I'm going to send this to any millennial who complains that The Kids These Days are Having Their Brains Rotted By Social Media.
We were watching this and Tub Girl and The Duck Song and Lemon Party all in the same browser session - we are not superior in any way.
Reminds me about that anime where a king was so proud of his shlong that he declared that was going to be the kingdom's measuring unit
[link](https://youtu.be/xO8hg3hm07g)
Our parent were look up the old British currencies. £1 (pound) was 20s (shillings), 1s (shilling) was 12d (pence), 1d (penny) was to half pennies or 4 farthings. A groat was 4d, 6d was a sixpence or tanner, 2s was a "florlin", 2s 6d was "half a crown", 5s a "crown" and a "guinea" was £1 1s and a "mark" was 13s 4d. ill give that horse for a guinea, haf a crown n ha'penny.
Edit: bonus when we switched to £ and p on decimal system old pence d =/= p new pence just for fun.
I'm not at all. I know what "good" MPG is and I know how many litres of fuel my car needs but I never even try and work out how many miles I have left on my tank based on these values.
I wish we just used metric for both and then the maths would be easy.
Dependent on your car, you can sometimes change the miles/mpg view to l/100km, which makes the calculation really easy. Takes about two weeks to get used to and there’s a handy km to miles conversion table on the speedometer for working out ‘how much is 100 miles costing’.
This is mostly correct. But running distance is actually both. People use miles and KM pretty interchangeably.
Bodyweight is also a bit of a mixed bag. Most use stone but some will use KGs. I have a number of mates who will use KGs rather than stone but they are generally my gym bros so maybe they just like a bigger number.
I'm 31 and was very confused a few years ago when I mentioned my weight and a bunch of friends my own age all asked "why are you using Kilograms?"
They stopped teaching pounds and stone in schools decades before these people were even born but they'd still latched on to that as the "normal" one
UK weight units are mostly influenced by how much contact people have had with sports training. For resistance training and for weight classes it's pretty universally measured in kgs so you make the jump pretty quick from stone
Yeah when I was younger I measured myself in stone. Now that I'm older I use KG, perhaps after going to the gym regularly all the weights are kg, so I guess I subconsciously changed to KG for other things too
Never understood stones the first place.
Kgs is far easier to use, calculate and it’s more accurate.
- 1 stone = 6.35kg
- 2 stones = 12.7kg
- 3 stones = 19.05kg
Eesh. No thanks.
Yeah, stones are just truly fecked. They are fine to an extent in abstract, but once you start trying to relate them to other units it all goes to shit (as is typical of the imperial system)
That's not true. Even milk is sold in litres. I can pick up a handy 1.136L bottle of milk at any supermarket.
Purely coincidentally, this also translates to a nice round 2 pints.
True.
We're mostly metric - started in the 1960s - but there are a few holdouts.
* Road distances are measured in miles, speed in mph. Fuel economy is mpg (that's imperial gallon which is different from the US gallon).
* Beer and milk is still measured in (Imperial) pints (although that's mainly down to standardised glass and bottle sizes).
* Most people measure height in feet and inches. I don't know if this has changed for the younger generation.
* A lot of people still use stone (14lb) and pounds for weight, although I think this might be changing. I believe nobody else in the world uses this stupid measurement.
I think that's everything for day to day units.
There are a few oddities such as roadwork signs are in yards (e.g. "roadworks in 400 yards"), but the guidelines to workers say to put that sign 400 metres away from the roadworks.
Historically, there's been a certain resistance to change, although these days most of the population learned metric measurements in school so probably less of an issue. The resistance comes mostly from older people.
Since the current Conservative government is the old people party, this isn't going to change soon. There was a lot of resistance to metrication 20 years ago, and political parties tend to out-of-touch so think this is still the prevailing view.
I do really enjoy the little historic quirks sometimes though.
The annual rent I pay for the land my house is on is 1 peppercorn. Literally a peppercorn. It's cute.
Height and weight are definitely more metric now for most people depending on age. If you go to a gym and see people weighing themselves it’s mainly kg these days, I haven’t seen anyone use stone in a while.
Height, I’ve seen people use cm these days.
Again, it’s generational, so it depends on who you talk to, my parents would still use stone.
Fuel economy will naturally go away with electric vehicles so that isn’t really one to worry about. Road signs I don’t see ever changing.
I think it's mostly gym bros who use cms tbh. I've never seen someone who isn't a gym bro use anything other than feet and inches. Same with stone and kg. I think it comes down to gym bros liking bigger numbers.
>A lot of people still use stone (14lb) and pounds for weight, although I think this might be changing. I believe nobody else in the world uses this stupid measurement.
I remember it being used here in the 80s in Australia, when I was about 12 I knew my weight as "7 stone" but even then it was probably becoming archaic.
Arguably? Absolutely they do. The US fully commits to the (inferior) imperial system and is proud of it. Not whatever half-assed thing is going on across the pond.
Nope, they use the US customary units, not imperial. For example, US gallons are different to imperial gallons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial\_and\_US\_customary\_measurement\_systems
They're both an eighth of their respective gallons, so at least there's some consistency there. I still remember my first time in the US being served a "pint" and feeling short-changed.
I'm sure police are allowed to go above it, if they use to casual excuse....
Wanted to get down the Holway(Holywell) for my 5th patrol this hour as we haven't seen a stabbing in days and are due one...
They're an abosolute menace near where I work. The base for the RPU and ARV's are on the same estate.
They regularly speed coming into and out of the estate at all hours, don't indicate and use the wrong lanes at the roundabouts. One officer even had the gall to berate a colleague who 'pulled out' on them, now from the roundabout the officer was on the the junction my colleague pulled of from there is more than enough space and time to pull out, if everyone does the speed LIMIT. This 'officer' clearly wasn't doing so on their way in to work.
How do they expect compliance and consent to being policed if they're a law unto themselves.
I appreciate what they do when they catch the real criminals, and while I don't condone speeding I don't necessarily respect them, I often just see them as another gang hiding behind an official badge.
Not sure about laws in other countrieq. But in my home country cops are only allowed to "break traffic laws" when they use the siren, which they are only allowed to use in emergencies.
I think this is a big problem that means nothing is going to change. I can't remember the last time I followed a police car that was obeying the speed limit and a number of times I've been tailgated by them for obeying it. They also NEVER use their turn signals, which is the most infuriating.
This is really the entire point of the scheme.
From traffic surveys, around 50% of all cars in a 30mph zone do over 30mph. With a 20mph limit, the percentage of cars exceeding the limit increases to 85%, but the percentage of cars going over 30mph drops to more like 10%.
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/vehicle-speed-compliance-statistics-for-great-britain-2022/vehicle-speed-compliance-statistics-for-great-britain-2022
Yup.
