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If you want a more coherent argument for 20mph speed limits I suggest you ignore everything this dimwitted buffoon ever wtrites. Admittedly I struggle to stay under 20mph on my bike though, so maybe as a slow rider you could show me how, maybe C U Next Tuesday? 

Rakia wrote:

Labour-run local authority Wandsworth is adopting this framework, which will effective decriminalise speeding.

In what sense is this "decriminalising" speeding? Enforcement by the local authority is in addition to enforcement by the Met, not instead of it. It's a crack down on dangerous driving using additional powers granted to the local authority. Hopefully the first of many. If this goes well, I hope that all local authorities will be granted additional powers, to prosecute speeding and dangerous drivers.

It's decriminalisation because the power is being delegated from the police to the local council - the council enforce and fine drivers for breaking the 20mph, not the police - and the council do not have the power to issue endorsements.

Not only does this empower people to break the law, it also confirms the already widely held suspicion that motorists are seen as cash cows by government.

How many 10s of people in this alliance ?

There is no corporate body of cyclists, so if you feel guilty, then change your arguments.

+1 - there is no "us".

Well OK there is a cycling mafia of lycrist infiltrators, but it's a secret!

Of course it's a little more complicated in the UK because history and current conditions.  There is some self-selection - the fit and the brave.  There is some cameraderie through doing an activity that not everyone does and that can be hard and sometimes unpleasant or dangerous.  There is some selection by "reclaiming the insult" e.g. "you're complaining about 'you cyclists ...' - OK, then I'm a cyclist!".  There are even clubs...

It may be interesting if psychology or sociology is your thing.  Example article (I can't post because the link gets broken for some reason by this comment tool) - search "karen liebreich the othering of cyclists" to find it.

Let me give you an example
I am totally agianst mandatory use of Hi Viz for cyclists.
I can quote half a dozen research papers showing that it confers no / minimum benefits. Some papers which do show benefits are flawed and I will quote these where it suits me. To me this is all part of a robust debate. On my part I take a moral position in which not wearing hiviz reduces the requirement of drivers to look where they are going and leads to victim blame. 
The cognitive psychology logic backs this up, in a 30mph zone, If a drver can read a number plate at 20 metres how can he fail to see a six foot cyclist at 23 metres regardless of what he is wearing and the ambient conditions?
Having said that I generally wear bright colours and use daytime lights on the bike.
What if my arguments lead to a novice cyclist not wearing Hi Viz?

charlotte “Around the age of 17 I began wearing hi vis full time just made sense seeing as I needed to wear it to walk!” “The hi vis is a part of my identity but does not define who I am entirely. It makes me feel more conscious of my behaviour, it’s a decision I’m happy I made.”

Isla: 'my mum taught me about the reasons for wearing it and she encouraged me to research its importance. It's never enough of a reason to do something just because someone else tells you to. I was able to see the beauty of, and essentially the empowerment of, hi vis.'

Cycloid wrote:

Let me give you an example
I am totally agianst mandatory use of Hi Viz for cyclists.
I can quote half a dozen research papers showing that it confers no / minimum benefits. Some papers which do show benefits are flawed and I will quote these where it suits me. To me this is all part of a robust debate. On my part I take a moral position in which not wearing hiviz reduces the requirement of drivers to look where they are going and leads to victim blame. 
The cognitive psychology logic backs this up, in a 30mph zone, If a drver can read a number plate at 20 metres how can he fail to see a six foot cyclist at 23 metres regardless of what he is wearing and the ambient conditions?
Having said that I generally wear bright colours and use daytime lights on the bike.
What if my arguments lead to a novice cyclist not wearing Hi Viz?

Hi-viz is not going to help with the vast majority of RTCs. The problem is that drivers that aren't looking won't be affected by whether or not someone wears hi-viz. The drivers that complain "I could hardly see you in all that dark clothing and no lights" are actually the ones that are looking and are unlikely to be hitting cyclists/pedestrians. In other words, hi-viz only helps prevent the careful drivers from hitting you, but those aren't the problem ones.

Cycloid wrote:

[ argument that in general hi-vis ends up being a counterproductive move and it doesn't necessarily help much specifically ]

What if my arguments lead to a novice cyclist not wearing Hi Viz?

