TfL bringing 20mph limit to many major London roads

[Jennaonthebeach]

I've no recollection of that at all, Jenna, but it does sound a bit like me.

Let's have a restart?

I can't guarantee that I won't piss you off again, mind

you didn't piss me off, but ok.

 

[kalmatthew]

But it could be done in built up areas then - at least that should work. I've only noticed one slight glitch - and i drive around Kent - and that was when the car picked up the speed limit from the exit ramp for the Chunnel, which was 30, and the road i was on was 40. And it happened once, never again subsequently, for about 2 minutes.

But the UK is a vastly smaller area than the US. So not a good comparison I would imagine.

Possibly, but it still needs some work especially if it's going to be a hard limit rather than a warning. In the UK driving up the A3 you hit bits inside the M25 where you have a 70(might now be 50 it's been a while) running directly parallel to a 30. By eye it's easy the 30 has a speed limit on both sides of the road and it's obvious you've turned off the dual caridge way. A camera doing sign recognising is likely to make the wrong decision and the gap between caridgeways is either small or in some cases vertical so GPS won't help.

I'd also having lived within 10 miles of the M25 although outside for most of my life my experice is that Google maps etc often have the wrong speed limit.

I don't think we are there yet for automated limiting without doing some sort of machine readable signs with better Lane based descriminstion. Warning is intresting and will help people who want to be helped so I'm massively in favour, it won't of course deal with somone who wanted to do 50 in 30 to begin with!

 

[Hollis]

If everyone drove the Citroen Ami the problem could be solved: top speed 28mph.

AMI, 100% Electric Mobility Solution Designed For Everybody

Oops

Citroën Ami - a tiny, electric 'polypropylene cube on wheels' for urban driving

 

[spring-peeper]

Try driving from Northern Ireland into The Republic (or vice versa).

Distance signs and speed limits change between kilometres and miles in the blink of an eye with no apparent reason!

oh wow!!! Does the change correspond to when you enter or leave The Rupublic?

If you drive from the States into Canada, there are signs that let you know that we are kph, not mph. They even have a sign that gives you the equivalent - 60 mph is 100 kmp. etc.

Too many Americans were seeing the posted limit as 100 mph, and traveled at that speed. They would declare that they did not know it was kmp, hence the signs.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

oh wow!!! Does the change correspond to when you enter or leave The Rupublic?

If you drive from the States into Canada, there are signs that let you know that we are kph, not mph. They even have a sign that gives you the equivalent - 60 mph is 100 kmp. etc.

Too many Americans were seeing the posted limit as 100 mph, and traveled at that speed. They would declare that they did not know it was kmp, hence the signs.

NI is mph, Republic kph. It goes from 70 mph to 120 kph, so nearly the same. Republic is a bit faster.

It's high time we changed over as well. Little chance with the Brexit dickheads in charge.

 

[spring-peeper]

NI is mph, Republic kph. It goes from 70 mph to 120 kph, so nearly the same. Republic is a bit faster.

It's high time we changed over as well. Little chance with the Brexit dickheads in charge.

Any idea why speed limits did not change when you converted to metric?

 

[moochedit]

Any idea why speed limits did not change when you converted to metric?

No but we also sell beer in pints.

 

[spring-peeper]

No but we also sell beer in pints.

so do we

 

[rutabowa]

As I said, I had 2 speeding fines and points in the first few months of the 20mph zones -one of them allowed me to opt for a speed awareness course - so I'm assuming a lot of others also had speeding fines ,etc on the same stretch of road - and since then it does appear to self-regulate, traffic is a lot slower .

I got got on lea bridge road too. the traffic is now extremely dead on 20 mph (which looks and feels a lot slower than I expect, seeing a fairly big road where it is actually fully obeyed)

 

[SpookyFrank]

It's high time we changed over as well.

Why

 

[hash tag]

The car I drive for work has a speed limiter which can be set and it tells you the speed limit on the dashboard,

Be careful with that one; I have proved at least three times that this to be incorrect on our new electric work cars.

 

[hash tag]

There are rumours that this experiment has come to a halt. I am sure I got flashed by one of these two camera's for doing about 25 MPH
on either christmas eve or christmas day but never head anything.

Speed enforcement pilot on Priory Lane and Wimbledon Park Road - Wandsworth Borough Council

Following discussions with London Council and the Metropolitan Police, we will be launching a pilot of speed enforcement on Wimbledon Park Road and Priory Lane.

www.wandsworth.gov.uk

 

[Crispy]

Any idea why speed limits did not change when you converted to metric?