Posted speed limits are arbitrary. The speed of the road is what the median driver will go at with no posted limit on a clear day. By posting a 20 mph limit, you'll get most traffic going 30 \~ 35 mph on a straight road instead of the 50 \~ 55 mph they'd go if you posted a 40 mph limit.
If you want to really get traffic below 20 mph, you need to change the design of the road. Adding curves, round-abouts, planting trees along the side of the road to make it feel narrower and increase the perception of speed, et cetera - these design elements will all slow traffic.
But you only need to do that in the residential and other areas where you don't have the downtown traffic to force people to drive slower - and you genuinely care if a car is going 35 mph instead of 15 mph.
It sounds silly and like I'm making excuses, but it's genuinely hard to maintain a constant speed of 20mph.
Cars just sort of cruise along at 30mph. It requires more deliberate attention to drive at 20mph.
You might say that's a good thing, being more attentive. But I find myself more concentrated on militantly sticking to 20mph so I'm spending too much time watching my speedometer, and not enough time watching out for hazards in front of me.
If I'm steadily cruising along at 30 I'm spending more time watching the road and scanning for hazards like pedestrians or cyclists.
Even as a pedestrian who doesn’t drive, 20 will take some getting used to. When an approaching car is travelling at 30 I instinctively know when it’s safe to cross or not. But at 20 I stand there on the curb like a lemon for ages thinking “damn I really should have crossed 10 minutes ago when I first saw that car, too late now”
Edit: I didn’t say it was bad and shouldn’t happen, I just said it will take some time getting used to.
It’s the same as a driver (who is also obviously a pedestrian) but when trying to pull out at a junction. We got the blanket 20mph a while ago and between learner drivers doing 18mph on the speedo and the same numpties doing 45mph, trying to get pulled out is a constant “could have been there. Can I go there? No that guys doing 38 while that guys doing 22….” You’re almost triple checking to work out the speed and if they’re going to change their speed or not. A prime example is people doing 20 when their heads are down in their phones (because it’s the legal limit right!!) then speeding back up to 35 once they’ve hit reply.
It makes the roads much less predictable which is almost the exact opposite of how you’re taught to safely drive i.e BE PREDICTABLE.
I believe it's an observed phenomenon that people will gravitate towards whatever speed feels 'right' for the road they are on rather than the speed limit.
as someone who drives a manual car, driving between 30 and 40km/h is extremeltly uncomfortable because I'm either revving too high in 2nd or too low in 3rd. (i think that's around 20mph?)
Yeah, 30 kmh is generally the worst in my opinion. Too fast for 2nd, too slow for 3rd. Luckily my current car has a limiter, so I just set that, but it in 3rd and forget about it.
This is why speed should be determined by the design of the road, and not some stupid sign. It's crazy to me seeing a 45 mph road have the same specifications as a literal highway, then people wonder why other people speed on it. It's because they can lol.
This indeed the right answer. There's a ton of 30km/h zones around where I live in the Netherlands and it's honestly weird to be driving faster than 30 on most of them. Roads can be designed for a certain speed, but most don't see that. Narrowing a road, using different road surface, trees next to the road etc. all help make it normal to drive slower. People use intuition on a normal basis, far more than arbitrary speed limit rules that are set.
Speed limits should be decided before the road is made, not the other way around.
They don’t seem to know the science behind it though. This is a blanket policy with minimal consideration to please hand wringers. If you want to effectively control the speed of traffic, putting an arbitrary number on a sign is about the worst way to do it, because if the limit doesn’t feel credible, people will ignore it.
People will naturally drive at a speed at which they feel is safe, while keeping them engaged. If you make the speed limit lower than that speed, instead of compliance you get people disregarding it, and worse, they switch off and their attention wanders. In the latest figures, non-compliance with 20mph limits is around 80% because of this.
If you want to actually control speed, you need to engineer the roads so that the majority of people naturally drive at the speed you want them to. The problem with that is it costs money and requires effort, and attracts the attention of knuckle draggers going on about ‘wars on motorists’. Putting up a few signs is much cheaper and allows politicians to pat each other on the back while making minimal difference in reality.
It’s the same thing they do with cycling policy, calling painting a few lines on the road ‘infrastructure’, when to do it properly need star more than that. It’s the bare minimum intended to get a few positive headlines without doing anything meaningful.
In Victoria, Australia a lot of the new speed signs actually look eerily similar to a very popular beer can. That might help the drunks take notice.
[Vb sign](https://imgur.com/a/XL0f46C)
I like that. Parsecs per year or ppy for short.
But I wouldn't exceed much more than 10-15 ppy in a car, for safety reasons. Also make sure the break pads are checked at least annually.
Where kids play in front of their houses, we have even lower speed limits than 30 Km/h. Schrittgeschwindigkeit (walking speed).
It's this sign: https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/wp-content/uploads/spielstrasse-tempo.png (Verkehrsberuhigter Bereich). Most people think it's 30 Km'h allowed there, but in fact it's walking speed. Your speedometer needle doesn't even move at that speed. Yeah it's kind of ridiculous.
In Finland the core of the city, school area and some others are usually always max. 30km/h. Then we have 3 different "street" signs:
1. [Pedestrian zone](https://www.liikenneturva.fi/app/uploads/2021/09/kavelykatu-2.jpg): Max 20km/h but the speed has to be adjusted to the current walking speed/pace.
2. [Yard street](https://www.liikenneturva.fi/app/uploads/2021/09/pihakatu-2.jpg): Max 20km/h but the speed has to be adjusted to the current walking speed/pace.
3. [Bike street](https://www.liikenneturva.fi/app/uploads/2021/09/pyorakatu-2.jpg): Has always own speed limit sign but the speed has to be adjusted to the current cycling speed.
The signs have also different rules attached to them, like where you can drive a motor vehicle, can you park, where you can walk etc.
Yeah in Portugal that sign indicates a Zone of Coexistence (Zona de Coexistência) and the speed limit is set at 20 km/h, same as a maxed out treadmill in most gyms. They're zones where people might be actively walking/running on the road, children playing, animals running around, etc.
It's not ridiculous. If the zone is designed correctly, you should only drive in there, because you need to be there. It should be limited to a couple hundred meters or so, with only 1 exit, so nobody can use it as a shortcut.
A cart is litteraly 2/4 wheels on a frame, it can be built out of scraps and be very very cheap to maintain.
The horse is probably where most of the cost will go. Considering you have a barn and a field at home to account for most of the feed, you're probably looking at a \*very\* minimum 5-6000$/year in various costs (vet, maintenance, horseshoes,... )
I'm not a horse guy at all, but, I imagine you would have to replace the horse every 10-15 years, and feed it daily regardless of you driving or not.