Following your argument, surely that wouldn't matter?  Or rather - it would have minimal effect either way?  Unless you have mixed feelings here?  The only issue might be people implying you were being hypocritical.

Personally I think it's not unreasonable to complain that attempts to fix health and safety issues at the level of PPE are missing the point and we should be e.g. looking at removing the hazard first - while still donning a hi-vis jacket and wearing a hard hat.

I'm not a politician though.  Or a psychologist.  I am aware that "argument" and providing facts aren't necessarily going to change many people's behaviour either.  So you'll always lose / get criticised some of the time.  Until "things change" and your detractors of yesterday are suddenly behaving differently / have a different perspective.  (They may also be happy to deploy all your arguments to defend themselves too - without a nod to you or any admission of having "lost" ... that's just humans though).

Cycloid wrote:

What if my arguments lead to a novice cyclist not wearing Hi Viz?

Based on your arguments, the novice cyclist is at no greater risk as a result of having listened to you than if they had not.

Conversely, if they clad themselves in hi-viz and wear a helmet thinking it keeps them safe then it could lead to a false sense of security or maybe even encourage risk compensation.

My kids were told never to implicitly trust drivers (or any other road user) to have seen them, including when crossing the local ped crossing and the lights were red. They witnessed people driving through the red light on multiple occasions. In the end they have to make their own decisions as we can't chaperone them all day.

https://twitter.com/SurreyRoadCops/status/1595803520137310208

"Last night officers arrested a drink driver who had crashed his car into a stationary lorry. He ran from the scene but was caught near by."

Lorry should have had hiviz on !

Cycloid wrote:

20 mph Speed Limits Don't Make Sense

In Tuesday's edition of the i Newspaper Paul Biggs of the Alliance of British Drivers made a case against 20mph speed limits.
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/why-20mph-speed-limits-dont-make-sense-1978936
I found the article to be a terrible piece of journalism and not up to the standard I eaxpect from the i, but on reading it again I found that he was using some of the techniques I use when arguing against mandatory helmet and hi vis use for cyclists. 
He selectively quoted from various publications, some of which were very credible but then used his own twisted logic to put a false interpretation on them. He also managed to contradict himself within the same paragraph. He did all this while trying to appear to be a reasonable and safety concious motorist.
Are we as cyclists as guilty as him?

I made it through a couple of paragraphs before getting bored.

One argument was that as drivers don't obey the speed limits anyhow, the reduction to 20mph means that average speeds only reduce by 1mph or so (sounds about right for here in Bristol), but I don't see that it's particularly relevant. You could just as easily claim that due to the number of RLJers, we should remove all traffic lights.

It was when the article shifted onto justifying drivers hitting pedestrians as often the drivers will be going less than 20mph, that I decided to stop reading it.

I think he's the guy I saw being quoted the other week who said we should abolish speed limits, as drivers knew instinctively the correct "safe" speed to drive at.

On another forum I was on, there were a few police officers who popped up. One who did a lot of traffic driving would often say speed limits have to be there as drivers don't know how to drive properly.

As far as I can tell, what the evidence shows is the 20mph zones don't make a difference because drivers ignore them.  That doesn't mean that reducing speeds would not improve safety, it just means you need to enforce 20mph zones to make them effective.

Or am I missing something?  (Rakia - please note, I don't care about your answer to that.)

I don't have it to hand but think there have been several of studies that conclude (earth shattering news) that:

• If you just change the signs AND there's minimal enforcement, people's behaviour doesn't change much.
• HOWEVER there is evidence that while the average speed doesn't e.g. drop below 20mph it does reduce from what it was before e.g. if previously it was 35 mph (because "30mph minimum speed limit") it reduced to below 30.

If I recall this came up in arguments to the committee here in Scotland (which still rejected it, "because cars - and people won't like change" AFAICS).  Think it's also been debated on here.

EDIT - a quick google finds the following.  Caveat - not all looking at ALL aspects of course:

ROSPA's fact sheet (reasonable detail): https://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/advice-services/road-safety/drivers/...

https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-08/the-state-of-...

National Institute for Health: https://evidence.nihr.ac.uk/alert/twenty-mph-speed-zones-reduce-the-dang...

