educates everyone to be a better driver.
@richardlloyd2589 incorrect. The sudden lack of speed is what kills... no one would die if they drove on the m25 continuously at 70mph... for example. Hitting something and suddenly losing that speed instantaneously is what kills.
Driving to the conditions is absolutely the key point. Take for example a straight section of 70mph motorway. Daylight, perfect visibility, dry road, well-kept car and light traffic, you could safely do 100mph. Rain and strong wind, heavy traffic at night, now even 50mph is unsafe. (cf France where the motorway speed limit reduces in the wet)
Speed limits are a crude, simple measure designed for the average person to easily understand what the modal safe speed for the road is. They need to retain that identity - they should not be set based on ideology, nor on a blanket basis. And drivers should remember they never replace the key rule: drive to the conditions.
Just to point out that as you approached into Buckley, you completely missed the 20mph signs. So going up the hill towards the lights before turning right, you were over by 10mph.
This clearly shows that it's overly complicated. It's 20mph, then it's 40mph, then 20mph oh no it's now 30mph.
Regular speed camera location there aswell.
Yea, he was constantly creeping over the 20mph limit (albeit his speedo may over read a bit). You do 22mph in a 20 limit, go past a camera and bingo, fine, 3 points. That’s the trouble and we all know the cameras are placed exactly to catch us in the most awkward or unlikely spots….for Kerr-ching 💷💷💷
@@jfro5867The cameras in Wales don't trigger in a 20 at less than 24, but your point is still valid.
@BennyHarveyBigMan Tell that to all the people who have been done for doing 22/23mph...
@@daijudo Could you evidence an example of this?
As someone who lives in North Wales who passed their test about a month or two before the speed limit changed , I have come to find that way too many roads are now 20 mph that should never have been changed , I'm all for residential , hospitals , schools etc being 20 mph , however long open stretches of road that used to be 40-50mph are now 20 mph , making traffic & driver impatience much worse , if you drive in wales daily you'll come to notice that most people do not drive at 20mph , even the police cars here can be seen driving at 25 - 30 mph , it's mostly tourists and the occasional driver who stick to 20 on the dot
Like I said I agree that certain roads should be restricted to 20 mph , however it was horribly introduced and way too many roads have been affected
Yes spot on. I also live in North Wales and it’s more common to see people going above the limit that not.
Maybe you may come behind 1 car in 10 driving 20mph.
Nope. Only 30mph roads were changed to 20mph, and even then after review by the local authority. No other roads were changed. That was the clear and explicit policy.
As for the tired old 'only schools and hospitals' argument, to be frank, I find the implication that my children and elderly parents are fair game elsewhere to be insulting and alarming.
@@YDysgwrAraf if you think it was just the 30mph roads that got changed I’m afraid it wasn’t , plenty of roads were changed and it wasn’t noted in the policy , as for talking about schools and hospitals , do you not think we should go slower around these areas?? , making everywhere a 20 isn’t the answer , protecting children and the elderly is still important , but that doesn’t mean we need to safe proof all of the country’s roads
@@sw1tch_24 They probably changed the 40 roads to 30 for one day then down to 20!
@@YDysgwrAraf That's just factually incorrect. I know of at least one 40 that became a straight 20.
The fundamental criticism of blanket speed limits is they don’t reflect the characteristics of the road. It makes no sense for an ‘A’ road and a residential street to have the same limit. One should be 30 or 40. The other certainly 20 or less because of the risk to children.
Where I live the Labour council are happy to accept 45-50% compliance. More selective limits would make more sense and probably increase compliance.
There were actual official planning department documents on that topic, especially with the design of road layouts in new housing estates. That was well before the idea of increasing the use of 20 limits, so it was things like pinch points, humps, narrow sections etc, in such a way that it’s essentially automatic with no need to enforce.
The 20 limit only applies to roads that were 30 before. It's not blanket. There may be some roads that were dropped that shouldn't have been and that's what they are looking at in the review.
To highlight one particular segment, the big roundabout at 2:12 - 2:34 Ashley spent most of the above the 20mph limit, up to 20% over. Yes I'm aware that the speedo will be slightly above actual speed, but that's not the point. 20mph limit is fine in specific areas only.
As soon as I saw him approaching that roundabout it was immediately apparent that roundabout is far too big for 20mph to be the appropriate limit.
It's a classic example of where the design isn't appropriate for the speed limit. If you really want people to be doing 20 on that section of road then you need to design for it, for example by making the roundabout a lot smaller with the entrances less sweeping. But of course that would cost money, rather than the badly implemented cheap option they went with.
As a point of interest, Buckley was part of a 20mph trial in Summer 2023 and Liverpool Road (the first road with the 30 sign) was changed to 20 but, after residents complaints, was later changed back to 30 when the default 20mph came in force everywhere. In contrast, initially the main road between Buckley and Mold was initially made an exemption and remained 30mph, but changed to 20 last September despite being more of a main route.
I broadly support the change. The issues which I have with it are largely around implementation: the guidance which Welsh Government gave to local authorities was interpreted very differently in different parts of the country, so you have places like Gwynedd, where there are plenty of exceptions where the 30 mph limit was retained, and places like Denbighshire, where there are barely any roads which were excepted, and there's even a stretch of dual carriageway with a central crash barrier which is 20 mph.
I think the 20 mph limit is appropriate in the vast majority of places where it has been implemented. I live in a medieval market town, which is full of narrow streets, terraced houses, and on street parking. 20 mph feels a lot safer here than 30 mph ever did. The issue is that there are a few roads where it feels excessive, and my feeling is that when you annoy drivers by lowering limits where it isn't really necessary, some will get it into their heads to ignore the limits wherever they go.
So there is room for improvement, and I hope the review will lead to both better guidance from central government and better implementation by certain local authorities.
I live in England and am surrounded by 20 zones. In my opinion they don't work because of other drivers. I get tailgated all the time and have had people get very angry at me for obeying the limit, including overtaking and slamming on brakes.
I find traffic approaches at 20-30-40-50 which makes judging gaps harder.
Applied in the right places I think they could work but over use means they get ignored.
I have a speed limiter in my car and I find it really useful. I don't have to stay transfixed to the spedometer but I do get tailgated all the time. So, swings and roundabouts. Having to manage the people who are protesting going at 20mph by not going 20mph.
I'd like for the fancy motors to have a safety system that makes it impossible to drive too close to the car in front.
The sensors work whilst parking. Active cruise control already measures the distance. Something like a stopping distance warning seems like a thing that could be easily implemented.
A lot do to be fair. I've got an E Class from 2019, so the older (nicer) model and it goes mad if you get close to someone and I don't just mean tailgating. It breaks on its own and everything so I imagine this is fairly common because they certainly weren't optional features and as I say it's not a new car anymore
@@me5969 thank you, to be fair if I'm being tailgated by a Merc it is usually a Sprinter or one of those giant SUV/restaurants people drive or white A classes.
I mean, that sounds awesome.
My collision avoidance system lets me away with tailgating, it flashes and beeps when I get close and I hope not to test that it brakes but doesn't make me stay a safe distance.
The one you have sounds better.
If they don't add a visual onto those huds you see in cars, I don't know what they are even doing. The car can weigh itself and knows when it was last serviced and the road condition.
Thank you very much for explaining. I feel I understand why it's more ... Other brands
It seems a little excessive to have a 20mph limit on a main road through towns and villages, 30 would seem more appropriate with 20mph limit for all of the narrower residential side streets off that main road.
Living in Wales I can honestly say that it encourages cars behind to overtake. Everyone gets right up your bumper when you are in a car. Lots of pressure from other road users
@@TomboTheTornado If there's a line of cars I always seem to be at the front of it, with someone tailgating me! I was overtaken in a 20 limit in Carmarthen last night!
it depends, the village I live in and the nearest town it's impossible to safely go faster than 20 on the main roads even though they're a 30 limit
If folks wouldn't be numbos, these extreme measures wouldn't be necessary.
@@EcoHamletsUKi have been passed by people using turn lanes because i drive only about 3 mph over the limit in village areas (Germany).
Your point about complacency could have been used back when seat belts became compulsory. Did drivers become complacent when thye knew the seatbelt was protecting them? Probably. But making seatbelts legal was a good idea.
The big difference is when you atop in a Welsh town and walk or cycle around. The streets feel massively safer with the cars slowed down. And the stats confirm the roads are safer.
As for driving, the 20 limit is no problem: when driving through Wales, youre never in a 20 for long: most country roads are still 40 or 60 for the most part.
England and Scotland should follow suit.
Equally, people were already complacent at 30, so if they're going to be complacent anyway it's surely safer if they're complacent at a lower speed.
100% this. Your comment nails it scartoons.
People still speed sure, but its 20 something, not 30 something.
My understanding is the default limit is 20mph so anything different would need reminders, the same as we are reminded of 20/40/50/NSL on roads in other parts of the UK
That's all well and good, but my local authority seems unable or unwilling to install/replace repeater signs at the appropriate intervals. Most councils can't handle fixing potholes, so repeater signs are way down their priority list.
Is going 23 on your speedo in a 20 limit a fail in a driving test?