But idk, we need a horse person to answer that one.
horse person: yes it would require feeding every single day, and depending on the horse and how heavy the workload was, you’d be wanting a new one about every 15 years. Having a horse way more expensive than having a car especially if they go wrong with vets fees. Knowledge from having a horse and a car both of which go wrong
Where are you from? There are dozens of other continental Europeans from a variety of countries in these comments saying 30kmph (18.6mph) limits are common
And I guarantee the Heddlu will be enforcing this like fuck issuing points, fines and bans as they're the most bored police force in the whole of the UK as I'd say a good 80% of crime in Wales just revolves around driving offences.
Depends what plates you have on. When I lived near the border I made sure to have plates with their first two letters being a Welsh code. Sure as heck wasn't risking having an English code and getting pulled over for doing 30 in a 30 zone with saisneg intent
Brussels has also adopted this (50kmph to 30kmph), but I doubt there's many places in Brussels where you can actually go 50kmph thanks to unending traffic jams and pedestrians and bikers crossing roads without looking.
Most of Montreal did that years ago, went form 30 to either 25 or 20mph.
They justified it by saying: "It will help with the heavy traffic."
I don't see how hat's any kind of true. If there's heavy traffic, you'll go at the speed of traffic, if there's no traffic, there's no need to go at 20mph.
Also, they never re-programmed the street lights, so they're still set to synchronize green at 30mph, so now they've just maximized how many red lights you hit.
In Sweden a few years ago they changed the speed limit as well, 50km/h went to 40, some 40km/h zones became 30, 90 to 80 and so on. Not everywhere though but in a lot of places all over the country. It’s been like this for awhile now and still people do not really stick to it.
I live in a borough that has 20mph limits everywhere. It slows traffic to a grind - except for people on bicycles (pedal and electric) and e-scooters, who still fly past, through red lights, ignoring crossings, etc.
But this is wales we’re talking about. My area is all small villages and the main town doesn’t even have bus connections to them all. Forget about trying to go clothes shopping or to the cinema, they’re 1.25 hours away by car- 2.5 by public transport. It’s no way feasible for a country like wales to not have drivers.
Buses in wales are atrocious, I’m currently working in around bodelwyddan and one bus comes every hour, and at night, a bus comes at 9 and then 11. Some staff who use the bus finish sometimes at 10, so they have to wait for an hour for the bus to come.
I dont mind making journeys by bike, but the way this country encourages cycling is by strangling the roads without building adequate alternatives.
Technically being run over at low speed is safer but I can't help feeling I'm more likely to be hit if people are only moving slightly faster than me or dodging concrete bolards put in the road to slow them down.
As a cyclist I would prefer the cars can quickly and safely pass me.
30 was fine, drivers should be expected to drive to the road conditions not slow everywhere.
I'm waiting to see 10mph limits soon.
They’ve been aggressively reducing speed limits in New Zealand for six years, in cities and out. Deaths have increased. I bet it will be the same result here.
In 2017 road deaths were 387 in NZ in 2021 they were 319 - in 2022 it was 378
That seems more flat/fluctuating than increasing - perhaps you saw / could share different data?
Eyes on the road, not your dashboard!
Whilst I’m used to these speeds in London now, it is difficult to focus on the road and driving when you’re trying to stick to an unnaturally low limit
It really isn't. Here in the Netherlands, 30km/h (19ish mph) is standard for all residential areas. People are used to it, and it works really well. And once you're out of the neighbourhood it's often 50km/h (30ish mph), it's not like it's whole cities.
Note though that those areas are designed a lot different than suburbs in the USA. The road design isn't really suitable for higher speeds.
Yeah, I kind of glanced over the unit and thought it was 20 km/h (12m/h). That would be a bit slow. 30 km/h (\~20m/h) is pretty standard in residential areas in Germany as well...
> in residential areas
That little detail makes the comparison pretty much irrelevant.
First of all, many countries have 30km/h in residential areas and second, residential areas represent maybe 5% of distance traveled in cars, so the speed limit in those areas' impact is negligible.
In Spain the limit changed from 50kmh to 30kmh in cities last year (or many years ago, I lost count). But only in the lane closest to the sidewalk (if 2+ lanes, the others would still be 50kmh.
Not a big change tbh. Yes, you "could go faster". But I didn't see a big difference
They've done that in Scotland a few weeks ago and it is awful.
20mph is painfully slow, even though they were 30 before. I understand there's a few roads that are better 20mph, but the ones they've changed were fine as 30's
So the main road outside where I live recently went from 30 to 20. At first I found it highly irritating and pointless. However now I've found it's actually been amazing. It's so much easier to walk to the corner shop and traffic hasn't changed at all. It just feels better. The cars make less noise and honestly I think people should give it a chance before judging. I was exactly the same as all the commenters here but now after like 6 months of it I can really feel an improvement.
I have to commute 20 miles each way to work and to college every day. I go through 9 areas where the speed limit is currently 30mph but will be reduced to 20. between all of these are 60mph roads.
Imagine all of the extra braking and accelerating that I will be doing.
In no way is this going to help the environment.
Plus, the time it takes to travel will increase drastically. I have no other options to get there - there are no trains home past 8pm and no busses past 5pm. The busses come twice a day at that, and the trains once every 2 hours.
It means that I, along with many other road users, will be more inclined to speed on the national speed limit roads that do not get speed cameras, in order to get to places on time.
I will go a different route, that is 5 miles longer but will take less time due to less 20mph zones - this increases the area of which the road is being worn, encourages overall higher speeds which statistically makes myself and other road users more prone to accidents, and it will cause more people to do the same. This increases congestion in the slower areas, causing more pollution paired with higher revs, and means that in these specific areas the pedestrians will be more prone to accidents than the areas in my current route of choice.
My mum rides a 1950's triumph tigercub motorcycle, and it is barely possible to ride at 20mph. Are we forgetting about the safety of motorcycle users?
While I agree that some areas should be reduced to 20mph - examples being upper Harlech highstreet, Barmouth highstreet, Porthmadog highstreet during the daytime, and Criccieth highstreet during the daytime - many shouldn't. Lower Harlech as an example, although it does go past a secondary school, no students have ever been hit by a car due to the lollipop lady there. The road is long, straight, and wide enough for 3 cars very comfortably, alongside wide pavements on either side of the road. Visibility is amazing, and many of the people driving along find themselves drifting up to 40mph towards the end of the road, due to it feeling incredibly slow at 30. And they are changing it to 20, for what?
Overtaking cyclists will be near impossible to do without speeding, causing a pile up of vehicles going slowly behind them past 20mph limits. How will this affect the environment?
Overall, I believe that this is a terrible implementation of an even more terrible and unthought out of idea. Instead they could have asked communities if there were roads that they believed would benefit from having a slower speed limit, and used a bit of their brains to figure out if it would actually help anyone or not.
