I suppose that calling for 20mph to be the default speed limit on London’s roads, does seem a bit ironic when the media are reporting that London’s average speed is 12mph, making it the slowest city for motorised traffic in Europe. However, many of the relatives and friends of the 231 people who where killed or the 3,715 who were seriously injured on London’s roads last year would not care about the irony, or statistics on the average speed. Everyone knows that a lot of drivers go way too fast in London and something has to be done about it.
The reality is that a pedestrian has around a 50-50 chance of surviving being hit by a car driving at just above 30mph, but a 95% chance of living after being hit by a car going at 20mph. Much as we all enjoy getting to places quickly, most of us would prefer to live in a world where the odds are stacked in favour of us staying alive. As the recent Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (Pacts) report makes clear, 20mph as the norm in urban areas is the sane alternative to the blood-on-the-tarmac madness of the status quo.
Speeding traffic also puts a lot of pedestrians and cyclists off using many roads. Organisations like the London Cycling Campaign believe that the introduction of a 20mph zone across the whole of London would do far more to encourage cycling than painting new cycle lanes. We have to not only reduce road danger, we have to reclaim our streets by reducing the fear of road danger.
At the moment, Transport for London spends £10m a year on 20mph zones in London. Much of this money goes on road humps, which successfully slow traffic down and save lives, but also annoy a lot of people. While 20mph zones have halved road deaths and injuries, especially of cyclists, children and pedestrians, most of us would agree that covering London in road humps is a slow way of getting safer roads. The quicker and cheaper alternative is to have a culture shift towards slower speeds and to use cameras to enforce that change in attitudes. We now have a new generation of cameras that measure average speeds over a whole area, or neighbourhood. Next year, Transport for London will be trialling a set of wireless, time distance cameras. These have the big advantage of being relatively cheap, very flexible and digital, so no mucking around with changing films.
As part of my agreement with Ken Livingstone over his budget, I’ve asked the mayor to do a feasibility study on the introduction of 20mph as the default limit in London, with some exception for major roads. He has agreed to lobby the government to allow for a change in the rules if this report says it is a good idea.
London could have a very different feel to it in 10 years’ time, with safer streets where pedestrians and cyclists feel they are on more equal terms with the cars and lorries. We could be taking out the road humps and getting rid of some of the clutter on our streets, like the railings that herd people onto narrow crossing points. Some areas of London might even try moving towards the naked streets approach pioneered by the Dutch town of Drachten. All of this becomes possible if we adopt the same approach to urban speed limits as Holland, where the 30kmph limit forms the backdrop for all their naked streets initiatives by allowing vehicles to travel at a slow enough speed to enable eye contact between drivers and other people to become possible.
Safer streets, an end to road humps and a culture of mutual respect on the roads – all of this is possible, but it requires a change of attitude, as well as a change in the technology.
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