@@123MondayTuesday Depends on how good the instructor is at seeing your speedo from their bike 👍
Unless of course you are talking abour wearing 23 pairs of speedos for your test then I think that is just a fashion fail
That is exactly how it is (or should be implementation is a bit non-standardised). What I find worrying is that Ashley didn't know that as a professional driver, so how are your every day punters supposed to know?
You raise an interesting human factors point that is not often considered. As has been seen in aviation there is a balance between too high a workload and too little a workload. Both can cause problems. Too low a speed may generate an attention deficit. For me a 40mph temporary limit on a motorway due to works can be challenging after a hard day’s grind. Not because it’s hard, but because it’s not and everyone has entered a dull autopilot.
Going into autopilot when driving is extremely dangerous, Ashley has mentioned before about routine and non-routine, you should always drive in a non-routine manner, reacting to what you see and what you can’t see.
@@WayneTulip-zm9gw The problem is that cognitively it’s often a non-voluntary process. This is why having sufficient tasks/processing requirements are important. Otherwise our brains do start to switch off.
Portsmouth has had 20 mph zones on residential roads since 2007. They were the first council in the UK to introduce them. People hardly ever stick to them.
I recall 20mph residential zones in 1998, and I don't know how long they had been there. I think it was in Cheltenham, basically somewhere between Chippenham and Wolverhampton travelling on the old roads to avoid Friday night M5 to M6 fun.
I wonder if the new speed limit will stop the police taking out my barbers in Fratton Road
I am a driver of 40 years and counting and personally I feel much safer as a pedestrian crossing the road in Wales in 20mph zones. The limits are generally observed (up to about 22 or 23 mph anyway) and that's a lot safer for pedestrians. Gives everyone more time to react. Motorists in side roads get more opportunity to pull out safely and generally I feel the limits make drivers act more responsibly and considerately. In most Welsh towns and villages around where I am the actual practical speed limit is only about 20 or so anyway because of parked cars and narrow roads. Good topic for a video Ashley.
I actually find motorists tend to pull out of side roads closer to you with 20 than 30 so actually take more risk not thst I can't deal with them be it at 20 or 30
I have noticed since the 20 came in drivers slowing to let me cross the road which simply didn't happen before unless they were in a queue. I seems to have helped diminish the separation between drivers and everyone else.
Hi Ashley. I passed my theory test 2 days ago and decided to go over to your channel to get some knowledge in before i start my direct access course.
Very awesome to see you on 2 wheels and I'm eager to get back on the road too.
thanks!
You found a quite a good cross-section of 20mph roads there. Some where parking and width make it an aporopriate limit and others where I appreciate the frustration of anyone using more fuel and more time with excelllent vision and virtually empty pavements. There are still places in Oxford where most roads have been 20mph since 2009, where I can find this galling, among many miles of road where few ever exceeded 20 anyway.
The point about complacency and disengagement at 20mph suggests to me that the Welsh government policy may have started from an assumption that this ship has already sailed. If driving standards have dropped, a general lowering of speed where people live is one adjustment worth trying - assuming that's what a default limit achieves.
A lot of comments have already raised the higher emissions in lower gears. This, I think, is more easily explained for more recent 20mph impositions like the Welsh - they are based on the assumption that zero-emission vehicles are the future.
One more thing: my heart lifted when you found the first 20mph limit on a big roundabout at 2:09. That's one blanket imposition I would be in favour of, given the competitive speed circuit treatment of roundabouts still often posted on dashcam channels.
The correct fix for poor driving standards is to improve driving standards, not drag all the competent drivers (the vast majority) down to the level of the worst.
@@almightyhydra I agree. How is that going, would you say?
It's a serious question. I don't think state arbitration of the rights and responsibilities of drivers has ever been so politicised as it is now. I wouldn't propose 20mph or 30mph roundabouts to infantilise drivers, but to underline the fact that they are junctions, not mere sections of high-speed road.
Every speed limit needs to be justified. A 20mph limit past a school or playground makes sense to everyone, but there are plenty of lower limits without obvious reason. A limit that has no obvious reason, is more likely to be ignored, by many. This leads to bullying and impatience, which increase risk. A blanket limit will reduce the effectiveness of any justified limits. A blanket limit, brings contempt.
At 20, many drivers are constantly looking at their speedo, which distracts from the road, where if the limit is justified, their attention needs to be. So these can be counter-productive.
Oxfordshire has laid a blanket 20 over nearly every town and village, making progress anywhere tedious. This also leads to more frequent limit changes, requiring the driver to have to remember what the limit is now. Making driving more difficult does not bring better safety. It leads to more people eventually becoming angry, and more likely to exceed those limits, everywhere, making those places where it is justified less safe. My own road has been designated a 20 limit. It is a cul-de-sac with parked vehicles. Few people travelled along above 20mph, and those that did, still do. It has made no difference, but has spent a lot of our tax money. Meanwhile, potholes flourish.
Most vehicles are geared to be smooth at the European limits. This is why most Peugeots during the 90s to 2000s are happier at 32mph (50kph) than at 30mph. Also why so many people drive at 43mph (70kph) instead of 40. 20 does not equate closely to any usual limit in Europe, so many vehicles will fight. 2nd gear will be too low, and 3rd gear too high, leading to travel at around 23mph.
I'm puzzled as to why we insist on incrementing limits by 10mph. Many places would work well with a 25mph limit. There are many occasions where in a 30 limit, the traffic will travel at 23mph, as 30 is too fast for the conditions. Then people are travelling in 20 limits at 23, because they find 20 so difficult, but 23 easier to maintain smoothly. We need a local authority to experiment with some 25mph limits, and see if that works.
That's a very long justification to act in favour of the bullies. Furthermore, in regard of the assertion "Making driving more difficult does not bring better safety", taking into account the statistics showing the reduction in casualties and vehicle damage, since the 20mph introduction, you are simply wrong.
@@grimsbyhackney479overall road deaths in Wales are UP since 20mph implementation.
Here in NZ our national speed limit is 100km/h (yep, slower than France in the 1960s, but hey). Sometimes the road build isn't great though - what's considered a "state highway" is often more like a B road in the UK - and so reducing to 90 would be sensible. But nah, apparently "people can't tell the difference between 80 and 90" (don't their speedometers work??) so they went for 80 instead. Most patronising garbage I've ever heard. I don't think they had any legit research to back up such a ridiculous claim.
I don’t like cruise control unless I’m on the motorway and I need to give my foot a rest, I don’t like to rely on it so I get lazy and not pay attention. My go to daily so I don’t go over the speed limit, especially in average speed zones, is the speed limiter.
yep, trying to use cruise control in a "working environment" (lots of hazards, relatively speaking) is a waste of time. Just drive the car.
There was already a 20mph limit around schools and hospitals in Wales before the blanket 30 down to 20. This was after the installation of sleeping policemen (speed humps) on most 30mph roads. So now we have humps and a 20mph limit.
A sensible targeted approach seems to be the way to go.
I wish I could avoid driving over sleeping policemen on my way to the store
@@waldolemmer😁
lets put it this way a couple of years ago I was a taxi driver and witnessed a serous incident a car hit a kid, the kid was very seriously hurt. Now speed was a factor it was not the car drivers fault in the sense they were doing the limit the problem was the reaction time the road and the speed all in one. like a fire you take away one element and you don't have a fire the same with car incidences (they are not accidents it implies there is no one at fault) reduce the speed you reduce accidents.
After being a taxi driver in Wales I can also say in the summer who the hell can doing 30 in any of the towns??? but I digress the other main effect my slowing people down is reduce incidences thus reduce strain in the NHS, Police, Fire Service, Social services and many other services that are involved in some of these incidences. I heard a stat the other week which was quite shocking any incidence that involves deaths usually costs between 2-2.2 million pounds if this stat is true or even close if we reduce deaths and injures by even half we could save us the tax payers hundreds of millions which could be spent on upgrading schools, roads and other infrastructure
In 2023 there were 4,348 road casualties reported by police forces in Wales, an increase of 2% compared to 2022 but a decrease of 25% compared to 2019 (prior to the COVID-19 pandemic). Of these casualties:
98 were fatal (2%).
1,028 people were seriously injured (24%).
1,126 (26%) were killed or seriously injured (KSI).
3,222 (74%) had slight injuries.
^^^^^^^
reduce this and we don't need to spend hundreds of millions!
3:30 You mention your cruise control not working. This is a big issue I've heard: my Skoda Yeti will allow CC at 20 but many vehicles will not. In built-up areas CC makes keeping to 20 much easier and gives you more time to look for danger. It's all too easy to exceed 20, especially with modern powerful cars so without CC you need to keep more of an eye on your speedometer.
There is a fundimental problem with blanket 20 mph limits. Your question about the casualty stats demonstrates it very well, because there is a useable reference to these changes. Back in 2012, the government changed the rules allowing councils far greater flexability in the introduction of 20 mph zones, and the number of them increased dramatically in a very short period. The people who should have benifited the most, pedestrians in urban areas, revealed the depth of the problem. Against a background of largely static casualty figures, pedestrian deaths increased every year for the next 5 years, resulting in a 17% increase in that period before they stablised. There were no other factors that I am aware of in that period, that would have affected those figures.