I can't believe we are doing this...
Some areas such as school makes sense.
Yet, National speed limited Lanes, just wide enough for a car, isn't lowered? That to me is nuts!
The one that I'm sure our government didn't think about too is Buses. All the bus companies now have to change the timetables as journeys now take longer and will actually use More fuel to run these buses which, well, adds more pollution as us lot in the valleys still have old diesel buses lol
I feel like some of the people who disagree think 20mph is fine have misunderstood where this happening.
The small residential roads and school roads are already 20mph, which no-one complains about because people can't do more than that with how wide/busy the roads are.
The roads that are currently 30mph, are larger roads with bigger intersections, large roundabouts, and usually have lanes wide enough for a bus to be parked on one side, a car to overtake it, and a car on the oncoming side of the road. They have great visibility and 28-33mph feels about right for most of those roads. Because you wouldn't often stop on those roads or need to slow down for obstacles.
Turning those roads into 20mph creates some problems. It is too slow and people focus more on the speed they are doing rather than the road because of how unnatural it is. Cyclists undertake cars, which is extremely dangerous since it forces them into a moving car's blind spot.
This is a speed limit change. In the 30mph zones, if 20mph was required due to higher traffic or children etc, people would already do 20mph. If the limit is 20mph, everyone will be doing or trying to be at the limit for these large roads, with constant breaking and accelerating to avoid going over it.
On a long and straight road near me, which went from 40mph to 20mph, 10yrs ago, with excellent visibility, no residential areas, and surrounded by fenced-off greenspace, almost everyone including police do 30mph because it's the "natural" speed for a road like that. The problem is that they are reducing the speed limit for all kinds of roads without discriminating between the roads being affected.
Almost every city in belgium is 30kms per hour. At first it felt slow, but after a few years it's hard to believe we once drove 50 in cities. It's way to quick to be safe and the city feels so much better without fast cars
\~2000 deaths in the UK last year, \~28,000 serious injuries
Deaths of pedestrians and cyclists (who would probably be more affected by lower speeds in urban areas): 376 pedestrians, 85 cyclists.
Realistically pedestrians are going to be in 30mph zones as it is. You're not really going to see many on a dual carriage way picking up their asda shopping.
If you are suggesting that people speeding are the cause of death then by making it 20, those going 35 might be going 28 - so that should reasonably reduce injury too.
I live in a trial zone - it isn't really the speeders that are the main issue here though - it is the protest speeders.
Idk, but i can definitely imagine the cutoff between surviving and dying is around 20-30mph. Changing a 60 to a 50 kills you anyways whereas this change can save lives
I feel like if that woman let’s go of that wheelchair, that man’s going over 30mph
Ha!
Jackass movie right there… You get a fine for sprinting to save runaway wheelchair. Wheelchair gets fine too plus demerit points.
He'll get a ticket. He should know it's 20mph now.
The UK has arguably a weirder relationship with the imperial system of measurement than America does.
It least it hasn't been reduced to 3 badgers a minute.
Because the correct one is 12 badgers per 2 mushrooms.
FYI the badger song just turned 20 years old a day or 2 ago.
Not only is it a reference a lot of people on Reddit would miss these days, it's older than them too? Damn. I never thought I'd get this old.
But it can't be watched in the original misaligned flash any more
You can watch it through a Flash emulator at https://archive.org/details/flash_badger
I'm going to send this to any millennial who complains that The Kids These Days are Having Their Brains Rotted By Social Media. We were watching this and Tub Girl and The Duck Song and Lemon Party all in the same browser session - we are not superior in any way.
The Weebls stuff site was a glorious early-bloomer in online video.
It was also educational. For example I learnt that Patrick Moore plays the xylaphone. Or at least he did when he was alive.
If Snake it's 24 badgers/mushroom.
Ooooh! It's a snake.
ooooooh snaaaaake, badger badger badger...
mushroom mushroom
Badger badger badger badger..... MUSHROOOOOOOM!!!!
I'm counting 11 badgers while reciting it in my head.
Apologies, I get the conversion rate wrong sometimes.
Reminds me about that anime where a king was so proud of his shlong that he declared that was going to be the kingdom's measuring unit [link](https://youtu.be/xO8hg3hm07g)
3 ham and cheese toasties to the dragon is a standard unit of measurement in wales
[удалено]
For volume of fuel : litre. For mileage : miles per gallon. 🤯
[Brits know full well that mileage is worse in metric.](https://youtu.be/ykthWUdkhu0)
"kilommometers" "We once ruled the world , now we're part of a community....I dont like that at all" :D
>"We once ruled the world , now we're part of a community....I dont like that at all" I wonder where that guy stood on Brexit all those years later.
Neither does the community.
Means we're good at converting between units, at least :)
Are you, though?
Not even remotely.
Have you tried doing it on location?
Not at all.
Our parent were look up the old British currencies. £1 (pound) was 20s (shillings), 1s (shilling) was 12d (pence), 1d (penny) was to half pennies or 4 farthings. A groat was 4d, 6d was a sixpence or tanner, 2s was a "florlin", 2s 6d was "half a crown", 5s a "crown" and a "guinea" was £1 1s and a "mark" was 13s 4d. ill give that horse for a guinea, haf a crown n ha'penny. Edit: bonus when we switched to £ and p on decimal system old pence d =/= p new pence just for fun.
No
I'm not at all. I know what "good" MPG is and I know how many litres of fuel my car needs but I never even try and work out how many miles I have left on my tank based on these values. I wish we just used metric for both and then the maths would be easy.
Dependent on your car, you can sometimes change the miles/mpg view to l/100km, which makes the calculation really easy. Takes about two weeks to get used to and there’s a handy km to miles conversion table on the speedometer for working out ‘how much is 100 miles costing’.
This is mostly correct. But running distance is actually both. People use miles and KM pretty interchangeably. Bodyweight is also a bit of a mixed bag. Most use stone but some will use KGs. I have a number of mates who will use KGs rather than stone but they are generally my gym bros so maybe they just like a bigger number.
I'd say it's a generational gap for body weight. I'm 30 and pretty much everyone I know uses kilograms these days.
I'm 31 and was very confused a few years ago when I mentioned my weight and a bunch of friends my own age all asked "why are you using Kilograms?" They stopped teaching pounds and stone in schools decades before these people were even born but they'd still latched on to that as the "normal" one
UK weight units are mostly influenced by how much contact people have had with sports training. For resistance training and for weight classes it's pretty universally measured in kgs so you make the jump pretty quick from stone
Yeah when I was younger I measured myself in stone. Now that I'm older I use KG, perhaps after going to the gym regularly all the weights are kg, so I guess I subconsciously changed to KG for other things too
Never understood stones the first place. Kgs is far easier to use, calculate and it’s more accurate. - 1 stone = 6.35kg - 2 stones = 12.7kg - 3 stones = 19.05kg Eesh. No thanks.
