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All Isle of Wight towns could be 20mph after landmark vote20 mph sign (CC BY-ND 2.0 licensed by Tony Hall:Flickr)

All Isle of Wight towns could be 20mph after landmark vote

Towns, villages, schools and residential areas could be made safer under new law
by Sarah Barth
Sun, Nov 06, 2016 11:47
8

The Full Council of the Isle of Wight has voted for 20mph limits in built up areas.

Eighty per cent of the island’s councillors supported the motion at the end of last month for slower speed limits on “residential streets, town and village centres, and where people work and learn.”

Cllr Jones-Evans, who presented the plan, said ‘Slowing traffic down to 20 mph where people live, work and play is a proven way to lift the wellbeing of communities with thousands of students going to school each day, so raising awareness of this campaign in our schools is a great place to start.”

The Newport-based councillor said the Island has the second highest number of people killed on the road, of comparative areas, and by reducing speeds the Isle of Wight could hope to see reduced traffic.

Increasing walking and cycling could even save as much as £1.2 million in health care, she added.

Cllr Julie Jones-Evans accepted an amendment by Conservative leader Cllr Dave Stewart that asked for parish and town councils to consulted on where the 20 mph zones were introduced.

Cllr Matthew Price said: "We have all had residents come to us with concerns and stories of near misses.

"Even if it only saves one life, it is worth it."

For the motion were 26 councillors, three against — including transport executive member Phil Jordan — and three abstained.

The campaign group 20’s Plenty said: “We are urging the Isle of Wight to implement 20mph limits as soon as possible.”

 

Isle of Wight
20's Plenty
20 mph

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8 comments

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Bmblbzzz | 8 years ago
2 likes

This Councillor Jones-Evans has got it. "Lift the well-being of the community." It's not primarily about safety or air pollution or health, important though those things are; it's about making places where people live, liveable for people.

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Stef Marazzi | 8 years ago
1 like

Great idea on the health front. Bearing in mind 10% of the NHS budget is spent of diabetes and is projected to increase to 17%! It costs £1.5 million per hour to treat everyone who has it! If increasing walking and cycling helps beat that, it will be well worth it.

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Yorkshire wallet | 8 years ago
2 likes

Yes, I know that the slower a car goes the less damage it will do but there comes a point at which we need to be directing blame back onto pedestrians sometimes. 

If you get knocked over whilst in the road and not at a crossing, then unless the vehicle was driven by a madman who wasn't going to stop anyway, I think the pedestrian is also to blame. 

I often slow to less than 30 depending on who is actually about, like yesterday, a child was wobbling about on the pavement on a bike, so I slowed down at the ready. If that road was empty then I'd have done 30. 

Old dodgers are the worst pedestrians IMO. My Granddad used to be a copper and thought he could amble into the road and put his hand up and I remember some silly sod doing the same to me on my motorbike at a pelican crossing. I locked the front wheel up and nearly went down as he stood in the middle of the road shaking his head at me on my green light. Thanks Granddad. 

Then again I've also noticed that pedestrians don't give two hoots about walking in front of bikes and always expect you to compromise yourself. No sorry, no remorse, usually just a death stare that they wouldn't try if you were a car. 

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iso2000 | 8 years ago
8 likes

Plenty of 20MPH zones where I live in South London. The speed limit is completely ignored by drivers and is never enforced. The only people I see beneifiting from these zones are the companies who make road signs and the white paint.

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Bluebug replied to iso2000 | 8 years ago
2 likes

iso2000 wrote:

Plenty of 20MPH zones where I live in South London. The speed limit is completely ignored by drivers and is never enforced. The only people I see beneifiting from these zones are the companies who make road signs and the white paint.

People drive to the road width and layout. 

There is a section of road about 5 miles from where I live which use to have a 20mph limit and a speed camera.  They removed the speed camera and very few people actually drive at 30mph on that section of road due to it being narrow, bendy and congested most of the time.

 

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FluffyKittenofT... replied to iso2000 | 8 years ago
1 like
iso2000 wrote:

Plenty of 20MPH zones where I live in South London. The speed limit is completely ignored by drivers and is never enforced. The only people I see beneifiting from these zones are the companies who make road signs and the white paint.

And 'ignored' is an understatement. Vehicles hit 60-70mph on a regular basis on at least one of these '20mph' limit roads. I'd feel safer cycling on a motorway than I do on that road (vehicle speeds are comparable and at least a motorway doesn't have parked cars and traffic-island choke points to deal with).

Without enforcement I don't really see what the point is.

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brooksby | 8 years ago
1 like

You'd think that car manufacturers would jump on the bandwagon and start making cars optimised for twenty mph  (since one of the big complaints I hear is that cars are optimised for higher speeds and so work badly/inefficiently at lower speeds).

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Awavey replied to brooksby | 8 years ago
3 likes
brooksby wrote:

You'd think that car manufacturers would jump on the bandwagon and start making cars optimised for twenty mph  (since one of the big complaints I hear is that cars are optimised for higher speeds and so work badly/inefficiently at lower speeds).

they do, supermini cars are optimised for town driving speeds, the drawback is that means they behave like go carts, are designed to be effortless to drive and have very quick acceleration, just observe how SMART cars behave on the roads, its very easy to quickly get out of control, or get into a more dangerous situation in such cars as a result.

and Ive always thought any politician who uses the phrase "Even if it only saves one life, it is worth it." to promote their idea should be automatically barred from having any further input to it.

setting a speed limit is completely meaningless if there is no back up to enforce it.

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