Wales becomes UK's first nation with 20mph default speed limit

@ArishMellif the pigs want a 20 mph speed limit, then shoot the pigs and with out pigs people can drive at the speeds god intended instead of at pig speed. 🐖

@ArishMell here school speed limits are for the road that has the school campus on one side of it and to about a half block from that campus than its back up to the regular 35 mph speed limit in town for the slower areas. 45 for the faster roads that are the main through roads in town. they make it that short a school speed zone so people will obey it for that short a distance and it's mostly for idiot students running across the road to go home instead of taking a crosswalk. past that they are all on the sidewalk. 🍪

@trackboy The national speed limits throughout the UK are (or were until this Welsh decision for Welsh towns), 30mph in built-up areas, 60 on the open roads, 70 on dual-carriageways and motorways; but with local permanent or temporary reductions on these. Some suburban roads have 40mph limits; 20mph is common in housing-estates and close to schools.

It's easy to always blame the motorist and there certainly many idiots among them; but the biggest menace to safety in towns here for some decades has been cyclists; added to now by users of electric scooters who ignore that their small vehicles are (unless properly hired out) illegal to use on any public thoroughfare.

It is not illegal to cross a road other than at a pedestrian crossing, but can be very foolish! When driving, the most irritating behaviour among pedestrians is of pressing the button then crossing, on a lights-controlled crossing when the nearest vehicles are so far away it would be safe to cross against the pedestrians' red light (the default). By the time the lights change to stop the cars, the pedestrian is many yards away but the motorists have caught up and are forced to form two needless queues at empty crossings.

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It would be illegal to walk - or run like mad - across a motorway. Pedestrians, certain vehicle types and horses are banned from these, save for walking along the hard-shoulder from a broken-down vehicle safely on that, to an emergency telephone (generally at mile intervals). Unfortunately the Department of Transport has turned stretches of hard-shoulder on some of the busiest motorways into congestion-easing running lanes under lights control - a very controversial move that removes the continuous safe refuge intended by the hard-shoulder. I have no idea what you are meant to do if something goes wrong there and the next emergency refuge is at least a mile beyond you - and I expect I am not alone in that!

@ArishMell here in town speed limits are 35 for a lot of the roads. for wider roads that are the main thoroughfares across town, the speed limit is 45 mph. residential areas are 25 but you don't drive across town on those streets. you go home by the 35 mph road that takes you closest to your house before getting onto the 25 mph residential roads which are intended only for local traffic going to and from their houses to a 35 mph road. In newer parts of town, the main roads are divided with a median between the two directions and are 45miles per hour. two-lane highways are 55 mph. non interstate divided highways are 65 mph. interstates are 70 mph in the central part of the united states. 65 in some eastern states. 75 in western states. some states like texas have rural interstates that are 85 mph. the interstate speed limit drops to 65 in big cities because of so much traffic and so many people interesting and leaving the interstate highway. here it is illegal to walk across the road at any place other than a pedestrian crossing. but idiot high school students will run across the roads bordering the school campus in their hurry to get home. some of the boys dare the cars to hit them. some boys will stand in the road blocking traffic as they display dominant behavior. so what do people do on the interstate when the shoulder is used as traffic lane and their car stops running??

@trackboy That looks quite a complicated system with all those different limits!

The UK does not have "interstate" roads - though if the Welsh and Scots Nationalists have their way, some would be international - which would be interesting given the huge number of roads of all types crossing their borders!

Instead we have primary and secondary A-class roads, B-roads, vast numbers of smaller ones, and the Motorways. They cross counties but to join towns; and their classification and numbering system is independent of county boundaries. Although county councils are responsible for maintaining the roads in their own counties, other than the M-Ways (DoT responsibility).

It is the motorways which give rise to the worries about breakdowns where the hard shoulder is used as part of the carriageway.

So the answer to your question, what happens if your car breaks down on such a section.... I don't know and I am not at all sure anyone else does either. The Department of Transport's answer is that there are refuges at intervals where you can pull in and telephone for help. Yes, they have built them, but at quite a distance apart, and if you have just passed one you may not know how far ahead the next is - certainly too far to drive safely on a flat tyre, for example.

Your only alternative would be to try to drive up onto whatever fairly flat bit of ground there might be at the side of the road.... or cause massive congestion by obstructing the lane until rescued.

There has been so much criticism of the scheme that the Government has paused it to think about what everyone has been telling them!

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Boys standing in the road to display dominant behaviour? That's what they think! Display dominant stupidity and selfishness, more like.

@ArishMell the interstate system was put in in the 1950s so the military could move convoys of trucks at continuous speeds of over 100mph in times of national emergency. the curves of the interstate were laid out with a slip speed of 150 mph. which is the speed at which you would slide off the curves. they allowed traffic to move nationwide from coast to coast and from Mexico to Canada. they had divided highways with a median in the middle so people would not run head-on into each other. you had at least 4 lanes so you were not pulling into the opposing lane to pass a slow car or slow truck. they were limited access where you had to use on and off ramps to get on and off them. no cross traffic allowed. no intersections. you did not have to stop you could keep going non-stop. engines stop working that's why the shoulder. if you could make it to a mile down the road for a pullover normally you can make it to an exit and get off the interstate. or a wheel bearing siezes,. or you run out of gas because your are poor and can't afford gas for your car. at that point, you shoot as many other drivers as you can then you shoot yourself to end the suffering of abject grinding hopeless window staring poverty. Some teenage boys are hyper-dominant and they believe they are dominating others by standing on the road and blocking traffic. they are the boys always getting in fights at school. i sure had my share of fights with them when i was in high school.

@trackboy Interesting - the military reason.

Though I can't imagine any very heavy army lorry laden with supplies really managing much more than 50mph, let alone 100, especially back in the 1950s. Even modern commercial ones won't reach 100. Still, the staff cars might have managed it!

The UK's motorways are somewhat similar in design but were built with commercial, not military, traffic in mind. The first had at least parts with only two lanes per side, but later ones were all built with 3 lanes, and parts of the M25 that encircles the M5 have 4 lanes.

You must not stop on them; the central reservation with barrier stops any U-turns that are illegal anyway. If you make a mistake so head the wrong way along a motorway - though on the correct side for the direction! - , or pass your intended turn-off, you can only continue to the next junction to turn round. That may be quite a long way off, creating a big detour!

Being just about able to drive a mile to the next refuge is not the same as perhaps 10 or 20 miles to the next junction or a service-area! (The latter average about every 30 miles, but the junctions are much more numerous, typically 10 to 20 miles apart.)

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If you cannot afford the fuel for the journey, why are you even attempting it anyway?

Your frequent references to shooting people is not only foolish and needless, but also sick.