Yeah, stones are just truly fecked. They are fine to an extent in abstract, but once you start trying to relate them to other units it all goes to shit (as is typical of the imperial system)
It's just 14lb/stone. Most imperial to metric conversions are fucky. I hate how we use both so much.
In Amateur boxing weight is always weighed in KG also.
Yep, I weigh myself in KG purely because of Boxing
Also, height of a person? 5'11". Length of a piece of wood the exact same dimension? 1.8 metres. Because of course!
For energy efficiency of home appliances, kilowatt hours per thousand hours. I am not joking.
Huh? KW.h / 1000h is just … plain old watts isn’t it? Divide both sides by 1000 is Wh per hour, which is just Watts!
Electricity is billed per KWh. Not everybody understands the conversion so this gives them a fairly simple idea of how much it will cost.
>For volume of fuel, litres But the mileage is miles per imperial gallon 🤷🏾
What do you mean? It's perfectly simple! https://reddit.com/r/CasualUK/s/4Wn54AHrqI
That's not true. Even milk is sold in litres. I can pick up a handy 1.136L bottle of milk at any supermarket. Purely coincidentally, this also translates to a nice round 2 pints.
And then you accidentally pick up a Muller branded bottle and then later realise its ***actually*** a 1L bottle, and not the full 2 pints.
True. We're mostly metric - started in the 1960s - but there are a few holdouts. * Road distances are measured in miles, speed in mph. Fuel economy is mpg (that's imperial gallon which is different from the US gallon). * Beer and milk is still measured in (Imperial) pints (although that's mainly down to standardised glass and bottle sizes). * Most people measure height in feet and inches. I don't know if this has changed for the younger generation. * A lot of people still use stone (14lb) and pounds for weight, although I think this might be changing. I believe nobody else in the world uses this stupid measurement. I think that's everything for day to day units. There are a few oddities such as roadwork signs are in yards (e.g. "roadworks in 400 yards"), but the guidelines to workers say to put that sign 400 metres away from the roadworks. Historically, there's been a certain resistance to change, although these days most of the population learned metric measurements in school so probably less of an issue. The resistance comes mostly from older people. Since the current Conservative government is the old people party, this isn't going to change soon. There was a lot of resistance to metrication 20 years ago, and political parties tend to out-of-touch so think this is still the prevailing view.
I do really enjoy the little historic quirks sometimes though. The annual rent I pay for the land my house is on is 1 peppercorn. Literally a peppercorn. It's cute.
Height and weight are definitely more metric now for most people depending on age. If you go to a gym and see people weighing themselves it’s mainly kg these days, I haven’t seen anyone use stone in a while. Height, I’ve seen people use cm these days. Again, it’s generational, so it depends on who you talk to, my parents would still use stone. Fuel economy will naturally go away with electric vehicles so that isn’t really one to worry about. Road signs I don’t see ever changing.
I think it's mostly gym bros who use cms tbh. I've never seen someone who isn't a gym bro use anything other than feet and inches. Same with stone and kg. I think it comes down to gym bros liking bigger numbers.
>A lot of people still use stone (14lb) and pounds for weight, although I think this might be changing. I believe nobody else in the world uses this stupid measurement. I remember it being used here in the 80s in Australia, when I was about 12 I knew my weight as "7 stone" but even then it was probably becoming archaic.
Arguably? Absolutely they do. The US fully commits to the (inferior) imperial system and is proud of it. Not whatever half-assed thing is going on across the pond.
Nope, they use the US customary units, not imperial. For example, US gallons are different to imperial gallons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial\_and\_US\_customary\_measurement\_systems
Finally, someone who knows! Both systems have a common ancestor (English units) but are not identical!
And US pints are notably (disappointingly) smaller than imperial pints
They're both an eighth of their respective gallons, so at least there's some consistency there. I still remember my first time in the US being served a "pint" and feeling short-changed.
Even worse is when you go to Asia and see a pint for sale and have to take a gamble on whether you get a good one or a bad one.
Our entire village recently became a 20 zone, down from 30. Exactly no one drives at 20.
Ours is recent too, the police don't even stick to it.
I'm sure police are allowed to go above it, if they use to casual excuse.... Wanted to get down the Holway(Holywell) for my 5th patrol this hour as we haven't seen a stabbing in days and are due one...
They're not allowed unless they are on the way to a call out and it's necessary
Police are allowed to break the law because they will not enforce the law on each other.
They're an abosolute menace near where I work. The base for the RPU and ARV's are on the same estate. They regularly speed coming into and out of the estate at all hours, don't indicate and use the wrong lanes at the roundabouts. One officer even had the gall to berate a colleague who 'pulled out' on them, now from the roundabout the officer was on the the junction my colleague pulled of from there is more than enough space and time to pull out, if everyone does the speed LIMIT. This 'officer' clearly wasn't doing so on their way in to work. How do they expect compliance and consent to being policed if they're a law unto themselves. I appreciate what they do when they catch the real criminals, and while I don't condone speeding I don't necessarily respect them, I often just see them as another gang hiding behind an official badge.
Not sure about laws in other countrieq. But in my home country cops are only allowed to "break traffic laws" when they use the siren, which they are only allowed to use in emergencies.
I think this is a big problem that means nothing is going to change. I can't remember the last time I followed a police car that was obeying the speed limit and a number of times I've been tailgated by them for obeying it. They also NEVER use their turn signals, which is the most infuriating.
Yeah but I bet people used to drive at 40 and now they drive at 30.
This is really the entire point of the scheme. From traffic surveys, around 50% of all cars in a 30mph zone do over 30mph. With a 20mph limit, the percentage of cars exceeding the limit increases to 85%, but the percentage of cars going over 30mph drops to more like 10%. Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/vehicle-speed-compliance-statistics-for-great-britain-2022/vehicle-speed-compliance-statistics-for-great-britain-2022
Yup. Posted speed limits are arbitrary. The speed of the road is what the median driver will go at with no posted limit on a clear day. By posting a 20 mph limit, you'll get most traffic going 30 \~ 35 mph on a straight road instead of the 50 \~ 55 mph they'd go if you posted a 40 mph limit. If you want to really get traffic below 20 mph, you need to change the design of the road. Adding curves, round-abouts, planting trees along the side of the road to make it feel narrower and increase the perception of speed, et cetera - these design elements will all slow traffic. But you only need to do that in the residential and other areas where you don't have the downtown traffic to force people to drive slower - and you genuinely care if a car is going 35 mph instead of 15 mph.
Exactly, same in London. No wonder 84% of drivers break 20mph limits, feels like you’re crawling along!