The basic problem appears to be that as you will probaly agree, a driver or rider's ability to react safely to a developing situation, is significantly more important than the speed that they are travelling at. It has been suggested to me (by a leading traffic psychologist), that "20 mph limits make drivers docile, and docile is a bad thing". Driving at 20 mph is, for the best part, boring. The mind wanders, and once is has wandered, it has trouble switching back to the task in hand.
The trouble with 20 mph zone is the take their reasoning from basic physics. The lower the speed, the less the damage and the greater the time to prevent the accident. However, 96% of all traffic accidents are as a result of driver/rider error. The cause of these errors are the complex continual decision making processes of the drivers and riders. THe scientific field of this is psychology, not physics, and this is an under-researched area. There is a quotation that fits 20 mph limits extremely well. "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong." H.L. Mencken.
100% agree.
Psychology has to be looked at. Well put.
Perhaps this could be summed by saying the focus has been on how hitting a pedestrian at 20mph vs 30mph is much safer, without considering the human factors of the speed limit change from 30mph to 20mph and it's effect on the collision happening in the first place.
As someone who lives in Wales this is probably a bad example as you've used rural largely residential/village roads in this video. The main issue to why the 20 mph limit is so controversial is due to the way it was blanket applied to the street light NSL, some roads that should have been made exempt like town/city artery roads, bypass and dual carriageways haven't been and as you can imagine during rush hours the slower traffic flow doesn't help.
There is also some confusion particularly amongst what I guess is a small number of misinformed English tourists to where the 20 limit applies, I'm finding myself constantly stuck behind "Harold & Hilda" who are doing 20 mph on 60 mph NSL's. I think media fanfare has a large part of blame in that, where people take headlines like "Blanket Ban" as gospel and you do get some people doing 20 mph literally everywhere.
Driving is becoming extremely difficult in areas with constant changes in limits. Signs are sometimes obscured with bad maintenance of hedges, etc. We are becoming more reliant on focussing on the speed recognition systems (which sometimes miss changes) and distracted by constantly checking the speedo. These factors together with camera warnings, distract reasonably good drivers concentration on observing the road and surrounding hazards. I don't know what the answer is but I often dread driving through new areas or revisiting places with lots of new signs/restrictions.
I agree. There are random roads in my city that go to 20 mph. I slow down to obey them but still end up doing 25 mph as I feel pressured by cars behind. It just feels pointless and created more trouble than it solves. But that's the nature of arbitrary rules.
I was on a cycling trip in Wales recently and as a cyclist I loved the 20MPH limits. Most of my trip was pretty rural, but I was on a lot of B roads that would wind through many villages, and the lower speed limit just made everything more comfortable as a cyclist. I also did some driving in Wales last year, and personally I didn't see an issue with 20MPH zones, and I'd agree with you it seemed like traffic flowed a little better, but I'm not a regular enough user of Welsh roads to make a proper before and after comparison.
Living in Wales and seeing this on the roads it’s very tough to drive a car. You get a lot of people that want to get up behind you as close as possible trying to force you to go faster or you get people that overtake at speed in a very unsafe manner, it’s very nerve racking to be out on the roads and doing 20 because you really don’t know what the car behind or the one behind that, is gonna do.
I 100% agree. The reality is that 20 is too slow for many roads that are now governed by this limit. And so the reality is you get one person who is sticking to the limit, and then a pile of traffic bunched up behind that person and following closely. Often you will see frustration boil over, with someone overtaking in the 20 zone. This is the lived experience for anyone who lives in Wales and drives these roads on a daily basis.
There are of course some areas where a 20 limit absolutely makes sense. For those areas we already had a solution, which was to have a 20 zone there. The idea that we would rip all that up and make 20 the default, with all the expensive signage change that goes with it, is complete and utter stupidity in my view. Many many roads now have 20 limits where it is simply not required. And most people, in my experience, are not abiding by the limit. It's chaos and disorder. All brought on by the stupidity of Welsh Government.
Yep, it's stressful and has made driving such a chore. I suspect being on the bike has given Ashley a nicer perspective as I guess people know it's dangerous to tailgate a bike!
@@brianhoskins1979 So the problem isn't the limit, it is the people who break the law. Sort of like how that happens in 30mph limits, 40mph, 50mph etc.
So the roads need to be managed on behalf of the worst drivers?
@@drfell9105 Exactly
9:00 came here for the motorcycle. Stayed for the landscape. It's a very beautiful area!
I’m sorry to disagree with you, but visiting Wales on a mid week when the roads are quiet doesn’t show the try reflection of a blanket 20Mph limit introduced by the eejits in the this Liebour welsh government.
20Mph would be fine outside schools and certain built up areas, but on roads that don’t need to be 20Mph at busy times hasn’t gone down well. Examples of this are you see drivers doing less than 20Mph, then when the speed limit increases to say 30, 40, 50 etc, these drivers continue at 20Mph or maybe only do 30 in a 40. It’s extremely frustrating driving behind fellow drivers who are doing less than the speed limit and braking to slow down. I think you should revisit wales again at a busier period and do a follow up video. and for example maybe drive the road from Mold to Wrexham where this section of roads goes from 60, 70, 30, 20, 40, 20, 50, 20, 40, 50 and you’ll then understand and appreciate why this new road policy 12 months on hasn’t gone down well in most of wales. Technically around about 37% of welsh roads are now at 20Mph. It’s just pure madness. But thank you for your latest video, I do find them extremely informative. 👍
3:40 Agreed. Cruise control in 30mph zones is a brilliant way to prevent speed creep and remove the burden of constantly feathering the throttle to maintain.
Also I don't think many cruise controls WILL function below about 25mph.
People could argue that "cruise control" is removing your focus from driving. I agree. If it keeps my focus on the little kid that runs out from behind a parked car I'll take all the focus I can get.
Extreme, but you can even cover the brake pedal while cruising.
Ideally, 20mph would be great in many places. Many drivers greatly exceed the 40mph here in The Valleys. Living in a typical terraced street, drivers routinely use our street as a shortcut at way over 20mph with little ot no chance of being caught.
.
So introduce more severe punishments for the few that DO get caught, which will serve as a deterrent, rather than punish the majority of safe drivers by frustrating them and trying to catch them with fines.
This is one of those situations where low traffic neighbourhood designs are pretty rad, honestly. Cut out all the horrid rat running and keep most traffic on roads designed to handle it!
@@samal3196 If only it were that simple. Blocking off our road leaves only one other road through to the next 2 villages and the next town. The bypass stops at our village. Most people drive sensibly but the usual suspects don't give a damn.
I don't think you understand how breaking the law works. If they're breaking the law for the speed limit then they'll certainly do it for another. They're not suddenly going to become law abiding citizens because the speed limit changed. To get into the mind of these people then it's safe to assume that they'll probably just be left feeling frustrated at being stuck behind someone doing 20 and then feel the need to make up for "lost time" and instead of breaking the limit by 10, they'll be breaking it by 40 and we know that's the case. Anyone who does a fair bit of driving knows this, even if we don't do it ourselves then we've certainly all noticed that most road users drive according to the road not necessarily the limit. By that I mean there's roads, and we've been in them, where we think "this should definitely be a 20 this". And most people just do that, so changing speed limits does do anything.
I'm in Wales quite a lot and as much as everyone is spewing faux altruism pretending to be Christian road users, the fact is anyone who drives in these areas regularly will know that most people speed around until they spot the white lines of the road for a speed camera and then they just speed up again and this is even more true for the locals because they know where the speed cameras are.
In practice, the reality is all it really does is just cause congestion. At least it certainly would be in England anyway, Wales granted isn't quite as.. packed. So ultimately nothing really gets solved apart from slowing down the law abiding road users. It won't make a blind bit of difference to people who are speeding and we know this because the very act of speeding shows they don't care
@@me5969 You lost me with your 1st patronising sentence. Sorry you wasted all the following ones on me.
So, I was recently in Wales- the sudden 20 from a 50 was a bit of a catchyouout… I drive for a living so am able to react quickly to such changes.
Tbf, some locations it’s good, narrow lanes with many residences and no footpath. Others, not so much. Ho hum, if they can address one safety issue it makes the roads safer until another begins to prevail. That’ll be mobile phone use. A real pet hate of mine! Now we have active lane departure control on cars (hate it on mine, especially when one lane splits to two) we’ll see more and more mobile use.
I remember watching a documentary that covered road safety:- a rail crossing in Canada would have X fatal collisions between cars & trains a year. Some bright spark cut back a wedge of trees vastly improving the view on approach. The next few years saw between 2X & 3X collisions. Why? Because the increased view meant people approached faster misjudging their stopping distance.
Safety features often breed contempt. People are not too bright when it comes to risk assessment
I think you're experience was a lot better because you were on your bike. Sticking to 20 in a car results in being tailgated and a queue of traffic behind you. It actually can be very stressful as some people get extremely close (taxis and delivery drivers being some of the worst).
I'd suggest trying this again in your car instead at a busy time in a main area.
The blanket approach is annoying. Areas like the main street in Mold you drove through make perfect sense. But there's stretches of road with no houses that are 20mph. There a lot of roads like this in North Wales because of how spread out a lot of rural areas are.
I would think it's more the location of filming - people are very happy to tailgate and close pass motorcycles too...
