Birmingham could be made a ‘default’ 20mph zone

33 comments

1. Imagine straying into Birmingham , realising you are there, and having to comply with a 20mph limit as you rapidly try to get the hell out of the place.

2. 20mph? Are they improving the infrastructure so cars can drive faster there

3. They’d have to fix all the potholes to improve the speed to 20mph first.

4. With the state of the traffic here, no one is going to notice the difference. Joking aside, they need to start enforcing the current regulations before adding new ones, I don’t go a week without seeing someone driving the wrong way down a one way street, through a no entry, or mounting the curb to squeeze through traffic, and I don’t go a day without seeing cars parked blocking junctions, crossings or bike lanes. 

5. My town has added tons of random 20mph zones everywhere – often a road will switch from 20 to 30 multiple times for seemingly no reason

   Worst thing is if you go 20 you always have someone right up behind you road raging

6. Otherwise they will get points on their imaginary/cereal box license.

7. No one here drives less that doubble the spead limit rn anyway – or standstill traffic

8. Oh come on. The last thing Birmingham needs is to be made worse!

9. An overwhelmingly expensive change to implement and continue to sponsor for a council that is quite literally bankrupt.

10. My town has this 20 MPH limit and it is really annoying. The main problem is that if you are a pedestrian you can forget about crossing the road, it’s just a slow car conga with no gaps. I get that it is supposed to be for safety but all that happens is that people pull out infront of you because they think they have time and they don’t want to wait for hours for a break in the traffic. Also it has been 20 MPH outside of schools for years anyway.

    It sucks.

11. How do you save millions by still buying more signage- it’s still a low priority for a bankrupt council.

12. I live next to a dual carriageway in Birmingham and people (at night) zoom past at God-knows-what speed

13. London is basically all 20mph already. Absolutely non sensical, especially for buses. They’re already slow as fuck as there is a bus stop every 10 seconds, this has made things even worse. 

14. One day I dream of driving as fast as 20mph in B’ham.

15. As someone whose just had to do a few trips to the QE. Being able to do 20 mph would have been a vast improvement. Also maybe do something about people who just drive in the wrong lane to cut in further down. Never seen so many consistent instances of it before.

16. The M6 is pretty much permanently 20mph from what I can tell…

17. Awww but what are the tossers driving blacked out Audi Q8’s while doing balloons and flooring it past Colmore Row gonna do for fun now?

18. 20mph, across the whole area covered by Birmingham City Council, not just the city centre? What an absolutely absurd suggestion. I’d argue the public transport in Birmingham is pretty decent, but trains and buses after 7pm often go to every 20/30 minutes, and there’s a whole area of Birmingham not covered by an active train line.

    Imagine this road https://maps.app.goo.gl/4uqr3f8ezXzwnVtv5?g_st=ac being a 20mph at 8am on a Sunday morning, with the pavement being miles away. Ludicrous.

19. It’s always the same comments when articles about cars are posted. A tedious battle between people who don’t own a car and thus hate drivers and people with cars who are constantly fed up of new laws and policies making driving more expensive/inconvenient.

20. Birmingham needs a lot of things. A 20mph speed limit wouldn’t be the first thing that springs to mind.

21. I thought Birmingham was supposed to be trying to cut down on pollution,surely making cars go even slower and stay in the city even longer is going the opposite way as regarding pollution

22. Most of the south side of the city (where I live) is anyway- this just makes the system hopefully more clear.

23. No thank you!

    They’re actually undoing it in Wales because it turned out to be an absolute disaster. If pushbike or elite sprinters can get a speeding fines then the policy is just a bad joke!

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz96vjvrdz9o.amp

24. Bad news for all those that finance Golf R’s or RS3’s in that city.

25. 500,000 people in Wales just called…… don’t do it!

    It’s been the most unpopular decision by the Welsh Government it 25 years of their existence.

    You now end up either thinking you’re behind a funeral procession, or the cars ahead ignore the limit or don’t know about it and shoot off in the distance at 30.

26. If they’re going to bring in so many 20mph zones they need to at least make sure they’re all properly and clearly signed, INCLUDING signage where the 20mph zone ends. Half of London you just have to take a wild guess as to whether it’s a 20 or a 30

27. Currently working in Selly oak on a big job. Been there a month or so. On the way home it diverts me around Birmingham Uni where it’s all 20MPH. Almost nobody does 20MPH. I know this because by the end of the first road I go along about 12 cars catch up to my back end tailgating my van and doing awful overtakes because I’m the only one that actually does the speed limit.

    Doing a 20 limit in Birmingham would cause all sorts of danger with people being even worse drivers.

28. Haven’t the council got better things to spend their very limited money on, like maintaining basic services etc?

29. Would be nice if the 20 zones we have around South Brum were enforced better first. The number of times I’ve been doing 20 in a residential area only to have someone appear behind me like they’re doing warp 5, flash their lights aggressively up my arse and then dangerously overtake is honestly insane. Happens multiple times a day sometimes.

    I get it, 20 can feel slow. But on residential streets it’s there for a goddamn reason.

    There is a general undercurrent of entitlement with drivers around Brum. More 20 zones won’t change a bloody thing without enforcement and education.

30. Told my other half labour would make 30 roads 20.

    Seems to be happening – what needs to be done, is slow down the drivers who drive 40 or 50 on a 30, and have public service films to pursuade pedestrians to look at the road and not at their phones when crossing roads etc.

    Everyone needs to take responsibility, and stop being jerks!

31. Plot twist: the 20mph limit is for cars reversing out when they’ve found out they’ve entered Birmingham

32. Imagine making Birmingham an even less attractive place to go.

33. Yeah, because the default 20mph limit went down an absolute treat in Wales. It went down so well that they’re already working to revert many roads back to 30.

    Imagine proposing an idea like this for a city that already takes about 3 weeks to traverse, and has some of the most chaotic and archaic motoring infrastructre in the country. Haven’t Birmingham City Council got better things to spend their 50p on?

    If they go ahead with this then I guarantee there will be major backlash, resulting in a reversion to all but roads in the city centre and outside of schools and hospitals. 20mph across the *entire* city is just mental.

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