Pretty much that.  People don't usually look too much for signs, they drive according to the conditions.  Changing a 30 to a 20 and not reducing road width / calming measures / planting trees to visibly narrow it has little to no effect. Speed camera can't practically be everywhere and unless it's average doesn't help much anyway. 
 

nosferatu1001 wrote:

Pretty much that.  People don't usually look too much for signs, they drive according to the conditions.  Changing a 30 to a 20 and not reducing road width / calming measures / planting trees to visibly narrow it has little to no effect. Speed camera can't practically be everywhere and unless it's average doesn't help much anyway. 

Minor pedantry here but I think it's "they drive according to the cues given them by the road and the behaviour of other road users".  Or even "they only drive slower than the speed limit where there are strong indications that otherwise there would be negative consequences".

We all should drive according to the conditions.  However even though it's night and we're in a massive rainstorm everyone else is at 70, so ... Also "but it was a fast road" (e.g. wide, straight road and/or I see other people going fast).

Agreed, I wasn't precise enough.  
the subconscious effects of narrowing roads, having them bend and twist etc as the Dutch do is a great indicator of what should be done. Signs do bugger all, especially in an area someone knows well. 
 

but they're the cheap option, so no matter how ineffective at achieving the stated aim they are, that's all we're getting. 

its not quite that, though that is an important point, the study he is quoting actually says if you only put in a small number of 20mph limits, dont bother to enforce them much, and the areas themselves were already either low ksi because of traffic volume, or congested speed, then the KSIs dont change and the 20mph limit doesnt have much of an effect.

Basically like if you make a pedestrian zone in the centre of town/city, thats for access only and then make it 20mph as well, then theres no statistical change in KSIs compared to the same pedestrian zone if it were set at 30mph.

if on the other hand you expand the area the 20mph limit applies to say to include all the roads around this pedestrian zone, do bother with enforcement, and it encompasses areas with higher speeding incidences and KSIs, then studies have shown 20mph zones have a very large measurable effect on reducing those KSIs.

The Independent/ i Newspaper have really gone downhill recently, with lots of "5 things...) and "you won't believe..." type articles that even the Mail and Express might think twice about.

No, us helmet sceptics are not as guilty as you, and I find your post to be a terrible piece of reporting and not up to the standard I expect from helmet zealots.  We use large scale, long term, scientific, reliable data, helmet promoters use small scale, short term, unscientific, unreliable data.

Stop tranferring your own lack of confidence onto other people.

Joke piece in comedy newspaper. The article starts by saying

"I’m starting to wonder if anyone is ever going to make an honest argument against cycling and walking infrastructure again. They do exist. People used to say things like “I want to drive and park wherever I like”, or “why should cyclists and pedestrians inconvenience my much more important car journey?”."

From the opposing view you could say:

"I’m starting to wonder if anyone is ever going to make an honest argument against motorists again. They do exist. People used to say things like “I don't want working class people driving and parking in my middle class neighbourhood”, or “why should motorists get to work faster than me walking?"

The article then goes on to state that cycling activists who data mine LTN statistics to support his argument produce "good data", and those rational actors producing data which shows the opposite produce "bad data".

Tiny minds might be fooled by this propaganda, but intelligent people can see the article for what it is.

Rakia wrote:

From the opposing view you could say...

Once again you're missing the point (perhaps deliberately). The article goes on to say that the viewpoint is politically incorrect. Yours is too. That's the point that the article is making.

You're equating one person's right to get to work within X minutes with someone else's right to not get cancer from vehicle emissions and their safety to cross the road. By your measure, you're being fair. It's a good thing that the local authorities introducing LTNs, and the democratically elected councillors, disagree. And I will continue to vote for councillors who take action.

It's time to stop feeding this troll

lesterama wrote:

It's time to stop feeding this troll

I wish people would stop telling me what to do. If there were a button for reporting misinformation, I would use it, but as it stands, there isn't.
I don't like misinformation being left unchallenged.

That must be a fulltime job then.

You are just feeding them in a constant loop.

I absolutely agree with your principles. On the other hand, Rakia has shown time and again that they are out to troll and that they get psychological gain from their baiting. I was speaking semi-rhetorically, but also hoping we can find a way to get them off this site until the next incarnation.