Police have chosen not to enforce them, who you gonna call, the police?

They’re not unenforceable in a legal sense, they’re unenforceable in a practical sense. Ie, the police don’t have the resources to do it and believe that 20mph zones should be self-enforced with traffic-calming measures.

A lot of forces have said they will not actively enforce 20mph limits – some kind of moaning about resources, even though I’d rather they enforced a 20mph zone next to a school at 3pm than sat in a layby enforcing a 60mph outside town for half a day, like they do around here.

As for the individual officer, someone needs to ask his inspector to have a quiet word.

I may well be wrong, but I believe the law is that the police are allowed to break the limit when going about their duty. Most people believe this to mean when they have their lights on but I don’t think that is actually the case.

If the limit reduces the overall speed of traffic then that will improve safety and quality of life for the town, whether it’s strictly policed or not.

Seems a shame that 20 and 30mph are treated so often as optional in the first place… ideally you wouldn’t need to enforce them given that they’re obviously there to protect pedestrians in residential areas.

Breaking them gets you absolutely nowhere faster as you’ll be stopping at a junction in short order, from the obvious nature of residential streets…

And the actual ACPO document:

http://www.acpo.police.uk/documents/uniformed/2013/201305-uoba-joining-forces-safer-roads.pdf

Section 11. I can’t readily C&P from it, but it basically says that the onus is on the local authority to make the road self-policing rather than just slapping up signs; however, that doesn’t mean that the police won’t enforce it, rather that it’s at their discretion.

Is the OPs 20 limit a real limit with legal signs:

or advisory almost-legal-but-different-colours signs?

If it’s the latter then it’s not legally enforceable.

Our village had a campaign to put in a 20 limit. There was a petition circulated which the majority of people in the village signed. The council agreed, but gave us advisory signs instead of proper ones as it meant less paperwork 🙄

I stick to them, but frequently get someone driving inches from my bumper as a result – most likely someone who signed the same petition as me! 🙄

Are you suggesting that some people in your town deserve less protection than others?

D28boy, what exactly is the inconvenience to you though?

20Mph limit is demonstrably safer for pedestrians, cyclists and other road users, and in a populated urban area how often would you get up to 30 for more than a brief period anyway?

If it really is a small town then how far is it across town, 2-3 miles tops? so even driving right from one side of town to another at 20 instead of 30 the impact on your journey is a couple of minutes maybe?
And that’s not even taking into accoun that most of the delays will be due to junctions and or traffic lights rather than an slight decrease in maximum speed.

Seems reasonable, the sooner urban areas are all converted to 20mph limits the better.

Police around me in Chorlton, Manchester have been supporting local communities with the Twenty is Plenty…

Morning #chorlton

Taking part in the community Speedwatch again today. Lots sticking to 20mph & below

Keep it up!

— GMP Chorlton (@GMPChorlton) July 7, 2014

I think the paperwork aspect came because putting in a “proper” 20 limit needs a Traffic Order, consultation and consent etc.

Much the same reason that local authorities put in meaningless “advisory” cycle lanes rather than proper mandatory ones (which at least have legal meaning even if many motorists still ignore them).

I’ve nothing against the idea of reducing speed in areas where there is a perceived level of risk

there’s a perceived level of risk on all urban roads so they’ve just done what you want, surely?

not many people going to be overtaking cars on bikes if the cars are actually doing 20. Besides if that’s how someone gets their kicks 8-9am or 5-6pm weekdays pretty much any town in england they can fill their boots.

Perceived level of risk? realistic levels of risk are already there check the stats, the fact that the qualified number of people haven’t died on those sections of road to get a specific limit downgrade is surely a good thing? Seems a bit wrong to wait for X number of people to die before implementing a change

Sorry, what laws are you referring to here?

The only restriction I know for cycle lanes is that you can’t drive / park in them if there’s a solid white line, and shouldn’t if it’s broken (ie, they’re just like chevrons). Oh, and they can be used for demarcation like yellow lines if there’s waiting restriction signs.

I’m not aware of any enforced / advisory lane distinction or any sort of legislation beyond that. Is this a TfL-specific thing or something?

Whilst driving round Bristol for my business I regularly drive in three different speed zones.
20
30
40

Nowadays I find myself looking for speed signs rather than watching for pedestrians/cyclists/emerging cars.

I think it’s time we brought back the Green Cross Code adverts, for a start. Where I live is hardly yummy mummy cul-de-sac central, and there’s still almost as many kids playing football in traffic as there is cars.

Really, infuriatingly slow, I think you perhaps have other issues to deal with if you become infuriated at having to travel at 20 instead of 30, and average speeds in towns are rarely above 20 anyway. Did you perhaps mean ‘mildly annoying until I’d thought about it and realised my average speed probably wasn’t affected much anyway‘?

As for the ‘to my knowledge’ bit, well perhaps you should research the facts before you start ranting, you may well be correct but leaping into a rant without availing yourself of the facts seems a little premature.

And absence of stats for specific roads doesn’t nullify the existing stats drawn from more general surveys, as D0NK says, seems a little odd to want to wait until someone is hurt before taking action, just because nobody has been hurt yet (to your knowledge 😉 ) is not a good argument against it.

There you go, obviously your perception differs to the councils (and a lot of us). Just because you have a different opionin doesn’t mean you’re right. 😉

Only when they’re stationary or very slow moving, in which case you’re not going to be hindered by the 20 limit are you?

Normally thses kinds of changes go through discussion and consultation, presumably you have looked to find out why this change was brought in and what the justification was?

There’s normally opportunities for members of the public to raise questions too as proposals are often announced ahead of time and rarely are changes made overnight with no prior activity.

Ah, cool. I was just thrown by the terminology, then. Cheers.