Even with the caveats about limited data and untangling causation and correlation, the statistics are striking: the first year of a scheme in Wales where the speed limit on urban roads was lowered to 20mph resulted in about 100 fewer people killed or seriously injured.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    29 days ago

    In my home town ALL roads are 30kph, and like 50% of the intersections are roundabouts. The result is traffic just continuously flowing and you arrive much faster than before with the roads at 50kph. Other side effects are less gasoline use, less pollution from gas and tires, less accidents, less noise, basically less bad and more good.

    Add to that the great cycle and walking infrastructure and yeah, of course I’m talking about the Netherlands

    Queue the replies with "but you could nevah do this in [Canada | United States | England | Mexico | Russia | China | whatever] because [too cold | too many mountains | too large distances | whatever]

    • Obi@sopuli.xyz
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      29 days ago

      To be fair in NL a lot of people ignore the speed limits if the road invites you to drive faster (not enough traffic calming stuff). Not a lot and still driving safely but for example there’s this huge straight road near my house that they changed to 30 recently but didn’t make any changes to the infrastructure and pretty much everyone still drives 50 on it. Also on highways it’s 100 everywhere during the day but you see a lot driving 110/120 where there’s no speed control.

  • Wanderer@lemm.ee
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    30 days ago

    Look you don’t understand I need to speed so I can get suck on traffic faster. It allows me to get to my destination earlier (I don’t care what proof you have that it doesn’t). Nothing else matters.

    I will not be taking questions, just getting mad at people for not having common sense.

    Go fuck yourself.

    • apis@beehaw.org
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      30 days ago

      Years ago, my parents set out on a long journey from their home city to a rural location in another country.

      Approximately five minutes after setting out, a car went flying past them. It was a bright red sports model that was very eyecatching.

      Not long after, they arrived at a toll bridge, right behind the same red car. They noted the number plate.

      Past the toll, the red car sped off again, quickly accelerating well past the speed limit.

      Over the next few hours, this repeated at a major junction. When they eventually arrived at the ferry again just behind the red car, my father flashed his headlights.

      Disembarking, they got another flash from my father, and sped off.

      Several hundreds of miles later my parents arrived at their destination, parked up, and got out to stretch, when pulling in beside them was a curiously familiar red car.

      Not wishing to make assumptions, my mother casually checked the plates, then saluted the driver and inquired about their journey to the event they had all arrived for.

      Nope, they’d made no detours or stops, they’d taken the same route.

      My mother has a way in these situations of wording things just so, that totally makes the person she’s talking to feel like an absolute worm without ever getting the escape of thinking my mother was being anything other than lovely and charming to them.

      Red car was spotted driving most sedately in the local town the following afternoon.

    • towerful@programming.dev
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      30 days ago

      I think improved road safety is a great idea. 20mph lowers emissions and wear on both roads and cars.
      I just wish they made it 20mph in other areas, rather than where I drive.
      I think it’s a great idea, and support it. Just… Not in my back yard.

  • MNByChoice@midwest.social
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    30 days ago

    Fantastic! wonder how people are adjusting? Walking more, pooling trips, or avoiding slow roads?

    I wondered at the definition:

    defined as roads where lamp-posts were no more than about 180 metres apart.

    Will this result in worse lighting to avoid the reduced speed limit?

    • theo@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      I have personally found that roads are nicer to walk along with people going slower, but I haven’t necessarily noticed more people walking. I think part of the issue is the way that new housing has been built where it is still a significant distance away from the places you need to get to is still keeping people in cars.

      I have not noticed any differences in the lighting, but the Welsh Gov did postpone all road building projects at a similar time, and for any smaller residential road building I would’ve thought the builders would want it to be low speed anyway.

    • sping@lemmy.sdf.org
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      30 days ago

      Not sure why they’d adjust. It’s mostly urban areas where top speed makes little difference to journey times. Journey times are generally decided by how long you spend waiting at every light and intersection.

    • ladel@feddit.ukOP
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      30 days ago

      The thing about the lamp posts doesn’t really have any significance. Roads in the UK have a default speed limit that doesn’t need to be marked with the speed limit - it’s 30mph for “normal” streets with regular lamposts, 60mph for other roads, 70mph if there’s an embankment thing in between each side of the road. 180m spacing must just be the technical definition for what makes a road 30mph. In Wales, they made default 30mph roads 20mph.

  • vpol@lemm.ee
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    30 days ago

    I’m ok with the limit itself, I just want a dedicated button on my steering wheel to turn on/off 20mph speed limit.

  • mbirth@lemmy.ml
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    30 days ago

    I’m all for survival of the fittest. If people are too stupid to stay on the pavement, it’s on them. Why let drivers suffer to protect those idiots that blindly run into traffic?

    Maybe we should ban ALL cars to get traffic related injuries to 0… 🤦‍♂️