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Drivers ignoring 20mph city limit claims car mag



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Published Date:
14 May 2008
Political reporter
Drivers are flouting Portsmouth's 20mph speed zones according to a new study.
Car magazine Auto Express used a speed gun on a selection of the city's streets and found several drivers who were not abiding by the law.

The magazine even said it clocked a police car travelling at 32mph in a 20mph road, a claim disputed by the Hampshire force.

Portsmouth City Council rolled out the groundbreaking scheme last May and now almost every residential road has a 20mph limit. The magazine came to Portsmouth, the UK's first 20mph city, to see the effect of the change.

But after clocking speeding cars on three streets across the city, they think the council's £500,000 scheme is 'pointless' without beefed-up enforcement.

They say the council needs to erect more 20mph signs and step up enforcement for speeding drivers.

Editor-in-chief David Johns said: 'Setting such strict speed limits seems like a pointless exercise if they're not going to be enforced properly, and even the police are ignoring them.'

The team went to Somers Road and Fawcett Road in Southsea, and Medina Road in Cosham, and recorded average speeds of 27mph, 23mph and 29mph respectively.

In Medina Road they clocked the police car travelling at 32mph, and in Somers Road they even saw a cyclist doing 21mph.

But Hampshire Police and the city council refuse to accept the magazine's verdict.

Chief Inspector Howard Marrs from Cosham Roads Policing Unit said: 'There are numerous reasons why this police vehicle may have legitimately exceeded the speed limit and without being in possession of the full facts it would not be appropriate for us to comment further.'

Hampshire Police say it would be impossible to police motorists in every 20mph road in Portsmouth.

Chief Insp Marrs added: 'We police routes according to our priorities, in areas with known casualties.'

The council's head of transport, Charlie Stunnell, said the council carries out speed checks on 20mph roads that were more thorough than the 20 minute snapshot captured by Auto Express.

He added: 'We've got clever gadgets we attach to lampposts that measure speeds. Their survey was very short-lived but our surveys cover several days.'


The full article contains 374 words and appears in NS-City newspaper.
Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 14 May 2008 9:26 AM
  • Source: NS-City
  • Location: Portsmouth
 
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xoxAnniexox,

Fareham 14/05/2008 13:50:08
"Clocked a cyclist doing 21". And how many bikes do you see with a speedometer on them???. How on earth is a cyclist supposed to know what speed they are doing? What a stupid thing to say!
2

Gedwards,

Portsea 14/05/2008 15:11:20
'Chief Inspector Howard Marrs from Cosham Roads Policing Unit said: 'There are numerous reasons why this police vehicle may have legitimately exceeded the speed limit and without being in possession of the full facts it would not be appropriate for us to comment further.'

In other words 'do as we say not as we do' or 'I have no idea why the polce car was speeding so I'll waffle'

Which one is right C.I. Marrs?
3

,

14/05/2008 15:54:17
Comment Reported Unsuitable By User
4

MurF,

14/05/2008 20:27:05
The reason for acually putting the 20MPH road signs on the road is so that when a driver hits a child whilst they are breaking the speed limit one thing is almost certain to happen. The child will die.

If they dont put up 20MPH signs, they cant then take the driver to court and do him for death by dangerous driving. (Which is death by speeding.....). Therefore by putting up said signs, they can then almost certainly prosecute anyone who kills a pedestrian whilst driving one of these roads.

Quite simple actualy.

Hit a child in a car at 20MPH they have got a 98% chance of survival. Simple enough too.

