Many streets in London are 20mph but virtually no-one, including London bus drivers, observe it and no enforcement is evident. What can I do?

I live in a small village on the A46 north of Bath. We currently have a 40mph speed limit here and it is a trunk road, ie; Highways England’s responsibility. Would we be able to put up these 20’s Plenty signs? Jo

I would appreciate advice on getting a 20’s plenty campaign going in a rural village, Stanton Harcourt and Sutton. I am in the process of doing a survey to gauge residents’ views on the need for such a scheme. Can you help us take this to its next steps? How does this scheme sit alongside making a legal speed reduction from 30 mph to 20 mph?

There is growing support for a 20mph speed limit in our village – how do we get started – what help can you provide ?

In Sheffield, I have been trying to get the council to address the road I live on in particular because it has a hospital, 2 nurseries and an Infant school on it. There is one lane of traffic as the other side is mostly parked cars, there’s sharp corners lacking visibility in both directions to the school, it’s used as a ‘rat run’ and people seem to decide their own speed. I’ve been told there’s no way that we will get 20mph traffic calming anytime soon -years. I’ve been told that roads are assessed on the amount of accidents, so we have to have a serious accident for the council to change its list of priorities. I’ve been told that there’s nothing that can be done and well meaning Councillors have their hands tied – I need your help! We have a petition ongoing with a few hundred signatures. The school is actively trying to raise awareness.

Hi Debbie (Dinky Diver)

We would be delighted to help and will make contact by email.

Rod

I have lived in Ingham, Lincolnshire, a lovely quiet village for the last 10 years, but as is every where, traffic and speeding through the village is becoming more and more of a problem with people regularly driving in excess of 30 miles per hour. We have several blind bends and tight corners. We also have a primary school in the centre of the village. Many of us would like to see the village adopt a twenty mile an hour speed limit, but are unsure of where to start. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Indeed. I guess I was responding to someone’s comment that the 20 signs are ignored in her area. I suspect that the same may happen here where there is a long stretch of road with no cameras or crossings etc & lads tear around it like a race track sometimes or otherwise more ‘normal’ motorists just travel at 40 or 50 . Still, I’m sure that with time the public will feel ashamed of doing so with more awareness and a clear message from’above’ that 30 or 40 can and does kill. Who wants to be a killer after all?

Jane. The problem with speed bumps is that they really do try and communicate with drivers through their posteriors rather than their brain. This may be effective in the localised position of the bump but drivers tend to revert back to higher speeds when “set free” from such devices. In addition, using speed bumps is 50 times more expensive than just setting a mandatory limit. Or put it another way, for the same money you can give 250 people on one street speed bumps or 12,500 in a community a wide-area 20mph limit, perhaps with entrance gateways.

Of course any isolated and limited intervention endorses speeding up where such and intervention does not exist. We far prefer a wide-area implementation with light-touch engineering to act as visual rather than posterial calming where necessary. With community engagement and understanding that driving slower makes the community better then much more can be achieved.

Speed bumps

I think its great that you are trying to make public areas less dominated by cars, vans, lorrys etc. You can see that the DVLA are certainly trying to cut down on traffic congestion in these types of areas recently, you can see here that more parking tickets are being issued by the DVLA more frequently.
http://www.dvla-contact-number.co.uk/dvla-clamps-cars-in-middle-of-the-night/

Thanks for your comment Catherine. Particular residential roads being used as rat-runs by inconsiderate and “illegal” drivers is neither new or confined to Cambridge. Both traffic authority and police should be looking at this issue to make the road less attractive for rat-running and include appropriate additional speed management methods including additional signs and enforcement. Local authorities also issue taxi licenses so do have the opportunity to take action against any taxi drivers which consistently flout the law. The size of the signs will be as laid down by the Traffic Signage regulations, but these may be complemented by additional carriageway roundels, signage, entrance gateways and other methods.

We have 20mph zones in cambridge, but how on earth do we enforce them? The road I live on with my young children is a rat run for building works vehicles, taxi’s and regular cars and they are not adhering to the zone. Also. We have bikes, in ese zones, breaching red lights at pedestrian crossings at alarming rates ( we have statistical evidence to back this up). What to do?! The 20 signs are so small I fear they go unnoticed.