There’s a movement in the UK that’s campaigning for a 20mph speed limit in all residential zones – 20’s Plenty. We’re really big supporters of their campaign, because the faster drivers whizz round town, the greater the risk to pedestrians and cyclists.
Towns and cities really do need this speed reduction – someone hit by a car travelling at 40mph has an 85% chance of being killed; a 20mph collision has an mere 5% chance of causing a death. There are 3000 people a year killed in the UK by cars – the typical 30mph speed limit in cities is endangering (and in many cases terminating) lives.
Of course, it’s easy to look back to the unpopular experiment that was Nixon’s 55mph highway speed limit and use this as ammunition for anti-speed reduction. Whilst it’s true that reducing speed limits is usually met with antipathy amongst motorists (largely because of a general human reluctance to change, I suspect), it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. In any case, city streets are a different kettle of fish to highways – if nothing else, any ill consequences of dangerous driving will be entirely local (running down your neighbours, for example, is unlikely to increase your popularity[1]).
The other usual protestation is “driving at 20mph will increase my journey time unacceptably” – actually, no it won’t. The average inner-city speed of cars is typically less than 30mph, owing to traffic lights and chicanes and whatnot, but it’s the speed peaks that are dangerous[2]. In fact, in London, cars are slower than horses and carts – the average speed is just 8mph.
So if you’re in any way concerned about the safety of non-motoring road users in the UK, do support 20’s Plenty’s campaign.
Editor’s note: we’d be interested to hear about any similar schemes in other countries – leave a comment if you know about or are a part of such schemes elsewhere!
[1] <Insert humorous footnote here>
[2] All that acceleration and deceleration isn’t good for cars’ fuel efficiency either.