20 in most residential areas makes total sense IMO, havign lived in london a few years now it often feels strange goign 30 in similar area, not to mention how much quieter 20 is vs 30 for residents. That said I think Wales has gone a bit OTT with the role out of the rule, as we can see from some parts of the video, that one at 12:00 is a bit nuts at 20, that road has been designed for a higher speed
20mph limits might be appropriate in built-up urban areas, but then we find we're rarely able to do more anyway.. Applying them to open roads is a complete nonsense and as you discovered, it's not even clear on many roads as to when the limit changes leaving motorists at risk of fines and penalty points..
As for the emissions aspect, I recently found myself on a country road on the outskirts of West London, 2 miles of wide, mostly straight, tree-lined country road, no intersections, very low risk section of roadway.. and a 20mph limit with cameras.. insane.
Later, having returned to civilization, I performed a simple test:
Drove 2 miles at 30mph..: 3rd gear / 1500 rpm / 4 min to complete the distance. Total Engine Rev = 6000.
20mph...2nd gear / 2000 rpm / 6 min to complete the distance. Total Engine Rev = 12000.
Exactly twice the emissions at 20mph.
Precisely! For a similar emissions reason, I think, is when HGV's for a while were limited to 40 mph instead of 50 on single carriageways, and most vehicles in this category struggle to do this in higher gears, causing much more emissions. This law still applies in Scotland, though.
That's not how it works.
I was in S Wales in late August & there were no 20 limits on through roads in any of the towns & villages I drove through. Every junction off it into a residential or industrial area was 20 though. Has this been mis-represented or have all the areas I drove through been changed back to 30 already?
Emissions are not directly related to revs. A modern engine - and "modern" in this context means "anything with fuel injection and a computer brain", so virtually every ICE vehicle on the roads today - does not burn a fixed amount of fuel per revolution.
Otherwise, your fuel economy would also halve doing 20mph. Is that the case in your experience?
@@BlazeFirereign OK.. I've no intention of boring people to death with trivia regarding gasflows etc.. I'm not stating that the emissions would be EXactly double.. but it's definitely in that ballpark.
I think somethings could be learned from France here, both good and bad.
There are now a lot of 30kph limits in towns (where 50kph would previously have been the default). These, for the most part, make everyone safer and are widely respected, and this looks to be because sensible people have looked at which roads *need* the lower limit.
On the other hand, out of town two way roads all now have a default 80kph limit (where once it was 90) and these limits are, for the most part, resented and ignored, thus making roads that *need* to be limited to 80kph more dangerous because they cannot now be distinguished.
So for Wales (or London) setting 20 limits is fine where this is necessary, and most would adhere to them, but setting a 20 limit by default everywhere built up, and for no good reason of road safety, is far less ideal.
As someone who travels 90% of the time on a motorcycle, particularly in London I'm concerned that too much of my time is spent on determining the speed limit, monitoring the speedometer, checking the small signage to determine if the Bus lane is open to me or not and monitoring my mirrors for vehicles travelling very close behind me. I'm concerned that I spend too much time trying to avoid fines and not enough time on my safety and the safety of others, this increase when I'm in areas that I'm not familiar with. I feel I might be missing more immediate dangers.
If you are going slower, you have more time to assess the signage, hazards, road layout etc. Slower is a win all round.
@@StanleyRestall Do you not find it difficult to maintain 20 mph on a motorcycle? I find it requires almost constant monitoring of the speedometer or my speed will increase to something in the upper twenties without any perceived input of the throttle. I think it's the ability of powerful motorcycles to change speed in an instant that makes this a particular problem. Of course it can be done, but at the cost of other activities like life savers etc, I feel like I am having to compromise on observing what is going on around me and focusing on the speedometer and the personal consequences of even a low speed collision on a bike can be very high.
@@trevordavies5793 Surely you can judge your speed without looking at a speedo. Or is that just me?
@@drcl7429 On a recent trip across central London I found this very difficult, the noise,, traffic moving at different speeds all around me, pedestrians everywhere, hordes of cyclist obeying the highway code, just the usual busy city stuff. I also don't know what technology they have deployed there to catch people who wander over the limit! The highest speed I noticed I had creeped up to was 26 mph, on roads like the ones featured in this video I think it is much easier and especially if you are in an area you are familiar with. But in a busy city where everyone is keen to make progress, I felt my time should be spent monitoring other hazards, on a bike its skin and bone, not airbags and crumple zones, focuses the mind a bit more on staying alive.
Bullshit, if you are spending too much time looking at your speedo, that means you keep speeding and are trying to not get caught. I ride bike in London too, and I know that it is 20mph pretty much all over. And the few thoroughfares I use I know the limits by heart.
The issue isn’t that the speed limits are too high, it’s that so many drivers (especially motorcyclists) completely ignore them, or they drive too fast for the conditions. Here in London almost everyone drives at 25-30 mph (when not in queueing traffic…) even though the limit is 20, and they drive so aggressively too.
Yes Ash, you look cool. You didn't need to check your reflection in the dealership window on the way out 😀
Lol. I’m beyond worrying about what I look like 👍
I live in a busy area, and they implemented a 20MPH zone for the local school. The thing is, during school times, with all the parked car's you would be lucky to reach 20. The problem we now see is that outside of school times, some cars do 20 but are often overtaken inappropriately by impatient drivers, which i think is worse. When we had a 30 limit, we didn't see the overtaking. Yes, there were some drivers that would speed, but they still do now. I really see an improvement tbh.
Oh dear, doing things routinely at 0:47 😜
(Sorry, couldn’t resist that one)
Interesting to hear your prospective Ashley. As both a car driver and motorcyclist myself I have found 20 zones to be a massive issue in Cornwall. 9 times out of 10 i find myself being tailgated when I stick to the speed limits. I don't think these speed limits are a massive issue when applied correctly, however it seems driver attitudes cause issues. Often i find myself feeling less safe doing 20 MPH because of other drivers than i did when the roads were 30 MPH.
I can't comment on Wales but do cycle and drive in Cornwall which has many 20 zones in villages, I've also seen a few places in Buckinghamshire with 20 zones.
I am generally in favour of them and hope that any decisions about them are only based on real evidence and safety, not just opinions of a few impatient motorists.
The decisions are based on firebrand council members on a mission to control the behaviour of their residents rather than provide them services. A directly parallel issue is the way some local councils reduce the frequency of bin collections, as if that would reduce the amount of rubbish people generate.
In France a lot of villages have a red lights along the main road, timed to turn green if you keep to the speed limit in that section (which can be 50kph/30mph or 30kph/20mph - note for pendants: I'm approximating!). A sign at the start tells you so.
I’ve heard that Spain has that in some places as well. Brilliant idea, especially around schools and shops etc. There is a school near me on a long straight road and some of the speeds cars travel past is nuts. Even with 20mph lights flashing.
@@craiglang3492 they also have loads of "shared use zones" where there are no pavements and pedestrians are on the "road". The pedestrians have priority and the drivers are very polite and patient. Saw this in Spain and Italy (Rome especially)
Welcome to my world, M. Neal! The owner's manual happily informed me, after I bought the current car, that the cruise control will refuse to operate below 21mph. I understand the engineering difficulties that there would be to make it work for a wider speed range, but it does mean that like you I don't get the convenience of letting the robot keep to the speed limit in the 20mph areas.
21 on cruise won’t generally be above true 20mph
Good video:
In Wales after a national default 20mph urban/village limit was implemented a year ago, some of the official figures are:
☼Speeds are down by 4-6mph
☼Casualties are down 29%
☼Insurance claims down 20%
☼Insurance companies are setting lower premiums - £50 less for average driver
*Journey times are up by 90% 😂😅
Everyone's mpg figures are also down.
more pollution?
Sounds like it should be dropped to 10mph. XD
Or maybe just ban driving altogether, casualties, claims and premiums would be near zero!
@@minigadge I bet they're not.
for me it's not the limit but the mindset, I like the 20's in towns and villages up here in Scotland. Another issue I see is that of I'm bigger than you with certain types of cars. Nice video
I think there has been an awful lot of misinformation in the press (who depend on car advertising) and social media (surprise!)
20mph limits in residential areas makes perfect sense and encouages residents and children to walk more. I don't have objection to that so long as it's sensibly implemented.
Because for the last hundred years residents were fearful to take a step outside...
@@Emotional_Support_Twink I don't know, I wasn't around then but maybe you can tell us...
Was everything else the same back then? Same number of cars parked obscuring views? Same number of cars driving? Same driving standards? Same size and type of cars (SUVs around when you were a teenager 100 years ago?) with the same blind spots? Were 5,000 people dying each year in traffic accidents back then?
Are you objecting to driving at 29 in a residential area? On what basis? Does it make a huge difference to being able to do 30 (which most people will treat as a target not a limit, and many more will treat as a floor)?
It's about perspective, 20 mph is almost impossible to kill someone, accidents happen all the time. Now, 30 mph you have some serious dangers. Also, you have to remember the mentality of the few who cause real danger, mostly boy racers, if you leave it at 30, inevitable they'll be going 40-50 most of the time they can get away with it. I would also say on a motorbike your chances of death goes down. A lot of us drive and cycle and even dropping from 20mph to 15mph on a bike makes a massive difference. Lastly, think about being a pedestrian or bus user, think how long it takes to get anywhere in that, now, imagine going 20mph in a car or motorbike, I know which one I would prefer.