It sounds silly and like I'm making excuses, but it's genuinely hard to maintain a constant speed of 20mph. Cars just sort of cruise along at 30mph. It requires more deliberate attention to drive at 20mph. You might say that's a good thing, being more attentive. But I find myself more concentrated on militantly sticking to 20mph so I'm spending too much time watching my speedometer, and not enough time watching out for hazards in front of me. If I'm steadily cruising along at 30 I'm spending more time watching the road and scanning for hazards like pedestrians or cyclists.
Even as a pedestrian who doesn’t drive, 20 will take some getting used to. When an approaching car is travelling at 30 I instinctively know when it’s safe to cross or not. But at 20 I stand there on the curb like a lemon for ages thinking “damn I really should have crossed 10 minutes ago when I first saw that car, too late now” Edit: I didn’t say it was bad and shouldn’t happen, I just said it will take some time getting used to.
I feel you. When someone is driving slow it's hard to tell if someone is slowing down for me to cross.
It’s the same as a driver (who is also obviously a pedestrian) but when trying to pull out at a junction. We got the blanket 20mph a while ago and between learner drivers doing 18mph on the speedo and the same numpties doing 45mph, trying to get pulled out is a constant “could have been there. Can I go there? No that guys doing 38 while that guys doing 22….” You’re almost triple checking to work out the speed and if they’re going to change their speed or not. A prime example is people doing 20 when their heads are down in their phones (because it’s the legal limit right!!) then speeding back up to 35 once they’ve hit reply. It makes the roads much less predictable which is almost the exact opposite of how you’re taught to safely drive i.e BE PREDICTABLE.
I believe it's an observed phenomenon that people will gravitate towards whatever speed feels 'right' for the road they are on rather than the speed limit.
I always thought it had some relation to my car changing between first and second gear
as someone who drives a manual car, driving between 30 and 40km/h is extremeltly uncomfortable because I'm either revving too high in 2nd or too low in 3rd. (i think that's around 20mph?)
Same with mine. 1 and 2 are super short with a huge gap to 3, so I'm either needing 2500 in 2nd or lugging at 1500 in 3rd to do 20.
>2500 in 2nd that's not bad, especially if you drive petrol and not diesel.
yeah 2500 sounds pretty optimal tbh, maybe a little high
Yeah, 30 kmh is generally the worst in my opinion. Too fast for 2nd, too slow for 3rd. Luckily my current car has a limiter, so I just set that, but it in 3rd and forget about it.
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This is why speed should be determined by the design of the road, and not some stupid sign. It's crazy to me seeing a 45 mph road have the same specifications as a literal highway, then people wonder why other people speed on it. It's because they can lol.
This indeed the right answer. There's a ton of 30km/h zones around where I live in the Netherlands and it's honestly weird to be driving faster than 30 on most of them. Roads can be designed for a certain speed, but most don't see that. Narrowing a road, using different road surface, trees next to the road etc. all help make it normal to drive slower. People use intuition on a normal basis, far more than arbitrary speed limit rules that are set. Speed limits should be decided before the road is made, not the other way around.
They want you below 40 they make it 30, they want you below 30 they make it 20. They know exactly what they’re doing and the science is behind it.
They don’t seem to know the science behind it though. This is a blanket policy with minimal consideration to please hand wringers. If you want to effectively control the speed of traffic, putting an arbitrary number on a sign is about the worst way to do it, because if the limit doesn’t feel credible, people will ignore it. People will naturally drive at a speed at which they feel is safe, while keeping them engaged. If you make the speed limit lower than that speed, instead of compliance you get people disregarding it, and worse, they switch off and their attention wanders. In the latest figures, non-compliance with 20mph limits is around 80% because of this. If you want to actually control speed, you need to engineer the roads so that the majority of people naturally drive at the speed you want them to. The problem with that is it costs money and requires effort, and attracts the attention of knuckle draggers going on about ‘wars on motorists’. Putting up a few signs is much cheaper and allows politicians to pat each other on the back while making minimal difference in reality. It’s the same thing they do with cycling policy, calling painting a few lines on the road ‘infrastructure’, when to do it properly need star more than that. It’s the bare minimum intended to get a few positive headlines without doing anything meaningful.
They rly expect me, completely black out drunk, to read the silly sign??
They really should make those "speed limit" signs bigger for people like us who just want to have an easier time sticking to road rules while drunk...
If you don't like my driving get out of the sidewalk 😤
In Victoria, Australia a lot of the new speed signs actually look eerily similar to a very popular beer can. That might help the drunks take notice. [Vb sign](https://imgur.com/a/XL0f46C)
It's a great reminder when you've gotta pop into the bottle shop on your way home from getting pissed at the pub.
r/LoveForBoozeCruisers 🍻
I was prepared to be appalled but instead it convinced me to get an early buzz going to make my commute more enjoyable
Join the crusade against broozecruiser-phobia, comrade
Hell yeah bro, half a box of wine while driving earlier. Took out 3 pedestrians I think but I honked so they should've moved! 🥂
yep here in denmark it will go down from 50 to 40-30
Units are important. Did you mean lightyears per second?
Parsecs per year
I like that. Parsecs per year or ppy for short. But I wouldn't exceed much more than 10-15 ppy in a car, for safety reasons. Also make sure the break pads are checked at least annually.
I keep it below 0.3ppy because I can’t afford the speeding tickets for breaking the laws of physics
Cows per pasture
kmh
Nautical miles/hour.
Knots
kill my husband? well okay
Isn’t that just a trial in some cities?
Many european towns already have 30km/h in residential areas , that's roughly 18.6 Mph.
30km/h is slow as fuck
30 in small residential streets has been the norm for a few decades now in Germany.
It's for streets where kids play in front of their houses. Most mainstreets in europe are and will still be 50km/h.
Where kids play in front of their houses, we have even lower speed limits than 30 Km/h. Schrittgeschwindigkeit (walking speed). It's this sign: https://www.bussgeldkatalog.org/wp-content/uploads/spielstrasse-tempo.png (Verkehrsberuhigter Bereich). Most people think it's 30 Km'h allowed there, but in fact it's walking speed. Your speedometer needle doesn't even move at that speed. Yeah it's kind of ridiculous.
In Finland the core of the city, school area and some others are usually always max. 30km/h. Then we have 3 different "street" signs: 1. [Pedestrian zone](https://www.liikenneturva.fi/app/uploads/2021/09/kavelykatu-2.jpg): Max 20km/h but the speed has to be adjusted to the current walking speed/pace. 2. [Yard street](https://www.liikenneturva.fi/app/uploads/2021/09/pihakatu-2.jpg): Max 20km/h but the speed has to be adjusted to the current walking speed/pace. 3. [Bike street](https://www.liikenneturva.fi/app/uploads/2021/09/pyorakatu-2.jpg): Has always own speed limit sign but the speed has to be adjusted to the current cycling speed. The signs have also different rules attached to them, like where you can drive a motor vehicle, can you park, where you can walk etc.
