Dear Sir,
A recent letter from ‘a concerned resident’ argues that, because of speeding on Central Avenue at times outside of school opening and closing times, and because a student was hit by a car somewhere unspecified in the last two years, and because a child and his sister were almost hit by a car crossing Central Avenue, there should be a 20mph speed limit outside schools. Concerned resident asks whether I still think it would be a waste of time and money to reduce the limit to 20mph. In a word, yes.
Concerned resident implies they favour a 20mph limit on Central Avenue, because Vane Road and Woodham pupils cross it on the way home. This is one of the main roads through town. It’s just not feasible to say average speeds reach 40mph on this road – I drive it regularly, and they don’t, especially not at busy times. My own experience is that nearly all drivers drive safely, slowing right down when the road is busy, and it’s at a crawl when the school pupils are crossing.
You can’t redesignate every road as 20mph just because there is an accident or near miss on it – that’s a knee-jerk reaction. Instead you need to look at all the circumstances and properly assess the risks. Concerned resident would have the whole town redesignated as 20mph, or would have cars banned altogether! Kids could cross any road at any time.
Probably the best way to mitigate the risks is to educate children on how to safely cross a road, and if they’re not old enough to do this, they should be accompanied by a parent or older sibling.
By far the biggest risk is where there are parked cars, and where pupils can run out between them. In such cases, even 20mph is an unsafe speed, and any good driver will slow right down anyway, but the safest solution would be to remove the parked cars to give a clear view.
John Snowball