Bad traffic enforcement

[Krokodil]

Hmm, and enforce it. There are probably more schools in Grantham that on duty police officers at any given time. Who is going to do that enforcement, and how do you make it stick?

Firstly, the schools situated where road traffic can be barred entirely should have those streets closed (access for residents and disabled pupils/carers where necessary), with double yellow lines for the rest. Making all parents who drive walk partway will encourage some to walk the rest too. It also spreads the remainder over a few streets rather than just the one outside the school.

Then enforcement. Some input from the police neighbourhood teams and their PCSOs helps, but a lot can be handled by traffic wardens. You don't need to cover every school, every day either. Just often enough that they're kept on their toes.

 

[bramling]

I'm told there is a north south split on the 20s. I find they are largely complied with in north Wales but I'm told by someone who lives in Cardiff that it's largely ignored there.

My experience from a week in South Wales last week is that it’s a total shambles there.

At the beginning of the week I made an attempt to observe 20mph, not because I agree with it but just to make life easier.

After a couple of days I gave this up, as I was sick of being tailgated or, worse, overtaken, to an extent where I felt it was becoming hazardous.

On top of that, there seem to be so many changes of speed limit that it was becoming difficult to keep on top of what the speed limit actually was. In some places it seemed you could barely drive 500 yards without a speed limit change.

The only place 20mph seemed to be observed was where there were average speed cameras, and even there there was an element of tailgating.

I found it a thoroughly unpleasant experience, and a demonstration of what happens when politicians implement something that isn’t respected by the population.

I don’t agree with the notion that it doesn’t matter if people don’t drive at 20 mph as long as it means they’re not now doing 40 mph. What that means in practice is firstly you now have vehicles doing all different speeds, which is conducive to problems. But it also totally penalises those who would previously have quite happily complied with 30 mph, both in terms of making everything an awful experience due to the tailgating, and also if they do decide to drive more akin to the prevailing speed are having to spend the whole time either scanning for cameras or putting themselves at risk of a fine.

The whole thing felt like yet another example of the unwritten “contract” between people and politicians having been broken, which seems to be the cause of so many problems in this country nowadays.

 

[edwin_m]

My house is in a 20mph area roughly halfway between two speed humps. People just accelerate between the speed humps and they're probably not going any slower past my house than if the humps weren't there.

Besides which those who live next to the speed bump themselves get the extra noise and pollution from braking and accelerating. Speed bumps should really be comfortably negotiable at whatever the speed limit is for that road.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Monday at 17:20 ==

The same school that also has to have a good relationship with those parents so that they work together. A bit of a challenge, that...

The nearest school to me got the kids to do some posters about the dangers of parking on the zigzags, and put them up on the fence in front of them.

 

[35B]

Firstly, the schools situated where road traffic can be barred entirely should have those streets closed (access for residents and disabled pupils/carers where necessary), with double yellow lines for the rest. Making all parents who drive walk partway will encourage some to walk the rest too. It also spreads the remainder over a few streets rather than just the one outside the school.

Then enforcement. Some input from the police neighbourhood teams and their PCSOs helps, but a lot can be handled by traffic wardens. You don't need to cover every school, every day either. Just often enough that they're kept on their toes.

Traffic wardens - what are they? Every school I've a connection with has the same persistent problem

 

[Tetchytyke]

But it also totally penalises those who would previously have quite happily complied with 30 mph

I think the point is that 30mph was too fast for the roads, so if it slows people down a few mph then job done.

It’s a shame we can’t do speed limits at a 5mph increment- 25mph would do the same job but wouldn’t feel quite as painfully slow.

 

[styles]

I think the point is that 30mph was too fast for the roads, so if it slows people down a few mph then job done.

It’s a shame we can’t do speed limits at a 5mph increment- 25mph would do the same job but wouldn’t feel quite as painfully slow.

TSRGD does permit speed limits in 5mph increments, but only with approval from the relevant minister.

The City of London Corporation did apply to Grant Schapps to implement a 15mph limit in the Square Mile (bankers know which side their bread is buttered!), but it was rejected.

