20mph speed limit now – a man with a red flag next?

The government is about to announce its intention to reduce speed limits to 20mph in urban areas, especially (but not, it seems, exclusively), near schools.Can the return of the man with a red flag be far away?

In my experience, when driving near schools where I live, the biggest hazard is parents on the school run, who seem incapable of dropping off their brats without taking half an hour over it, blocking roads willy-nilly and generally driving as if they were the only person in the world. Same when picking up, too – already-narrow roads blocked to anything larger than a car – emergency vehicles haven’t a prayer – for 30 minutes either side of chucking-out time for the kids.

And trust me, that’s a major problem, as there’s a private school every few streets round here. Then there’s the state schools, with suicidal crossing wardens – there really does need to be an assessment system for these people, as many seem to be too dim to be in charge of a lollypop.

Then there’s idiot kids getting off buses and streaming across the road with complete disregard for the adjacent light-controlled crossing or the traffic (Ridgeway High, Wirral, if you’re wondering).

In the case of person-versus-car accidents, more often than not it’s the person who put themselves in harm’s way. Car drivers don’t hunt pedestrians down – the buggers put themselves in the road when it’s not safe to be there – and if you doubt that, drive near a football ground on match day. It’s not just kids who have a death-wish.

Back to the 20mph limit, though. A few years ago, I had to drive from Wirral to Hucknall, near Nottingham, passing through a string of small towns en route and, in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire there were frequent 20mph limit signs near schools. OK, I could live with that, but in not a single instance was there any indication of where the 20mph zone ended and the 30mph limit resumed. The cynic in me suspects that this wasn’t an oversight, but a deliberate ploy to bring down speed in general, until the drivers got fed up dawdling, but the danger is that, depending on which direction you’re travelling, you could be unaware of the limit and put your licence – and wallet – at risk. And that’s just not good enough. After all, how many people done for speeding make a point of checking the speed-limit signs? Precious few, I’ll wager.

There seems, though, to be no denting the government’s belief that speed is intrinsically dangerous. It’s not. Bad driving, poor judgement and [lain, old-fashioned stupidity are far more dangerous, and the stupidity embraces pedestrians as well as drivers. Until something is done to address that problem, little is going to change, no matter what the speed limit.