Saturday February 16th is the annual Icycle race at Dufferin Grove Ice Rinks. The weather is going to be a cool -4 so dress appropriately if you are going to
When I first read this I thought it was Toronto…….
The 20mph revolution: Millions of drivers face lower speed limits as new laws sweep the country
When I first read this article, thanks for sharing Gualtier Malde, I thought it was Toronto they were speaking of. The confusion came from the quote he put in his email, which was ”Islington claims a 65 per cent fall in accidents in its 20mph areas.” I of course thought the writer meant Islington Avenue, but it is Islington England. I should have known better.
There is a crazy fad sweeping the Island of Tea. Authorities have been lowering the speed limt to sometimes as low as 20 miles an hour, that would be 32 kilometres for you folks in the rest of the world.
Some commentators are calling this a cultural shift, I call it a fucking miracle. The roads in Britian are becoming like the three musketeers, all for one and one for all. For the longest time transportation was for the automobile and barely a thought for pedestrians and cyclists.
Now more and more towns and cities aross this land of bad teef, just kidding, have either
approved slowdown zones or are now considering introducing them. Of the 75 local authorities in England and Wales that responded to a
survey by this newspaper, 27 said they had introduced or were in the
process of considering default 20mph zones, while six were awaiting
new guidelines from the Department for Transport.
AS well public backing for a blanket 20mph limit in built-up areas
has reached more than 60 per cent. Most of this support are, not surprisingly from pensioners, woman and younger people.
Eight million people are already living under authorities where 20mphlimits are in operation such as Liverpool, Bristol, York,
Newcastle-upon-Tyne and parts of London. Islington in north London is
set to become an entirely 20mph zone by March, with the only roads
excluded from the scheme those managed by Transport for London.
Of the 75 local authorities in England and Wales that responded to a
survey by this newspaper, 27 said they had introduced or were in the
process of considering default 20mph zones, while six were awaiting
new guidelines from the Department for Transport.
It is surprising the majority of 20mph zones already established are
self-enforcing. With the police saying their lack of resources make these zones impossible to enforce. Thames Valley Police recently said it was prepared to prosecute motorists that seriously breached
the limit, whatever that means.
Rod King, founder 20′s Plenty, said communities saw levels of support go up
after the lower limit had been implemented. “I think people are no
longer trying to justify it only in terms of road safety. ”
“This is about making places better places to be. There is recognition
of very wide benefits. There is a cultural shift that cars can’t
blight our communities like they have done in the past. It is not
about being anti-car. It is about putting it in context of enhanced
communities.”
The most recent figures from the DfT show that 24,870 people were
either killed or seriously injured on Britain’s roads in the year to
June 2012 – up 1 per cent of the previous 12 months. And while deaths
and serious injuries rose year on year by 5 per cent for pedestrians
and 9 per cent for pedal cyclists, the number of motorists injured or
killed fell by 5 per cent.
A 2009 study by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
suggested 20mph limits could reduce casualties by up to 40 per cent.
At 20mph only one in 40 pedestrians is killed in a crash.
As part of research into how pedestrians and cars can share outdoor
space more safely, Mr Hamilton-Baillie spoke to cranial pathologists
who showed him statistics proving that the risk of mortality from a
car collision isn’t just linear – it accelerates significantly after
20mph.
Fun fact, apparantly brain smart people have deduced the human skull has evolved to withstand impacts up to around 20mph because that’s about as fast as a human can
run into something. Those same brain smart people said the risk of mortality from a car collision accelerates significantly after 29 mph, which once again is 32 kilometres for the rest of you lot.