Hopefully then, people will stop ignoring what the DfT having been saying for years :-

"Reduce Speed, Speed Kills"
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Debbie B,

Portsmouth 14/05/2008 21:20:52
I can well believe that many motorists exceed the 20mph spped limit around Portsmouth. In the last month on 2 occasions I have been overtaken by motorists on Hanway Road, whilst I was doing 20mph, which is the correct speed limit for that road. Both cars drove up close behind me before pulling out wide to go past, and of course they were doing far in excess of 20mph. It was just fortunate that nothing was coming the other way or that a child did not run out in to the road.Why is it that some motorists seem to think that a speed limit does not apply to them?
I also think that for the widespread 20mph limit to work properly it needs to be policed so that motorists know they will be punished for driving dangerously. At the moment they can get away with it because nothing happens if they do go above 20mph. Come on Portsmouth City Council, start putting your money where your mouth is and properly enforce this speed limit before someone is seriously injured or killed.
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Gedwards,

Portsea 15/05/2008 07:15:27
Dogberry, if the police want to exceed the speed limit then they put the sirens and blue flashers on, its as simple as that. The sad fact is (in my experience) that the Police take ages to turn up no matter what!E.G A mass brawl in my local some weeks ago 2 999 calls and 25 mins later they turned up (after it had been sorted) looked about in dislbelief said 'wheres the problem'? Then took offence because every one just looked at them in a stunned silence!
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Yocal,

Waterlooville 15/05/2008 12:47:33
For many journeys in Portsmouth cars are not required.
Large chunks of Portsmouth are within easy walking distance. The average person can walk a mile in about 20 minutes which means a third to a half of Portsmouth is about a 20 minute walk away from any specific location.

Cycling makes all of Portsmouth a short journey away.

Given that Portsmouth has an inherently small land area and as such has limited road space, it is logical for the majority not to use cars and to take back the streets for the community.

Portsmouth is an old city, it's streets were not designed for mass car use. Maybe people should respect it's past and live within that context rather than forcing it to be something it can not be without more land.
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Johnny ,

Fareham 15/05/2008 15:52:41
"If they dont put up 20MPH signs, they cant then take the driver to court and do him for death by dangerous driving. (Which is death by speeding.....). Therefore by putting up said signs, they can then almost certainly prosecute anyone who kills a pedestrian whilst driving one of these roads."

So if I did 70mph on the motorway in a torrential downpoor, and I lost control, hit a car and killed all the occupants, I would be completley innocent? Of course not, it's driving against the road conditions (there is a way of putting that in legal jargon). Similarly, you should be done for doing 60 down a twisty country lane, even if it's under the national speed limit.
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MurF,

15/05/2008 21:10:56
Johnny,

My point is simple. Currently if you hit a child at 30MPH in one of these roads as it was, i.e. a 30MPH zone, you would have a higher chance of killing them. If you did, the chances are you would have got away with it (especially if the weather / conditions were good) coz the driver wasn't speeding, they where doin as they should.

This meant the the parents were left feeling the driver got away with it (this point is most important)

Now if the same happens, the drivers wont get away with it! Coz the child will have a 98% chance of survival at 20MPH (thats the figures the doctors use when they say in a court.... 'the child was hit by bt car and the injuries sustained were indicative of a crash at 30MPH'......)

Therefore the parents of said child wont feel they been let down by the system. And another dodgie driver in jail without a license.

The whole reason why portsmouth done the 20MPH thing, was because it's one of their targets, to reduce deaths on the road. They could never reduce these deaths and meet said target if they couldn't prosecute the drivers, could they.

Next when people DONT respect the rules, they will have to police it to meet said targets. But firstly they will still hope the average driver will listen to what the DfT have and always have been saying this century. (I'm not gonna repeat myself again, the DfT do that enough already and they are still being ignored!)
10

Johnny ,

Fareham 16/05/2008 14:50:34
So what happened to the days where drivers were taught to look for people in the road, or better still, children were taught not to live on a main road?

Seriously though, you keep quoting me DfT figures but where do we stop? 20 years ago, doing 30 would be socially acceptable. 20mph zones were extremely rare. Now, and thanks to people like you, they're the norm. But once everyone is doing 20 what will happen next? Of course, if a child was hit at 10mph they'd stand an even higher chance of dying, so should Portsmouth become a 10mph city?

No, scrap that, I've got it. If all cars were limited to 0.1mph children would never be hit at all!
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