Inertia and bloody-mindedness.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Why

Because the metric system is better. It is good to have measuring units that divide easily and form part of one unified system. It would be good for the UK psychologically to give up on things that smack of British exceptionalism. Kids are taught in metric. It's only older people who would complain. Most of the former empire has given up on imperial measurements.

And we'd be doing something nice that would please the French. Nigel Farage would hate it.

 

[moochedit]

Any idea why speed limits did not change when you converted to metric?

Possibly the cost of changing road signs and speedometers in cars? Although that didn't stop Ireland (not sure when they changed?)

 

[Spymaster]

Because the metric system is better. It is good to have measuring units that divide easily and form part of one unified system. It would be good for the UK psychologically to give up on things that smack of British exceptionalism. Kids are taught in metric. It's only older people who would complain. Most of the former empire has given up on imperial measurements.

And we'd be doing something nice that would please the French. Nigel Farage would hate it.

Well of course, all of this is wrong except for the last sentence!

Try asking for a litre of Guinness in Ireland. I dare you.

 

[rutabowa]

if you want easily dividable we should go for base 60.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Well of course, all of this is wrong except for the last sentence!

Try asking for a litre of Guinness in Ireland. I dare you.

The anachronistic pint could still remain as it has in Ireland.

The pint can of beer didn't prove so popular here, though. I think people are much less attached to these things than some imagine. It's a stupid thing to be attached to.

But someone would whine. People whined when money was decimalised. Who the hell would want to go back to old money?

 

[Spymaster]

Any idea why speed limits did not change when you converted to metric?

They did.

Motorways in Ireland are 120kph which is a little under 75mph. In the UK it’s 70mph.

The main problem with this is that not everyone in NI who travels regularly to the south can afford to buy faster cars.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Be a way of selling the idea. Change to harmonise with the eminently sensible Irish and you get an extra 5mph.

We could adopt the euro at the same time. Go all in sensible.

 

[Spymaster]

People whined when money was decimalised. Who the hell would want to go back to old money?

That’s an unreasonable example, like conflating Germans and Nazis.

Old money was fucking bonkers.

 

[Spymaster]

Be a way of selling the idea. Change to harmonise with the eminently sensible Irish and you get an extra 5mph.

We could adopt the euro at the same time. Go all in sensible.

Euros work for frogs legs and paella.

Useless in the UK.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Farage wouldn't actually hate it of course. He'd relish the opportunity to perform his hatred of it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Rejoin the EU, adopt the euro and change to kph. We could be as good as Ireland if there were the will to be so.

Finally catch up with the French.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Kids are taught in metric.

No they're not. They're taught both. I was doing a lesson yesterday that involved kids measuring how tall they were and they kept saying things like, 144 centimetres? What does that mean? And I had to keep translating things into feet and inches for them. Because the metric system is not calibrated to a human scale. Wherever it exists in free and fair competition with imperial, the shit imperial measures lose out, but so do the shit metric ones. And all the metric length/distance units are shit. They just are. That's why they only exist in places where they've been forcibly imposed.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Finally catch up with the French.

Let's hope we can also catch up with their acceptance of racism, their mistreatment of animals and their failure to pick up dogshit.

 

[Hollis]

Some fascinating information from the UK Metric Association:

1n 1969 speed limits were planned to go metric in 1973, however this was reversed in December 1970..

In December, the Minister for Transport Industries is asked in Parliament “if he will state the estimated cost involved in alterations to vehicles and road signs of all kinds if metric distance and speed measurements are introduced into this country.” He replies, “Nearly £2 million for speed limit signs: the Government have however decided that speed limits will not be made metric in 1973 and have no other date in mind.”

UK metric timeline

Something else to thank Ted Heath for then..

 

[Spymaster]

Farage wouldn't actually hate it of course. He'd relish the opportunity to perform his hatred of it.

Even that's not a price worth paying.

If we adopt Euros today, tomorrow Heinkels will be landing in Hyde Park.

Wedge. Thin end.

 

[Hollis]

More of the case for changing to Km here from the Association:

Speed limits

I guess introducing a 20 km per hour speed limit would make things even safer!

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It takes some effort to get a feel for the new measures but it can be done. I now think of human weights in kilos and my life is all that better for it. I'm working on human heights right now. Freeing myself measure by measure from the imperial yoke.