The UN is calling for action on speed on our streets, worldwide, where we walk, play and live.

Low speed, liveable streets are essential and urgent.

• Urgent because low speeds save lives.
  
  
• Urgent for public health, by making walking and cycling safer and more accessible, enabling and encouraging healthy
  lifestyles. Liveable streets are more crucial than ever as we respond to COVID-19.
  
  
• Urgent for the Global Goals and for our climate, as a key that unlocks a virtuous cycle of zero carbon active travel, shifting
  from car dependence, enabling thriving public transportation, cleaner air and lower CO2 emissions.
  
  
• Urgent for social and racial equity, as it is lower income and minority communities who are most exposed to high-speed
  traffic, and the road danger, environmental hazard and social exclusion it causes.
  
  
• Urgent for the rights of people with disabilities; for the elderly; for all who are vulnerable.
  
  
• Urgent for our children and youth, and vital for their wellbeing. They are most at risk on the streets where they live, play and
  travel to school. Every day 3000 children and young people are killed or seriously injured on the world’s roads. A child hit by
  a car at 20 mph (30 km/h) can survive. Hit at 50 mph (80 km/h), most will die. Speed kills.

The 2020 Stockholm Declaration, adopted by governments worldwide, calls for a focus on liveable streets and, in line with
available evidence, a maximum road travel speed of 20mph where vulnerable road users and vehicles mix. The focus of UN's Global Road Safety Week in 2021 is 20 mph.

Commitment to this approach must be at the forefront of the new Decade of Action for Road Safety to achieve the Global Goals.

Now is the time to urgently deliver on this call to action by reducing, designing and enforcing traffic speeds that are safe for
everyone, everywhere, prioritising low speed streets in all residential areas and near schools.

Streets for health. Streets for climate. Streets for people. We must act together to create #StreetsForLife.

Use our new calculator to see the casualty reductions and financial benefits from implementing 20mph for your Local Authority or for England, Scotland or Wales as a whole. 

A nearly universal aspiration in communities is to make traffic speed compatible with community life and human survivability.  A 30mph limit is no longer fit for purpose for urban and village streets. Lower default limits are being set. Choose 20mph.

Clocks go back Sunday 25 October meaning darker nights. Sunset will be from 4.45pm and nightfall from 6pm.  20mph limits widen drivers’ fields of vision. This helps see hazards and take avoiding action earlier. Drivers can stop in half the distance compared to 30mph. 20mph reduces the kinetic energy with fewer deaths or life changing injuries.

Vision Zero adopts a safe systems approach and commitment to injury prevention. Slower speeds and 20mph (30km/h) limits are key. Transport for London are setting a 20mph limit on all its roads inside the Congestion Charging Zone. Cambridge, Massachusetts is reducing city limits from 25mph to 20mph. San Francisco is adopting city-wide 20mph.

Bristol’s review on the future of its 20mph limits shows huge public approval and cost savings, confirming its massive success.  20mph works.  

20’s Plenty for Us welcomes the publication of the long-awaited DfT Evaluation of 20mph limits. It confirms the public support and acceptance of 20mph limits but has failed to meet the original DfT objectives or provide increased evidence on how to make our streets safer.

Today the government published its long awaited report evaluating 20mph limit implementations. We welcome the report. It has been a long time coming since 2014 when it was commissioned.

And in that time there have been nearly half a million casualties on streets with a 30mph limit.

The report only evaluated a small number of case studies which in themselves only covered part of an authority. There are some useful indicators in the report, particularly around the negative aspects of police failing to routinely enforce 20mph limits and the need for national engagement and awareness on the benefits of reducing speeds below 30mph in residential and other roads.

However, we have major reservations about the primary data used in the report around speed reductions and the complete failure of the study to look at sufficient casualty figures to be able to draw any conclusions that would be statistically credible. These were key reasons for the commissioning of the report and we are amazed at the choice of data measured which appears to be based on measuring what is available rather than what is meaningful. 

With post implementation results from more and more authorities that have already adopted wide-area 20mph limits, there is clear evidence of the benefits in casualty reduction.

The University of the West of England (UWE) has analysed the impact of 20mph roll-outs for Bristol City Council. It finds reductions of 2.7mph in average traffic speeds and an estimated cost saving of over £15m per year from fatal, serious and slight injuries avoided.