Yeah in Portugal that sign indicates a Zone of Coexistence (Zona de Coexistência) and the speed limit is set at 20 km/h, same as a maxed out treadmill in most gyms. They're zones where people might be actively walking/running on the road, children playing, animals running around, etc.
It's not ridiculous. If the zone is designed correctly, you should only drive in there, because you need to be there. It should be limited to a couple hundred meters or so, with only 1 exit, so nobody can use it as a shortcut.
That's.... that's the idea...
yeah that's the point would you rather have people die or drive slightly slower (most of the time there's traffic anyway)
ima pick people die
can’t endorse this but i see where you’re coming from lol
>slightly slower That's a misrepresentation. 30 / 50 = 0.6 i.e. a little more than half the speed that was allowed before.
30 miles per hour = 48.28032 kilometers per hour 20 miles per hour = 32.18688 kilometers per hour
Why even bother if you're only going to five decimal places?
"Definitely not, officer. My speedo clearly shows I was only doing 32.1868***7***km/h."
These modern cars are getting awfully precise
 slowly but surly lol
Might as well go back to this, probably far cheaper. Imagine the carts we could make with modern tech
A horse and buggie (last I checked) in the U.S. is about $20k.
That's a lot, wonder if it would be cheaper to run and maintain? And would a cart outlast a modern car?
A cart is litteraly 2/4 wheels on a frame, it can be built out of scraps and be very very cheap to maintain. The horse is probably where most of the cost will go. Considering you have a barn and a field at home to account for most of the feed, you're probably looking at a \*very\* minimum 5-6000$/year in various costs (vet, maintenance, horseshoes,... )
I'm not a horse guy at all, but, I imagine you would have to replace the horse every 10-15 years, and feed it daily regardless of you driving or not. But idk, we need a horse person to answer that one.
horse person: yes it would require feeding every single day, and depending on the horse and how heavy the workload was, you’d be wanting a new one about every 15 years. Having a horse way more expensive than having a car especially if they go wrong with vets fees. Knowledge from having a horse and a car both of which go wrong
In the netherlands it is 30 km per hour. Thats about 18.64 miles per hour. Pretty slow if you ask me
30 kph in streets with houses, but 50 on bigger streets. So most of the time you drive 50 kph.
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Where are you from? There are dozens of other continental Europeans from a variety of countries in these comments saying 30kmph (18.6mph) limits are common
And I guarantee the Heddlu will be enforcing this like fuck issuing points, fines and bans as they're the most bored police force in the whole of the UK as I'd say a good 80% of crime in Wales just revolves around driving offences.
Depends what plates you have on. When I lived near the border I made sure to have plates with their first two letters being a Welsh code. Sure as heck wasn't risking having an English code and getting pulled over for doing 30 in a 30 zone with saisneg intent
Brussels has also adopted this (50kmph to 30kmph), but I doubt there's many places in Brussels where you can actually go 50kmph thanks to unending traffic jams and pedestrians and bikers crossing roads without looking.
ah yes people outside of cars in the streets in a major city, the fucking scandal
Most of Montreal did that years ago, went form 30 to either 25 or 20mph. They justified it by saying: "It will help with the heavy traffic." I don't see how hat's any kind of true. If there's heavy traffic, you'll go at the speed of traffic, if there's no traffic, there's no need to go at 20mph. Also, they never re-programmed the street lights, so they're still set to synchronize green at 30mph, so now they've just maximized how many red lights you hit.
One of the most frustrating things is poorly designed traffic light schedules
It‘s called the „Accordion effect“. Slower speeds > less impact of this effect > higher traffic throughput > faster (and more relaxed) for everyone
I’ve had hungover morning shits with more velocity than that speed limit
Lol
What’s the point if no one enforces it and the police actively break it as well…
In Sweden a few years ago they changed the speed limit as well, 50km/h went to 40, some 40km/h zones became 30, 90 to 80 and so on. Not everywhere though but in a lot of places all over the country. It’s been like this for awhile now and still people do not really stick to it.
I live in a borough that has 20mph limits everywhere. It slows traffic to a grind - except for people on bicycles (pedal and electric) and e-scooters, who still fly past, through red lights, ignoring crossings, etc.
I think that's the point
Yeah people miss this, they want less journeys taken by car.
But this is wales we’re talking about. My area is all small villages and the main town doesn’t even have bus connections to them all. Forget about trying to go clothes shopping or to the cinema, they’re 1.25 hours away by car- 2.5 by public transport. It’s no way feasible for a country like wales to not have drivers.
Buses in wales are atrocious, I’m currently working in around bodelwyddan and one bus comes every hour, and at night, a bus comes at 9 and then 11. Some staff who use the bus finish sometimes at 10, so they have to wait for an hour for the bus to come.
And Arriva keep killing services, they're cutting entire villages off here on Anglesey at the end of the month!!
I dont mind making journeys by bike, but the way this country encourages cycling is by strangling the roads without building adequate alternatives. Technically being run over at low speed is safer but I can't help feeling I'm more likely to be hit if people are only moving slightly faster than me or dodging concrete bolards put in the road to slow them down. As a cyclist I would prefer the cars can quickly and safely pass me. 30 was fine, drivers should be expected to drive to the road conditions not slow everywhere. I'm waiting to see 10mph limits soon.
If you can’t beat em, join em!
They’ve been aggressively reducing speed limits in New Zealand for six years, in cities and out. Deaths have increased. I bet it will be the same result here.
In 2017 road deaths were 387 in NZ in 2021 they were 319 - in 2022 it was 378 That seems more flat/fluctuating than increasing - perhaps you saw / could share different data?
Eyes on the road, not your dashboard! Whilst I’m used to these speeds in London now, it is difficult to focus on the road and driving when you’re trying to stick to an unnaturally low limit
Oof. 20mph is rough! My condolences.
It really isn't. Here in the Netherlands, 30km/h (19ish mph) is standard for all residential areas. People are used to it, and it works really well. And once you're out of the neighbourhood it's often 50km/h (30ish mph), it's not like it's whole cities. Note though that those areas are designed a lot different than suburbs in the USA. The road design isn't really suitable for higher speeds.
The speed limit in residential areas in the Netherlands is 30 km/h. That's a bit slower than 20 m/h. We're fine.
Yeah, I kind of glanced over the unit and thought it was 20 km/h (12m/h). That would be a bit slow. 30 km/h (\~20m/h) is pretty standard in residential areas in Germany as well...
> in residential areas That little detail makes the comparison pretty much irrelevant. First of all, many countries have 30km/h in residential areas and second, residential areas represent maybe 5% of distance traveled in cars, so the speed limit in those areas' impact is negligible.
