Part 1 here
If you want evidence of motorists' attitudes to and behaviours in 20 mph zones, you need look no farther than outside Ysgol Brynhyfryd.
Three years ago, after on-off pressure over many years, the stretch of road outside our secondary school became one with a variable speed limit. At school opening & closing times, it became a 20 mph zone. Before, after & between, 30 prevailed. It's fair to say that during the pre-coronavirus school peak start & finish times, school-generated traffic results in a limited opportunity to do anything much more than 20. The road was too soaked in traffic for that.
What's telling is the attitude to speed over the lockdown three months. Brynhyfryd closed to pupils on March 18th and only opened again on June 29th. During this period, the variable 20 mph limit still applied and the signage lit up accordingly. With school closed, you could argue that it didn't matter that motorists ignored the 20 mph limit, because there weren't any children commuting on foot or otherwise.
But, for the last three weeks, the school has been open, if only to a relatively small number of learners—a couple of hundred a day. As a result, traffic volumes outside Brynhyfryd have been below their usual term-time levels. During these three weeks, for a change, traffic on Mold Road was able to move freely. There were nevertheless still learners walking Mold Road.
Yet, it was patently obvious that the illuminated 20 mph signs meant nothing and were not just largely but totally ignored. Here, then, we had children, a school and signage... yet no one (believe me, absolutely no one, not even parents) was prepare to slow down—unless, of course, they braked last minute to enter the school site itself.
What chance, therefore, have 20 mph zones actually got?
If you want evidence of motorists' attitudes to and behaviours in 20 mph zones, you need look no farther than outside Ysgol Brynhyfryd.
What's telling is the attitude to speed over the lockdown three months. Brynhyfryd closed to pupils on March 18th and only opened again on June 29th. During this period, the variable 20 mph limit still applied and the signage lit up accordingly. With school closed, you could argue that it didn't matter that motorists ignored the 20 mph limit, because there weren't any children commuting on foot or otherwise.
But, for the last three weeks, the school has been open, if only to a relatively small number of learners—a couple of hundred a day. As a result, traffic volumes outside Brynhyfryd have been below their usual term-time levels. During these three weeks, for a change, traffic on Mold Road was able to move freely. There were nevertheless still learners walking Mold Road.
Yet, it was patently obvious that the illuminated 20 mph signs meant nothing and were not just largely but totally ignored. Here, then, we had children, a school and signage... yet no one (believe me, absolutely no one, not even parents) was prepare to slow down—unless, of course, they braked last minute to enter the school site itself.
What chance, therefore, have 20 mph zones actually got?
Tags:
Traffic