 

[bramling]

I think the point is that 30mph was too fast for the roads, so if it slows people down a few mph then job done.

The argument made elsewhere in the thread was it discourages people driving at 40 mph in what was hitherto 30 mph. So essentially a scattergun approach that just penalises those who previously did the right thing.

I don’t have a problem with 20mph on roads where this is genuinely appropriate. Indeed this is what drivers should be doing anyway if 30 mph is too fast. However 20 mph is just way too slow in a lot of the locations where it has been implemented and as a blanket speed. When you have cars being overtaken by bikes then this is suggestive of a problem (*).

(* and is potentially quite dangerous, now quite common in London - just last week I was overtaking buses on a Brompton, which isn’t even a particularly fast bike. I’m okay with it as I am experienced and have powerful legs as a result of being a rower, but it really isn’t a desirable thing to be happening en masse).

It’s a shame we can’t do speed limits at a 5mph increment- 25mph would do the same job but wouldn’t feel quite as painfully slow.

Yes agreed if the railway can do it then don’t see why roads can’t.

 

[Krokodil]

25mph would do the same job but wouldn’t feel quite as painfully slow.

We should just convert to metric. Then you could use 40km/h.

 

[Bikeman78]

My experience from a week in South Wales last week is that it’s a total shambles there.

At the beginning of the week I made an attempt to observe 20mph, not because I agree with it but just to make life easier.

After a couple of days I gave this up, as I was sick of being tailgated or, worse, overtaken, to an extent where I felt it was becoming hazardous.

On top of that, there seem to be so many changes of speed limit that it was becoming difficult to keep on top of what the speed limit actually was. In some places it seemed you could barely drive 500 yards without a speed limit change.

The only place 20mph seemed to be observed was where there were average speed cameras, and even there there was an element of tailgating.

I found it a thoroughly unpleasant experience, and a demonstration of what happens when politicians implement something that isn’t respected by the population.

I don’t agree with the notion that it doesn’t matter if people don’t drive at 20 mph as long as it means they’re not now doing 40 mph. What that means in practice is firstly you now have vehicles doing all different speeds, which is conducive to problems. But it also totally penalises those who would previously have quite happily complied with 30 mph, both in terms of making everything an awful experience due to the tailgating, and also if they do decide to drive more akin to the prevailing speed are having to spend the whole time either scanning for cameras or putting themselves at risk of a fine.

The whole thing felt like yet another example of the unwritten “contract” between people and politicians having been broken, which seems to be the cause of so many problems in this country nowadays.

Agree with pretty much all of this. Along the A470, there are 20, 30, and 40 limits through the various villages, seemingly at random. How does one village justify 20 but the next is ok to drive through at 40? Some drop to 30, and then 20 100 yards later. What is the point in that?

 

[styles]

We should just convert to metric. Then you could use 40km/h.

Kensington Palace Gardens enters the chat! It has a speed limit in kmph as well as in mph. It is basically a village of embassies though.

 

[SargeNpton]

Traffic wardens - what are they? Every school I've a connection with has the same persistent problem

Do any Traffic Wardens still exist? If my memory is correct, they used to be managed by the local Police and had certain traffic management roles such as manning pedestrian crossings and directing traffic.

I haven't seen any of these for decades, only local council parking wardens, who duties are strictly limited to parking offences.

 

[Bikeman78]

Do any Traffic Wardens still exist? If my memory is correct, they used to be managed by the local Police and had certain traffic management roles such as manning pedestrian crossings and directing traffic.

I haven't seen any of these for decades, only local council parking wardens, who duties are strictly limited to parking offences.

I haven't seen any parking enforcement in Cardiff for years. Recently there was a car clearly abandoned in a bus lane in Newport Road, near the Royal Oak pub. It's one of the busiest roads in Cardiff. Roughly 200 buses per day would have passed it, many being delayed by having to wait for a gap in the traffic to drive around it. It was there for at least four days. Before anyone asks why I didn't report it, that's because reporting anything to Cardiff Council is a waste of time.