All new cars have a warning chime or other device to warn when you go over the limit. The more people who get used to the 20mph limit the more automatic it will become. Same as keeping to any other limit. What I like about this channel is it reinforces that driving is a skill that can always be improved upon. Rarely are people as good drivers as they think they are.
“The bigger picture is we've lost the ability to drive to the conditions (not just weather but junctions / road surface / type of vehicle), we’re now transfixed on the speedo in case there are cameras or vans ready to issue a fine. Plus the automated car systems are too easy to rely on. Speed doesn't kill, inappropriate speed to the conditions kills.”
- Another commenter on here
I live in a town called Risca which is a few miles north of Newport in south Wales and I have no objection to 20mph limits in the right places such as town/city centres, near schools and hospitals but the way the Welsh government has gone about setting these limits is absolutely disgraceful and without thought towards common sense. There are many roads that used to be 40mph passing through places with 4 or 5 houses in the middle of the countryside that are now 20mph and serves no purpose. In other places, you can have speed limits change 3 or 4 times within the space of 100 yards. It's of no help whatsoever! And honestly, the ones who speed through the 30 limits are not slowing down one bit for the 20's and they don't care as they won't get caught. If it was about safety then the government should look at others ways to reduce accidents and casualties such as speed cameras at every single school and being more proactive in catching the ones using mobile phones while driving. Let's see what happens with the figures...
I have some serious concerns with the 20 MPH speed limits,
1st of, you are a professional driving instructor and on the bike, you struggled to keep your speed to the limit, so that is the 1st point.
I have been driving for many years, I consider myself to be a quite good driver & always keep a good awareness of what is going on around me, but I know, at 20mph, my concentration levels on driving are going to be virtually 0.
I can see so many more people grabbing their phones for something to do whilst they are bored at 20 MPH.
Now more importantly, my main car, like many others is a diesel, at 30 MPH I can easily run in 4th gear & run at virtually idle speed when driving. At 20 MPH, I am stuck in 2nd gear, higher revs, which means, engine is not running as efficiently and also kicking out more emissions than it would at 30. So Im using more fuel & causing more harm to the environment.
We live in an age where we have to be more environmentally conscious, this goes against that.
Are we going to actually going to put the speed restrictions on bicycles & make sure all road users stick to the same limits?
Do you think speedos show actual speed?
@@ashley_neal Are you advocating that people ignore them or get a 3rd party GPS for speed readout? I doubt it. People have to use what is in the car. I know my speedo is about 3 mph over at 20mph which given the current fine leeway might mean I could drive at 27 as reported by my speedo - madness. This means that many people slavishly stick to the speedo value which exacerbates the "slow" feeling since that drop by another 10-15% is really noticeable.
@@ashley_neal hopefully your speedo at 30mph is 10mph off (where you missed the 20mph signage). Might want to adjust the ego with some of these responses Mr Neal.
I'll answer Ashley's question here. I think it's a good thing and I hope the English government follows the lead shown by the Welsh.
As a civil engineer, I have been aware of 'shared space' road designs (originated in the Netherlands) for many years, and this is the origins of the 20 mph limit in the UK. Shared space is great in purely residential areas (such as housing estates with just local traffic) and, as such, I think the 20 mph limit works well in most (relatively quiet) residential areas (although there are concerns from the blind and partially sighted community about shared space, which need to be addressed). Where 20 mph becomes a problem is on main (A and B) roads, as traffic can be much heavier. Drivers become frustrated, but at the same time pedestrians become complacent. I have seen a few 'near misses' where drivers were closer to 30 mph and pedestrians stepped out. You also get absurd situations, such as when I was riding my motorbike on the A466 through Llandogo. As I approached the limit I caught up with 2 racing bicycles. By the end of the limit (I stuck to 20 mph) the bicycles were about 1/3 mile ahead of me! They certainly would have caught out any pedestrians who assumed traffic would be going about 20 mph (not that there are many pedestrians in Llandogo). I would keep limits to 30 mph on main roads, and ensure good pedestrian crossings are available where needed (other than in very pedestrian heavy areas, such as close to Tintern Abbey, where 20 mph would be sensible for about 1/4 mile).
Just because it's an A road should in no way dictate the speed that you go at. In Abergavenny the A40 goes through and there are many areas when even when the limit was 30, it was safe to do only 20. Going at 20 all the way through makes more sense as you aren't constantly changing speed up and down and as Ashley showed at the beginning of the clip, it gives pedestrians and other motorists a lot more time to plan and act.
@@johncranna9427 Thanks for the comment. Whilst I agree to a point, the trouble is that although many will keep to 20 mph, a minority will do 30 mph or more. This of course leads to more risk to pedestrians, as they are not expecting that speed. Far better to keep to 30 mph and enforce it (i.e. speed cameras, police officers)! I would however agree with the 20 mph limit in parts of Abergavenny, as roads are narrow and have lots of pedestrians.
@@johncranna9427 I think the point is that powered vehicles have a speedo, others don't and can speed through the zone and become a danger to themselves and others as its easy to not see bikes you don't expect them to be so much faster than cars.
What I would say is that A roads should be of a standard suitable for high speed travel, and most towns have been bypassed for this reason. What I find annoying is where people build houses along rural A roads, and then the speed limit gets dropped from 60 to 30. It wouldn't happen on a motorway, so why don't councils demand that houses need a non direct or suitable entrance to the A road.
1
In those 20 zones they want you doing (indicated) 19-20….not 21-24
2
I can engage my cruise control at 20….thats the lowest it will activate…however once activated, I can manually adjust it as low as 18….on the flat it’s pulling about 1,100revs and down an incline sounds like a very subtle J brake on a truck as the cruise uses the engine braking effect….but this only holds the car back to a point…on steeper grades, I have to apply the brake. This car is petrol-automatic CVT if anyone is wondering. So yes, generally it can do the 20s very well….but not for everything.
3
I imagine in a manual car, you’ll be in between gears at 20…depending on the cars gearing…..prob creating more pollution than driving at 30
4
I also have both manual & automatic speed limiters….ISL. the manual one is self explanatory. The ISL is 1st generation so only reads speed signs….theres no link to an online map system. So if it misses the speed signs or hasn’t seen one for a while, it no longer knows what the speed should be. Trees etc overhanging signs are common here & it can’t cope with that. Both systems are options and are OFF by default…tho the ISL always attempts to read the speed signs & display the speed on the dashboard but it’s only advisory-it doesn’t restrict the speed. When in use, both limiters take the power away from the gas pedal just before you hit the speed limit….feels as if the car is seriously broken. I can’t override it temporarily by flooring it…or kickdown….that doesn’t work on mine. I have to switch the limiters off with the steering wheel toggle button…..at least it’s not on a touch screen!
Like the cruise control, both speed limiters will engine brake and retard the engine going down hills….but like cruise, it only works for gentle declines…any steeper and it gives up…..u feel it disengage-but it will shout at me with a warning sound & graphic…APPLY BRAKE NOW! This situation also happens when going from say a 50 into a 30 zone….the system can’t engine brake enough or quickly enough.
*I don’t generally use the speed limiters but having the roads max speed always on the dashboard is useful*
20mph limits have made a positive difference where I live in south Wales, but it also seems to have emboldened a lot of idiots intent on doing 30, 40 even 50mph. Getting overtaken on residential 20mph roads happens a lot more often now. If people actually stuck to 20mph I'd feel safe enough to ride my children to school.
If more people are now overtaking due to the drop in the limit, how can it be a positive difference?
Probably because a lot more people are now also driving slower, which balances it out.
@@davem9204 It would be a positive difference if it were not for criminals. Should we be dictated to by criminals?
Many years ago, one of the first 20Mph limits I'd seen was in Ascot. Just coming out of the zone a speed camera caught me for 23Mph in a 20 zone. There's a lot of places around the UK that I feel SHOULD be 20Mph but aren't and many that are 20Mph that really shouldn't be. In London, 20 zones tend to encourage people pulling out in front of you as they "know" you can stop.
There seemed to be only 2 roads on the video where 20mph was a realistic limit, the town centre at round 13mins and the country lane at the end which I'm guessing was a 60mph road, the rest should be put back to 30mph. The blanket limit doesn't seem to be justified on the vast majority of the roads you rode on, wide and straight, open junctions, properties s et back from the road, hardly any pedestrians and then randomly going back to 30mph when the road is the same, as in the industrial estate type road at the end of the video. They've made a proper mess of what could have been a positive step to increase road safety where 30mph is too fast, instead it's a confusing mess hotch potch of limit changes.
My only thought re 20mph limits is that speed limits alone can not compensate for bad or inattentive driving, which is what causes many accidents. The reduced speed might reduce any injuries if a collision occurs, but I would like to see much more emphasis on improving driving standards. Keep up the good work.
The town that I most often drive in is Swansea to see friends. With few exceptions the main roads I use are 30 until I turn off into minor roads. The main roads that are 20, it's reasonable. I think it's excellent.
Cardiff had lots of 20mph limits anyway before this came in, but some towns have not implemented the exceptions correctly (e.g. Wrecsam) so you find yourself driving down a wide road with no houses, no pedestrians, no cyclists and it's 20, which is frustrating.
