Wales becomes Trumpton

Brigadier said:
Not at all.
The Welsh gov paper stated reasons other than safety, for their decision.
Encouraging walking, and promoting wellbeing were two.
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And not at all relevant to whether 20 is safer for a collision than 30 which is the point others (if not you) are trying to deny
 
Brigadier said:
You should have no trouble posting an example up then.
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You want evidence that, in a collision, 20 is safer than 30? And to think I was accused of trolling...

"High speeds make a crash more likely because drivers have less time to react and because it requires a longer distance to stop or slow down. They also make collisions more deadly because modest increases in speed cause large increases in crash energy."

www.iihs.org

Speed

Information from IIHS-HLDI on speed, including speed limits and speed cameras
www.iihs.org www.iihs.org
 
"A new report by the International Transport Forum confirms that lower speeds make roads safer."

Lower Speed Means Fewer Road Deaths

A new report by the International Transport Forum confirms that lower speeds make roads safer.The study examined how the road safety performance in ten countries changed after they changed speed limits or introduced automatic speed cameras on a large scale.All the cases indicated a strong...
www.itf-oecd.org www.itf-oecd.org
 
"It goes without saying that the speed at which a vehicle is travelling, at the point of impact with a pedestrian, will greatly influence the outcome: at 10-20mph common sense suggests that, injuries sustained would be much less than if the car was
travelling at 40-50mph.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) suggest that an increase in average speed of 1km/h typically results in a 3% higher risk of a crash involving injury, with a 4–5% increase for crashes that result in fatalities."

 
denso13 said:
You want evidence that, in a collision, 20 is safer than 30? And to think I was accused of trolling..
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No.
Carman stated that [others have claimed that a collision at 30 is safer than one at 20].
#782

I said that if this was true, he should have no trouble posting up an example.


Fwiw, I suspect he doesn't mean what he typed, but inferring gets short shrift so I have took him at his word.
 
I was driving in Wales at the weekend.

Ruddy annoying those 20mph limits on loads of roads where it’s simply not necessary. I experienced queues of cars backed up behind the single car doing 15-20mph regardless of if it was 20, 30 or 40mph stretch of road.

No doubt reducing the speed limit will lower the number of accidents and injuries overall, as would a blanket 10mph speed limit, but there’s a trade off of risk vs rewards (in terms of accidents vs journey time/fuel used). Wales have turned the dial too far to the left in my opinion.

I drove from Queensferry to Beaumaris and back, and around Anglesey. A noticeable number of 20mph signs have been defaced on my route, so some people are taking matters into their own hands.

The insurance stats make interesting reading but I work in the industry and know they will use stats selectively to get a bit of free publicity. I would like to know the following;
- what was the percentage change for the rest of the UK for the same period.
- is the % change based on absolute numbers or proportional? Ie if they insured 100 cars Q4 2022 and 80 cars in Q3 2023, the frequency of claims could be exactly the same, just for a lower number of cars.
- did esure keep their insurance ‘mix’ the same for both periods or did they do a mix adjusted analysis. They may have had a higher % of young drivers in their portfolio in 2022 (more prone to accidents) and then taking pricing action to reduce their exposure to certain cohorts in 2023, which would lead to a reduction in incidents that is largely detached from the speed limit changes.

I would also be interested to see some longer term stats. I suspect there will be an adjustment as people get new to the new limits, perhaps being over cautious driving in that first period after the new rules were implemented. Only time will tell.

Either way, in my view, Wales is now a pain in the backside to travel through. I seriously hope this isn’t adopted across the rest of the UK.

I used to enjoyed enjoy a drive out to Wales - Horseshoe Pass and the Evo Triangle. Great roads and wonderful scenery. Now I wouldn’t bother due to the silly speed limits and the sheer number of speed cameras everywhere.
 
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denso13 said:
what will your impact speed be if :

You drive at 70mph and take 4.0 seconds to react to a hazard.
You drive at 20mph and take 4.0 seconds to react to a hazard.
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Many studies show that concentration falls when the speed limit is much lower than the 85th percentile. Why do you try to ignore important elements of driving psychology? Dishonest agenda perhaps?
 
denso13 said:
I'm equating low speeds on good roads, 20mph limit on a straight road with 50mph limit on a motorway, they both feel slow. I still think the lower one is better for you. But we are just going round in circles now.
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It isn’t better if the side effect is a loss of concentration or over compensation. This is something the slower is better fans try to ignore. But it’s well established.
 
carmanmemoranda said:
20 is safer than 30 or 40 for a collision.

Sorry if you don't like it, but its not a strawman.
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52% of drivers exceed 30mph.
Average impact speed on urban roads is 10mph or less.
2% of people hit die, not 80%, not 50% not 20% not 10%. Driving too slowly for the conditions causes loss of concentration and over compensation for the perceived benefit of lower speed . Sorry if you don’t like the facts.
 
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kingandy2nd said:
I was driving in Wales at the weekend.

Ruddy annoying those 20mph limits on loads of roads where it’s simply not necessary. I experienced queues of cars backed up behind the single car doing 15-20mph regardless of if it was 20, 30 or 40mph stretch of road.

No doubt reducing the speed limit will lower the number of accidents and injuries overall, as would a blanket 10mph speed limit, but there’s a trade off of risk vs rewards (in terms of accidents vs journey time/fuel used). Wales have turned the dial too far to the left in my opinion.

I drove from Queensferry to Beaumaris and back, and around Anglesey. A noticeable number of 20mph signs have been defaced on my route, so some people are taking matters into their own hands.

The insurance stats make interesting reading but I work in the industry and know they will use stats selectively to get a bit of free publicity. I would like to know the following;
- what was the percentage change for the rest of the UK for the same period.
- is the % change based on absolute numbers or proportional? Ie if they insured 100 cars Q4 2022 and 80 cars in Q3 2023, the frequency of claims could be exactly the same, just for a lower number of cars.
- did esure keep their insurance ‘mix’ the same for both periods or did they do a mix adjusted analysis. They may have had a higher % of young drivers in their portfolio in 2022 (more prone to accidents) and then taking pricing action to reduce their exposure to certain cohorts in 2023, which would lead to a reduction in incidents that is largely detached from the speed limit changes.

I would also be interested to see some longer term stats. I suspect there will be an adjustment as people get new to the new limits, perhaps being over cautious driving in that first period after the new rules were implemented. Only time will tell.

Either way, in my view, Wales is now a pain in the backside to travel through. I seriously hope this isn’t adopted across the rest of the UK.

I used to enjoyed enjoy a drive out to Wales - Horseshoe Pass and the Evo Triangle. Great roads and wonderful scenery. Now I wouldn’t bother due to the silly speed limits and the sheer number of speed cameras everywhere.
Click to expand...

You raise some good points. Wales has been under performing and continues to do so. Other cities and towns which have adopted widespread 20 limits like London have seen no associated benefit in reduction of casualty. Some politicians like to spin the data and ignore covid impact or claim short term improvements which subsequently regress to the mean.
 
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