 

[styles]

I haven't seen any parking enforcement in Cardiff for years. Recently there was a car clearly abandoned in a bus lane in Newport Road, near the Royal Oak pub. It's one of the busiest roads in Cardiff. Roughly 200 buses per day would have passed it, many being delayed by having to wait for a gap in the traffic to drive around it. It was there for at least four days. Before anyone asks why I didn't report it, that's because reporting anything to Cardiff Council is a waste of time.

Worth noting that unlike mere parking problems, local authorities (and national park authorities) actually have a statutory obligation to deal with abandoned vehicles. They cannot legally just ignore them.

They do have to make some efforts to trace the owner etc which can delay things, but legally, the council would be committing an offence by ignoring it, unlike with a parked car.

Abandoned vehicles: local authority responsibilities

How councils and national park authorities should deal with the removal of abandoned vehicles from land in the open air and roads.

www.gov.uk

 

[Brightonboy]

Do any Traffic Wardens still exist? If my memory is correct, they used to be managed by the local Police and had certain traffic management roles such as manning pedestrian crossings and directing traffic.

I haven't seen any of these for decades, only local council parking wardens, who duties are strictly limited to parking offences.

A friend of mine was (a good few years ago) a traffic warden in Suffolk and they were managed by the police. Then PCSOs were introduced and the Traffic Wardens were 'upgraded' to PCSOs and their parking management roles were left to councils to manage by other means - many outsourced the role to contractors. The contractors, typically, were target-driven, cheap labour with only basic training and limited roles whereas the Police Traffic Wardens had not been target-driven other than 'keep the roads clear' and were more multi-skilled in support of other police activities (reporting what they saw as 'eyes on the ground', and traffic direction for example). Some of that was supposed to stay with PCSOs but they have been subject to cuts as well. You now, maybe at best, have a PCSO and a Parking Warden walking the same streets doing, between them, what a single Traffic Warden used to do.

 

[Lucan]

I'm told there is a north south [Wales] split on the 20s. I find they are largely complied with in north Wales but I'm told by someone who lives in Cardiff that it's largely ignored there.

True here in rural South East Wales. I think I'm the only driver who takes any notice of it whatsoever unless there is a camera. Very often as I slow into a village a driver behind me will seize the opportunity to overtake me, probably hitting the 20mph sign at 40 or more. Law of unexpected consequences. However I think they are better than I am in knowing where the speed traps are, as I don't drive much but I have been caught "speeding" in a 20 twice now : once across the Downs in Bristol clocked at 26 where they had lowered it from 30 since the last time I was there (it was national limit when I first knew it), and then at 24 going up a steep uphill unclassified two lane (technically S2) road with a field on one side and a few scattered houses on the other. That hill is steep enough that a car would almost stop dead from that speed if you lifted off the accelerator.

Monmouthshire for example I don't think have reverted a single road from 20mph to 30mph

The Caldicot by-pass. This is one of those bypasses, wide and open, where a housing estate has grown up on the other side from the centre. However, all there is on the bypass except at the ends are house back fences with no gates, and sports fields with railings and no gates. Where side roads access the outer housing (ie where pedestrians would cross between housing and town centre) there are light controlled crossings. I have never once seen a pedestrian walking along the by-pass pavement. 20mph was crazy while it lasted (it is still present at those ends). I am all in favour of the 20mph limit within that housing estate and similar.

A characteristic around here is the council micro-managing your speed. There are different speed limits as little as 50 yards apart in some places, and they are changing all the time with old figures on the road at odds with what the post signs say, and post signs at odds with each other. We should all buy shares in road sign manufacturers.

Caldicot Bypass on Steetview. The lack of traffic during the day is not untypical :

 

[The exile]

Worth noting that unlike mere parking problems, local authorities (and national park authorities) actually have a statutory obligation to deal with abandoned vehicles. They cannot legally just ignore them.

They do have to make some efforts to trace the owner etc which can delay things, but legally, the council would be committing an offence by ignoring it, unlike with a parked car.

Abandoned vehicles: local authority responsibilities

How councils and national park authorities should deal with the removal of abandoned vehicles from land in the open air and roads.

www.gov.uk

The question of course is how long the “significant period of time” is before an illegally parked vehicle becomes an abandoned one.