But then I have a car with speed limiter. Set it to 20 when you pass the signs and compliance is easy.
Personally, I have no problems with 20 limits, but I don't live in Wales, and where I now live, there are very few. Where I have encountered them in England, I found myself subject to continual harassment for driving at that limit. It was good to see so many drivers just knuckling down and dealing with them properly.
There is a problem with most modern vehicles of sticking to the limit; it's very easy to quickly go over, but I've always used a speed limiter myself, which lessens the risk - except on down-hills or if I forget to engage it. At 20, playing the percentage game gives a far smaller margin before hitting prosecution levels (and of course, 1 mph above any limit is strictly illegal). Ten percent of a smaller number gives a smaller number.
My understanding was that the same law applied in the whole of the UK, that the default in town was 30 mph in town, and I noticed that the 20 limits in your clip had repeaters, not the converse. However, the gov uk website makes an exception for Wales, so perhaps 20 is the default and doesn't need to be marked with repeaters.
Whether they achieve their goals remains to be seen, but the data will show that, not opinion.
I can't comment on the efficacy of 20mph limits everywhere however a direct comparison between Cardiff and London is easy to do - in Cardiff everywhere is 20 so you can focus on reading the road, traffic and pedestrians. In London every street changes between 20 and 30 with speed cameras everywhere so you end up focusing solely on looking for those little roundels and not seeing other signs, like bus lanes, directions, priority... it makes it far too easy to miss an important sign or a pedestrian or a cyclist or a bus pulling out, whereas in Cardiff you can sit at 20 and focus on the hazards around you, knowing you're not going to get an angry HGV steaming up behind you expecting you to be doing 30mph for the 50 yards you're allowed to.
This. Consistency is key, when there's no doubt about the speed limit and no pressure from other road users, focusing on everything we need to focus on when driving/riding is so much easier and we do it way better.
@@pg5200a big complaint here in Germany - too many signs.
@@pg5200 but that does feed in to what Ashley says about becoming complacent, there's a balance to be found and at the moment I prefer the 20mph limits everywhere to the constant chopping and changing of England. And I say that as someone who has been and occasionally still is an absolute speed freak (when appropriate).
@@inyobill Same here in France, and on top of that, we have two different speed limits on roads depending on the departement we're in (80/90 km/h). (Imho 80 is much safer than 90 especially on the 99% of roads with no cycle infrastructure what so ever... And 70 would be even better)
If you're struggling to drive at 30 it sounds like you shouldn't be on the roads
If it wasn't so rushed in the way it was implemented then it would've been fine, there are some roads that becoming 20 have become much safer to drive in (and much safer to live on if you like going on walks). But then there are roads who just never get used as a 20 because they just aren't 20 roads, tonnes of space, long, no turns have no business being 20 outside of a school zone.
They haven't really been out long enough to see if they're having a good effect on actual accident/injury/death statistics but I'm not opposed to lower speed limits., I think safety and the most vulnerable road users (pedestrians) should be prioritised and we should work on pedestrianisation. I'd love to be able to walk most places. Anyone who's lived in a pedestrianised place knows it's better.
As a Wales resident, yes - you will see 30 repeaters in Wales if you're in a 30 zone, and you will not see 20 repeaters (I guess you may see the occasional outliers where signs have been left up inadvertently). I habitually drive at 20 on the 20 mph roads and I find that generally people don't overtake me if there is only one lane going in my direction but they do mostly, though not always, overtake me if there are two or more lanes going in that direction. On my Nissan Leaf I have a speed limiter and adaptive cruise control that will both work at a minimum of 20 mph. On 20 mph roads I prefer to use the limiter and keep control of my speed with my right foot, but it backs off the power as you approach and hit 20. You have to still be aware as the limiter doesn't work well on hills.
I think they went a bit overboard on the 20 limit. I'm mostly in favour of it, but there are some main roads that they set a 20 limit on, and that causes problems because a lot of people don't stick to that limit, and it's also been bad for bus schedules. I would like to see the rules on what can be faster than a 20 mph road relaxed a bit but not removed entirely and I hope that's what they're going to do.
Interestingly, as you mentioned, it is possible to do that speed on a pedal bike (assistance will have cut out at that point on a legal e-bike), and since there is no speedometer on a bike, you can exceed the limit legally; I have done that, though not by much because I'm not fit enough!
Hope this helps from a native. :)
I don't think speed limits apply to pedal cycles, only motor vehicles with? Unless by local by-law such on a promenade or in a park. Ashley?
@@penmelyn Yes, that's what I said - they don't apply to pedal cycles.
@@penmelyn Perhaps I wasn't clear - there's a limit for assistance of e-bikes of about 15 mph, but that doesn't stop you from attaining a faster speed without the assistance of the motor.
In South Wales i found its has been problematic as people have commonly went above this seemingly in protest for the 20 mph speed limit change.
Places like Usk, where the road and pathway is narrow prior to the change was 20 mph, now some people go higher when its still 20.
You were doing 24mph most of the time in this video, not because youre reckless or not paying attention, but because it was appropriate. 20mph means you *have* to do 20. At 30, you're probably driving between 20 and 30. You might zone out and do 27 on a straight and the person behind hopefully wont care. If you're doing 15-17, it's far too slow
My speedo is saying 23 when I’m actually doing 20 👍
@@ashley_neal That's fair and I thought that might be the case.
How do you know that?
Because of the GPS speed shown on Waze right in front of me (and you if your screen is big enough) edit - typo
@@fullsizedwarf I knew it drivng cars, from those digital boards that tell you the speed you're going in green or red.
Yes in street lights assume 20 unless there are 30 or whatever repeat signs.
I love the 20 (in most places, there are a few places that don't call for 20 that are but not to worry).
I find 20 just more relaxing when crossing the town. I know almost everyone hates 20 with a passion. I can see a lot of benefit. I think there's still plenty to do as a driver, you still have to hold back and weigh up. Obviously there are nutcases who ignore the laws and drive like the are the only ones in the road but that's always the case.
I feel like flow might be improved as 20, fewer people are rushing into hazards and tight junctions etc etc.
I don't find them a problem, I find them great. Towns are small and there are great roads to (safely) enjoy out of town.
They make sense in some areas, however I've driven from a 60mph road, into a 20 mph with no warning, not only does that give me very little time to react, but no one sticks to the speed around you! The amount of bumper riding, or dangerous overtaking is insane, the scheme is clever in really busy built up areas where there is likely to be unpredictable pedestrian traffic, or dangerous junctions where by views are restricted.
But 20mph as a blanket is stupid and moronic.
Having a 20mph limit on that first roundabout interchange 2:15 is quite frankly ridiculous. Also, it makes it harder for slower accelerating vehicles to join the dual carriageway - as they have to stay at 20mph until they've gone past the NSL sign on the slip road and then try and accelerate up the slope - as opposed to carrying a higher speed off the roundabout.
Thats what an acceleration lane is for however and if your vehicle is unable to use said acceleration lane effectively such that you need to "carry speed" onto it from a roundabout, you're likely driving something unfit to be on the road, or have overloaded your vehicle beyond its legal maximum weight.
Personally I think a minimum speed limit of 160 should be imposed through villages
Yards per hour?
@@neilclark2245surely feet, I could probably walk that fast… 160 feet
Good point ! Considering most cars can't do 160mph, that would effectively make villages a no go area for most motorists, and therefore make villages safer with very little traffic.
@@Brauschemann I'm glad someone else sees my genius
Speed limits on Wales, there is a lot of confusion about this as if you miss the 20 sign you could be in trouble as there are no Repeater signs or very few . The spacing of the lamp posts mean nothing as the type of roads you drove on can be 20 30 or 40 MPH. There is no way to tell, the roads you drove could have been any of the above limits if you did not see the sign. You were driving at a time when there was very little traffic but if you were to drive on normal working days you would see when trying to pull out of a side turning how difficult it can be with the traffic traveling at around 20. The vehicles start to bunch and it can take some time to get on to the main road. If you need to travel through Wales your travelling time will increase and if you are driving a goods vehicle with a Tachograph it could mean missing your delivery slot. Some busses now miss some stops as a result of timetable changes due to these speed limits. The vehicle I drive on business does not like to travel at 20 in third gear so it can mean sometimes doing 15 in second gear as 20 is to fast for second and too slow for third. I see can in your video that you do not like 20 as most of the time in the 20 zone you were between 21 and 24 and went up to 25 at one point. I think you should do a run in South Wales on a school week day in a light goods vehicle and then you will see the real effect of the 20 MPH limit.
My car will struggle going that slow either too high rev in low gear or not enough rev in high gear when it’s not as easy to control the car
Thanks for this video.I enjoy driving more at 20mph and at times feel pressured by people behind. Some even blast horns. In the urban environment it makes a more pleasant area as pedestrians or cyclists can feel less threatened.
On my motorbike I will often activate my brake light to give rear drivers a signal rather than using the gears to slow down. It was interesting to see that you are comfortable going 24 at times and let's me off self flagellation 😮
They introduced 20mph limits all around were I live and as a result my fuel consumption has gone way up. Reason being (besides the congestion they created) is that I drive an automatic. At 30mph it slots quickly into 4th and that means the car potters along at 1200rpm but at 20mph it resolutely stays in 2nd at 1700rpm thus burning more fuel. From an environmental point of view 20mph limits are an own goal. Not as bad as simple maths would indicate because the load is different but quite noticeable.
