Is twenty plenty?

Is twenty plenty? Wales seems to think so as it has introduced a blanket twenty mile per hour speed limit across the country. At least it has if you believe what the right leaning media has to say. Despite voting to support the change, the Welsh Conservatives now see it as the latest wedge issue. 

Apparently 20 is the new woke!

It is not a blanket speed limit but a default. You will still be able to drive at 50, 60 or 70 on other roads. What used to be a thirty mile an hour limit has now become a twenty mile per hour limit and even then each local authority can make an exception depending upon local circumstances.

Why has the Wales government introduced the change? Simply in a move to reduce injuries. Its estimates are that 9 lives will be saved and 98 serious injuries prevented each year. The expected average increase in journey time will be one minute.

Of course the Tories are more than happy to make a meal of it. They are thinking of the response to ULEZ, another Conservative policy turned on its head. Folowing yesterday’s announcement by the Prime Mnister, the UK Governments green credentials are well and truly shot.

They are now claiming that it will cost Wales £4.5 billion, from the Welsh government’s own (worst case) analysis but they forgot to tell everyone that this is over 30 years and so it is £150 million per year. The Welsh government estimates a saving of £92 million per year but what value can you put on a life?

Is it a good idea or not? I am in favour of it. 

People and cars don’t mix and with today’s juggernauts there is only one likely outcome of a collision. People hit by a car at 20 mph are much more likely to survive than at 30 mph. Ideally society should lose its obsession with the car and stop allowing it to dictate the way we live our lives. Cars should be kept separate from people wherever possible but when it is not, they should reduce their speed significantly. Near schools or in busy shopping streets are not places for speeding vehicles.

I am a car driver and no saint but I would rather set off a mnute earlier than kill someone.