The 20’s Plenty campaign.

This is a great scheme to operate around the vicinity of schools, but no scheme is worthwhile without enforcement.

There are a number of these zones which were introduced a few years back with exactly the very same stupidity and similar zeal as how the speed humps were implemented. Hundreds of signs were attached to lampposts, even in silly places once again like cul-de-sacs. The signage clutters the roads but it doesn’t make anyone drop to 20mph, even the local police cars ignore the signs. Several times when nobody is behind me I’ve stuck to 20 and cyclists actually overtake!

I’ve got a lifelong history with road safety and a personal association with driving standards. We all want safer roads with reduced accidents and fatalities. I am at varying times a pedestrian, a cycling commuter, a car driver and a biker and I’ve also been knocked down crossing the road (my fault) ending up in the back of an ambo and in hospital….so I feel pretty qualified to speak.

I remember maybe 25 years ago our local council adopted a new policy where they decided to literally saturate all residential streets on every estate with speed humps. The policy wasn’t thought through because the expense was colossal and much of it was a total waste of money. They rather ludicrously went for overkill and even put them down cul-de-sacs where you couldn’t reach more than 15mph anyway and on roads that had not had a single incident relating to any kind of road safety element at all in 60 years!

The speed humps design is basically flawed to this day because it invariably only has a real effect on the smaller width cars driven by careful owners. Any car bigger than small does not have to slow down because it is wider than the hump, same with buses, lorries and by the opposing reason motorbikes and scooters ride between them. Even the boy racers in the hot hatches didn’t slow down; the local garages however loved it because they had a large increase in shock absorber replacement jobs.

There have been campaigns since as long as I can remember. As a kid it was the Tufty Club, then the Green Cross Code, I remember the great Kevin Keegan promoting a campaign about looking right, left and right again. There was the “clunk, click every trip” campaign running long before seatbelts became law. Think Bike, Bike Safe and so many other campaigns are all variations to keep road safety at the forefront of all of us. After all we are all pedestrians, cyclist, drivers or even just public transport users so one way or another everyone has day to day involvement with roads, so it is in everybody’s interest.

While humans are around we will never prevent errors, accidents, injuries and fatalities. People step into roads without looking, drivers are not always paying attention, cyclists chose to wear black and have no lights. The challenge is ongoing.