I drove to Wales not long ago and didn't have a problem with it in the slightest, most people seemed to stick to it - as many as who stick to 30mph in England. Lot of the criticisms seem based on hypotheticals and edge cases whilst the actual evidence overwhelmingly shows the change has led to safer roads for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians (plus fewer insurance claims which should in theory lead to lower insurance rates for motorists (insurance companies permitting, lol)). I'm sure there's a road here or there where it'd make more sense to be a 30mph, but then there's probably just as many (or more) national speed limit roads which should be 40/50s...
In all they're just objectively the right thing most the time and a minor inconvenience in pursuit of safety in the remainder (like so much of driving - seatbelts, traffic lights etc).
The thing is that 20 slows everyone down. Its not actually necessary for everyone to stick to the limit to slow the traffic because everyone generally has to stick to the speed of the slowest driver
A blanket change in speed restrictions from 30mph to 20mph will only lead to more drivers looking mainly at their speedometers, instead of looking mainly at the road ahead.
Drivers who speed in 30mph zones will continue to do so in 20mph zones regardless.
In your video you seemed to be travelling above the speed limit in 20mph zones for most of the time, so I can only assume that instead of checking your speedometer you were guessing your speed and this is why you found the 20mph speed restrictions a non event.
You need the correct limit for the correct location in order to allow for human nature. Artificially low limits cause frustration and when frustrated people will start to behave in inappropriate ways …… because they are human.
It is a well known fact that just by making something illegal does not stop it from happening and to think otherwise is absurd.
All you need to do is look at the revenue collected from speeding fines in the UK to find evidence that they know full well that reducing speed limits does not make people slow down,
‘Speed cameras rake in £391million from driving fines in just five years’
[Extract for the Express news article]
*they want your money*
To slow people down you need to change the road layout, the subconscious mind must perceive a reason as to why a reduction in speed is required.
Try to remember there is a place to the north that's had 20 mph limits for a while now. Some make sense, others don't.
It's a mindset thing. Getting out of the habit of doing 30 is the problem.
Remarkable how many ignore or don't see the 20 limits. Similar to the flashing school signs.
20 limt. First roundabout...24mph. Even in the intro. above the 20mph limit consistently.
It is a stupid concept to have a blanket 20mph limit. You can be passed by an e-bike which casn legally exceed the speed limit as they do not apply.
in London I HATE the stupid 20mph dawdlers in 30mph limits, because they do not know what to do. Overtook a guy the other day, in a 30mph limit, without exceeding it. Idiot swerved to try and block me. Too many drivers are too badly informed.
I absolutely agree with applying 20mph limits around schools or shopping areas where it can improve safety. But not everywhere they have put them. Specific targetted areas would highlight the hazards. Blanket limits just mean everyone is forced to crawl. Or just ignore the speed limit. Which in practice, is what I see.
Plebs like that really wind me up, is the same when you try to merge in turn.
23 showing on my speedo is 20.
@@ashley_neal how can you be so sure?
It's easy to check on your GPS-enabled sat-nav or device. My speed limiter is usually a few mph higher than the limit, so set to 63 for 60, not because I don't want to obey the limit, but because 60 indicated is more like 57 actual. This is well-known. I do however, often check that I'm not going over 60 GPS. It works the same at lower limits, but the error is smaller.
@@ashley_neal that is a poor excuse, especially from a driving instructor. Would you tell your students that 'its ok, the speedo reads fast so you can go a bit over'? I wouldn't have thought so.
You should stick to the limits that the vehicle's own equipment reports. It's ok trying to say "But my SatNav says I was only doing 20" because that won't work if pulled by the police. Believe me I know, because it's happened to me in the past.
I've seen in some of your other replies that 'you've mentioned before that the speedo reads over' and I'd like to take a moment to quote my PCV driving test examiner from when I failed because of a fault with the buses crash gearbox... "I know it was the vehicle, but in my view if there's a defect with the vehicle then it shouldn't be on the road".
All this is besides the point though, my own vehicle is a modern '24 plate economical petrol-engined car. It has a feature where it 'suggests' what gear you should be in depending on the speed it's travelling at and the torque requirements it is experiencing at any given time. At 30mph it 'suggests I should be in 5th gear whereas at 20mph it suggest 3rd gear as 4th doesn't have the required torque. This means my engine revs are higher in 3rd at 20mph than they are at 30mph in 5th.
Also take into account that 1 mile at 30mph takes 2 minutes yet the same mile at 20mph takes 3 minutes, this means that my vehicle, per mile, is pumping out more emissions for an extra minute.
I agree with 20mph zones where necessary, but blanket 20mph zone coverage is ridiculous, especially in a culture that keeps screaming about 'the environment'
Firstly, Ashley, brilliant seeing you on a motorbike, first time seeing you on one..
Personally, unless it's on certain restricted areas, 20mph is a terrible idea, I personally think the reason ie to get us out of our vehicles, certain vehicles don't like and adjust well at permanent 20 mph all day..
You might want to blur your speedo. You were mostly over the speed limit and accelerating towards national speed limit sign instead of once you pass it. You'd be really critical if these clips were sent in to you and I know you like to be fair
I’ve explained before that my speedo is a fair bit higher than actual speed
@@ashley_neal I doubt a court would accept that. They'll just say you have recorded yourself breaking the limit and penalise you.
@ashley_neal surely you should have stuck to the speedo as many normal drivers would.
If many drivers think their speedo is accurate then its not unfair to expect people going 16-18 thinking its too slow when they were used tho going 26-28?
@@illegalopinions4082 in the UK speedometers are NOT allowed to under read the vehicle speeds, most have around 5-8% over read, hence why google maps might say 48mph while your speedo says 50.
But still, a driving instructor should know this and his response of "I'vE eXpLaInEd My SpeEdO bEfoRe" is pretty immature.
Either way the speed LIMIT is a LIMIT not a TARGET.
Side note - Most cars i've owned wont allow cruise to be used below 20mph?
@@gavindawson3108 I don't think mine activates below 20 either. I will add that just because the council put a limit in doesn't make it right either. Using the logic of "it's a limit and not a target" we could just have unrestricted roads and punish people who cause harm for not driving sensibly. People should be exercising judgement and driving as the condition suits, which is why Ashley wasn't staying at 20 or below. He didn't stay there because it's silly to drive like that.
10:05 'for a second there I thought the BMW driver was going straight on.....
Honestly, having drove in Wales a bit, i think the 20mph seems to be well placed, they tend to only put them in busy built up areas and think there a good idea. I also think in a speeding sense it also works because people who do spped dont tend to do over 10mph over speed limit, now, remember that advert about the mortality rates in car crashes at 30 vs 40, so people speeding in a 20 are actually more safe than someone speeding in a 30, in regards to that logic.
as someone who lives in wales, it's a no, the 20 mph is basically everywhere inc places it really shouldn't be for traffic flow, but then it's not in one place that it really should be due to very high foot traffic area, but there's no houses there and thus isn't 20 but 30.
Where abouts in Wales did you drive, out of interest?
@@NedStarksGhost Monmouthshire, which might explain why it didn't impact too much being quite a rural part of wales.
The main reason for 20 MPH speed limits, is that a pedestrian hit at 20 MPH is less likely to be killed or permanently disabled than a pedestrian hit at 30 MPH.
However, it's not just speed that is a problem. Car mass is a problem. And too many people have been talked into buying heavy SUVs that are not just heavier, but also have features like bull-bars, instead of crumple-zones that protect a pedestrian hit by the vehicle.
As we switch from lower, lighter and safer vehicles, where a child running into the road gets thrown onto the bonnet of the vehicle and maybe breaks their legs, to higher, heavier and more dangerous SUVs, where the centre of mass of the SUV slaps the kid in the chest and then they are thrown under the vehicle, the typical injuries from vehicles going at 30 MPH increases and the monitoring of injuries is going to push governments to respond with lower speed limits.
Like you said, if you rode at 30 MPH, but slowed down to 20 MPH for junctions, you would be safer. Likewise, if drivers automatically slowed down when they saw a parked car or pedestrians on the pavement, they would be able to respond to a person tripping and stumbling sideways into the road. Things would be good.
Unfortunately drivers are not all taught to have your "solve the problem of other people" approach. There are a lot of people who see the speed limit as an entitlement, rather than the maximum safe speed, for when the road is clear. And the people putting 20 MPH signs up are trying to deal with the people who will edge the top of whatever speed limit applies.
Even you were struggling to stay under 20 MPH. And if a good driver like you is struggling, I suspect the 20 MPH zones have a lot of people doing 23 MPH or 25 MPH. But that means we don't have kids going to hospital after their chest or head got smashed by the front of an SUV with bull-bars at 35 MPH.
I don't honestly see the police handing out speeding tickets for people driving at 21 MPH or putting people in jail for going at 29 MPH in a 20 MPH zone. But, if we have a few less children spending the rest of their life in a wheelchair, because they saw a friend on the other side of the road and forgot to do the Green Cross Code, that will be good.