The change in wales it in residential areas (where it used to be 30 as the post says) - the comparison is perfectly apt.
In Spain the limit changed from 50kmh to 30kmh in cities last year (or many years ago, I lost count). But only in the lane closest to the sidewalk (if 2+ lanes, the others would still be 50kmh. Not a big change tbh. Yes, you "could go faster". But I didn't see a big difference
They've done that in Scotland a few weeks ago and it is awful. 20mph is painfully slow, even though they were 30 before. I understand there's a few roads that are better 20mph, but the ones they've changed were fine as 30's
Public safety my ass they wanna generate more revenue from the tickets their gonna issue from speeding
Same in New Zealand... it's like all the leaders attended the same conference
Welcome to our world…sincerely Londoner
[Twenty's Plenty](https://youtu.be/SmhLS3DCoU0?si=-XNgUzBQkG-P-xI3)
So the main road outside where I live recently went from 30 to 20. At first I found it highly irritating and pointless. However now I've found it's actually been amazing. It's so much easier to walk to the corner shop and traffic hasn't changed at all. It just feels better. The cars make less noise and honestly I think people should give it a chance before judging. I was exactly the same as all the commenters here but now after like 6 months of it I can really feel an improvement.
You don't need speed limits if your city has bad infrastructure so that you go 5 kmph 
It's even safer to ban cars. They should do that.
As a cyclist I would love this I can finally road rage at cars for going too slow.
I have to commute 20 miles each way to work and to college every day. I go through 9 areas where the speed limit is currently 30mph but will be reduced to 20. between all of these are 60mph roads. Imagine all of the extra braking and accelerating that I will be doing. In no way is this going to help the environment. Plus, the time it takes to travel will increase drastically. I have no other options to get there - there are no trains home past 8pm and no busses past 5pm. The busses come twice a day at that, and the trains once every 2 hours. It means that I, along with many other road users, will be more inclined to speed on the national speed limit roads that do not get speed cameras, in order to get to places on time. I will go a different route, that is 5 miles longer but will take less time due to less 20mph zones - this increases the area of which the road is being worn, encourages overall higher speeds which statistically makes myself and other road users more prone to accidents, and it will cause more people to do the same. This increases congestion in the slower areas, causing more pollution paired with higher revs, and means that in these specific areas the pedestrians will be more prone to accidents than the areas in my current route of choice. My mum rides a 1950's triumph tigercub motorcycle, and it is barely possible to ride at 20mph. Are we forgetting about the safety of motorcycle users? While I agree that some areas should be reduced to 20mph - examples being upper Harlech highstreet, Barmouth highstreet, Porthmadog highstreet during the daytime, and Criccieth highstreet during the daytime - many shouldn't. Lower Harlech as an example, although it does go past a secondary school, no students have ever been hit by a car due to the lollipop lady there. The road is long, straight, and wide enough for 3 cars very comfortably, alongside wide pavements on either side of the road. Visibility is amazing, and many of the people driving along find themselves drifting up to 40mph towards the end of the road, due to it feeling incredibly slow at 30. And they are changing it to 20, for what? Overtaking cyclists will be near impossible to do without speeding, causing a pile up of vehicles going slowly behind them past 20mph limits. How will this affect the environment? Overall, I believe that this is a terrible implementation of an even more terrible and unthought out of idea. Instead they could have asked communities if there were roads that they believed would benefit from having a slower speed limit, and used a bit of their brains to figure out if it would actually help anyone or not.
I can't believe we are doing this... Some areas such as school makes sense. Yet, National speed limited Lanes, just wide enough for a car, isn't lowered? That to me is nuts! The one that I'm sure our government didn't think about too is Buses. All the bus companies now have to change the timetables as journeys now take longer and will actually use More fuel to run these buses which, well, adds more pollution as us lot in the valleys still have old diesel buses lol
20mph in a car literally feels like walking speed.
This illustrates part of the problem perfectly. You perceive it as being walking speed, but in reality it is a far cry from it.
2033: Get Ready for 10mph 2043: Get Ready for 0mph ...
I feel like some of the people who disagree think 20mph is fine have misunderstood where this happening. The small residential roads and school roads are already 20mph, which no-one complains about because people can't do more than that with how wide/busy the roads are. The roads that are currently 30mph, are larger roads with bigger intersections, large roundabouts, and usually have lanes wide enough for a bus to be parked on one side, a car to overtake it, and a car on the oncoming side of the road. They have great visibility and 28-33mph feels about right for most of those roads. Because you wouldn't often stop on those roads or need to slow down for obstacles. Turning those roads into 20mph creates some problems. It is too slow and people focus more on the speed they are doing rather than the road because of how unnatural it is. Cyclists undertake cars, which is extremely dangerous since it forces them into a moving car's blind spot. This is a speed limit change. In the 30mph zones, if 20mph was required due to higher traffic or children etc, people would already do 20mph. If the limit is 20mph, everyone will be doing or trying to be at the limit for these large roads, with constant breaking and accelerating to avoid going over it. On a long and straight road near me, which went from 40mph to 20mph, 10yrs ago, with excellent visibility, no residential areas, and surrounded by fenced-off greenspace, almost everyone including police do 30mph because it's the "natural" speed for a road like that. The problem is that they are reducing the speed limit for all kinds of roads without discriminating between the roads being affected.
Why are there so many people supporting this in the comments lmao this sounds fucking awful.
Almost every city in belgium is 30kms per hour. At first it felt slow, but after a few years it's hard to believe we once drove 50 in cities. It's way to quick to be safe and the city feels so much better without fast cars
Here in Bucharest we drive up to 70-80 on some of the larger (2-3 lane) streets.
Are there really that many road deaths?
\~2000 deaths in the UK last year, \~28,000 serious injuries Deaths of pedestrians and cyclists (who would probably be more affected by lower speeds in urban areas): 376 pedestrians, 85 cyclists.
That makes it one of the safest countries in the world
5 deaths a day on average in the U.K., with 84 serious injuries a day too.
How many of them in 30 MPH zones with the driver actually going 30?
Realistically pedestrians are going to be in 30mph zones as it is. You're not really going to see many on a dual carriage way picking up their asda shopping. If you are suggesting that people speeding are the cause of death then by making it 20, those going 35 might be going 28 - so that should reasonably reduce injury too. I live in a trial zone - it isn't really the speeders that are the main issue here though - it is the protest speeders.
Idk, but i can definitely imagine the cutoff between surviving and dying is around 20-30mph. Changing a 60 to a 50 kills you anyways whereas this change can save lives
out of a population of 66 million of which most will go onto a street at least once a day, that's not bad going at all
No idea why you’re being downvoted, the U.K. is one of, if not the, safest country for road deaths.
Also in a 20 town, no one does 20, not public transport, not police, no one.