What Lancashire County Council is doing and the Lancashire Telegraph is suggesting with its ‘20 is Plenty’ campaign is that Blackburn should come under a signs-only speed limit without physical measures, and we have to accept that there will be virtually no enforcement of these limits.
A lot of accidents, such as a drunk falling out of a bus, would be recorded as an injury accident reportable on the council’s returns. There wouldn’t be anything that could reasonably be done by the council to prevent that.
There needs to be pure empirical evidence that speed was the primary cause of the injury. If it wasn’t, then what else can be done?
It may mean closing roads, removing rat-runs or making physical changes to the roads.
The reason I brought up Bastwell in a previous letter and compared it to somewhere like Fernhurst is not specifically down to the socio-economic factors, but also the way the roads are laid out. Bastwell has parked-up streets that are rat-runs. Fernhust does not.
But there are possibly cultural differences as well at play here, with some kids playing out in the street more than in other areas.
The roads to the north of the town lend themselves to being able to drive faster as there are few physical constraints like humps or chicanes.
Fast driving on narrow residential streets is eventually going to cause a collision.
But it is the mentality of driving fast in these sorts of streets that a signs-only 20mph scheme is going to carry the least effect, and that is why it will be a waste of money.
That is why I said we need to find out what exactly the causes are, rather than just being obsessed by pure numbers.
s_smith (via website).
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