Few pedestrian accidents are an impact at full pelt. Most collisions in a 30 are actually nearer 20.
Far more important than inappropriate speed limits is the poor brakes on cars. Cheaper versions of the Nissan Quashqai and Ford Puma have bloody drum brakes. How is this legal?
How are cheap Eastern tyres with stopping distances 20% worse than others legal?
As someone who works in frontline emergency services in Wales, I fully support them. I have noticed a reduction in collisions and in serious injury in collisions that do happen. Many of our rural villages have no footpaths and lots of tourists. 20mph makes it safer for everyone.
I looked at the longer term numbers from a bunch of areas (such as Brighton and Hove) which have implemented 20 MPH schemes, beyond the 3 years they usually cover in the study of the 20MPH scheme. In most cases the reduction only holds up for the first 1-2 years - partly due to the ever increasing number of road users. One factor seems to be an increase in cyclists being seriously injured or killed - probably because these schemes encourage a moderate increase in people cycling without actually providing a substantially safer overall environment for cycling - in fact trying to pass a cyclist while trying to adhere to the speed limit in a 20 can be more dangerous than in a 30 where the manoeuvre can be carried out quicker and cleaner.
@@Rroff2 it's not inherantly 'has an incident occured' but more the severity. If a pedstrian is struck by a car at 20mph their injuries are likely going to be a lot less severe than at 30mph
I am unsure why there is thing about 20mph in Wales.
There are many 20 limits elsewhere (everywhere?) My irritation is the randomness of the implemantation. take local lane
built up area 30
school area 20 (estate off this lots of pedestrians and children from the school and other times 30 ??)
slightly winding section 20
long straight 20
right angle bend then windy section 20.
randomly becomes 40
through right angle bend and narrow section 40
later bult up area 30
past school still 30.
You know it makes sense!
As a delivery driver in Wales, it's easy. No problem at all. I don't know what all the fuss is about. I'd say it's been generally well implemented, with just one or two exceptions that could perhaps be revised back up to 30mph, and better signage.
Some people say they hate it and see it as an inconvenience... except if it's the one outside their house. Go figure.
Since it's introduction people have started to speed up a bit in my experience, a few more speed cam vans would knock that on the head... But generally I think speeds have slowed, if perhaps not to 20, but maybe 25/26, whereas before people were doing 35/36 in the 30s.
36mph to 26mph could be a pedestrians life saved.
But you haven't done a survey about how people feel about speed limits on their road, so it's really just speculation on your part. I suspect people who live on roads with 40 mph speed limits are less bothered about people doing 40 mph on their road than you suggest.
26 to 16mph could be a pedestrians life saved
@@undeniabletruth-HIT That's zealot rationale. You can't save the world through ever-increasing rules and regulations. If we were truly concerned with pedestrian lives, we would ban driving altogether, as it kills. But it would not be practical to do that, so we accept risk to a reasonable degree.
@@goodyeoman4534 And reasonable can never be clearly defined, it is a simplistic, individualist notion that one political entity is capable of generalising rules en masse which gradually become socially accepted
As people can see by the responses to my post this issue really does bring the idiot out in people for some reason.
I just say, if you don't like it you can lobby your MP to have it removed, but only on the road you live on. Why should you dictate the speed limit in villages you commute through because you feel it's an inconvenience to you? If you can get enough neighbours together and lobby to get the speed limit outside your doors lifted back up to 30mph fine.
I bet not one of them will change, because it's my hunch that communities probably prefer cars going slower where they live.
I think that making it 20mph nearly everywhere is likely to foster a "routine" approach to the 20 limit and Ash's comments about why that's the case (having reduced interaction with your vehicle/little to do) make perfect sense.
Moreover, I feel that if there are 20 zones in places where it is logical and your average driver (whatever that is) can think "yep, I can see the reasoning for the low limit here", then it is far more likely to be obeyed and have the desired affect on driving style than a blanket limit where there are many places that a driver might think "what's the point of the 20 limit here." There are a lot of 20 zones in housing estates and other built up areas with lots of pedestrians and/or junctions near where I live and I have no problem with that. However, making areas 20 just because "that's what we do" doesn't seem to be a great approach to me. So, I think that the legislation review is a good idea and I hope that they come up with a sensible solution.
As an aside, I it is perhaps worth pointing out that, for much of the time in this video, even Ash's speedo was reading 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 in a 20 zone. Ash also said a few times "oops, a couple over" before slowing (and then going back up to an indicated 25 quite soon after on one occasion). Ash spent very little of his time cruising at a steady 19/20. In contrast, when he was in a 30 zone, I don't think I saw his speedo above 29 or 30. I know that speedos over-estimate, and Ash probably knows how much his bike over estimates, or he may have a more accurate GPS running. So, this is not intended as a criticism of Ash. However, I think it does show that sticking to 20 or less, as indicated by your vehicle, is actually difficult. A quick squirt of gas after pulling away or emerging and you're over 20 already. I know that I spend too much time checking my speedo when I'm driving through a 20 zone.
The best way to foster a habit of driving with little speed adjustment is to make the speed appropriate for the road. There's a reason virtually every other country in the world has the average residential street at 30mph or the equivalent 50kph - it feels right. At 20 you're continuously checking to make sure you're not going over, and wondering why you're crawling along a straight empty road. At 40 you know it's too fast intuitively because the road is narrow, pavements on the side, pedestrian crossing up ahead, no centre reservation, etc.
Here in NZ the previous government started on the Wales road of going down to 30kph (just under 20mph) in all residential areas, down from 50, by blanket-pasting 30 zones all over anywhere vaguely close (1-2km) to a school. There was no application of any kind of logic or per-case analysis, just blanket coverage. Then the new government came along and applied some pragmatism by saying it will be only within 600m of a school and at school pick up / drop off times only (with a sensible allowance either side) - 👍, perfect. But then at the same time they're like, let's make the speed in areas with loads of pedestrians 40kph... 👎. *That's* where you want the 30 limit, or even 20kph. It's all about matching the speed limit to the road, and none of our governments can seem to get it right.
Meanwhile, they should add way, way more pedestrian crossings - and put the light pole out of the way! It is very frustrating trying to find a safe place to cross the road (and no, reducing the speed limit is not the answer to that; it will just encourage more dangerous jaywalking). And so many times I've had drivers not stop for me, or as a driver I've missed that there was someone waiting to cross, because the light pole obscured the view of me/them waiting.
Regarding the "being involved and not routine" i don't think 30 makes anyone more involved or perceptive. Loads are still on their phone at 30/40/50.
I was very interested to see this video, as Buckley is my home turf and we were one of the 'pilot' towns for the 20 mph rollout. A couple of points from your ride: once you'd been through the 20 then noted the change to 30, you carried on up to the traffic lights and turned right, continuing at 30 but querying if you'd missed something. You had. The limit drops back to 20 just after the entrance to the Industrial estate on your left (5:50-ish on the vid), but the signs are completely obscured by foliage and impossible to see. Point 2 - while you say that traffic seemed well behaved, it's not when you do that run the other way i.e. down the hill. I've been overtaken by cycles, tailgated by buses and learned a few new hand signals!
I hate these 20 limits. I find it makes people impatient and in more touristy areas, fewer people stick to them and just do 30. On one of the main roads near Rhyl that I was on, there were numerous people ignoring 30 signs and continuing to do 20 with a huge train of cars behind them. It managed to double a 5 minute journey, too.
I feel there is much more to be gained through proper education of road use, proper enforcement and better infrastructure than doing this. It feels like it's pandering to the lowest common denominator and thus lowering the bottom standard of driving. Perhaps there's a chance to improve the driving test for modern times and make it harder. If we improve the standard of driving then I think we'd see less accidents nationwide through both a reduction in cars on the road and an increase in driver quality.
Here here ashley. I think its a great idea. If the speed limit is 30, drivers do 35-40. If the limit is 20 they might just do 25. 25 is the average speed that people should be doing in built up areas. If people stuck to the 30 it never would have been changed
When speed limits are artificially low you end up with all the people driving while staring at their dashboard instead of looking at the road.
All speed limits are artificial
@@Squidgeididdly Roads would be assessed by seeing how fast a car could travel based on the width, bends and pedestrian activity, then reduce that speed a bit for safety, so a 30mph you could probably quite easily do 40mph but it's not safe for pedestrians, any more than that you really need to be careful and probably slow down to 40mph at times to not crash.
Some roads are for example really narrow with cars parked both side and 20mph is a perfect limit but to just slap a 20mph sign up to replace 30mph zones by default and call it a day is daft really.
Then they should hand their driving license in because they are not fit to drive.
@@StanleyRestall
If you look at speed camera conviction photos they show people looking at their dashboards, because people see the camera them look down at their speed at the moment when they are approaching an accident blackspot.
The point is that this is human nature, if you threaten people with prosecution their attention will become focused on avoiding the prosecution and not road safety.
When you are making safety rules and laws expecting people to not follow human nature is naive and negligent.
We are not robots, we are irrational creature controlled by things like emotion and primal fears, and our actions are controlled and driven by our subconscious mind more often that actual real time thinking.
Not really. Cars are generally much easier to stick at 30mph than 20mph