Officer says 20mph road limits cannot be enforced
Wednesday 31st March 2010, 10:37AM BST.
New 20mph limits in Shropshire are “unenforceable” because police do not have the right tickets to issue to people caught speeding, an officer has claimed.
Constable Tania Grey, of West Mercia Police, said the new zones introduced by Shropshire Council, including Meole Village in Shrewsbury, were not practical.
She told last night’s meeting of the Meole, Column and Sutton Local Joint Committee that officers had not been issued any tickets to book people for breaching the 20mph limit.
The officer also claimed police had not received the relevant authorisation from the council to enforce the new zones and said in some cases it would be better to reinstate the 30mph limits.
But Hugh Dannatt, group manager for traffic and highway engineering for Shropshire Council, today said there was no reason why the speed limits should not be enforced and said the authority had put everything in place from its end.
Constable Grey told last night’s meeting: “We can’t actually enforce the speed limit because we don’t have the tickets in West Mercia for 20mph.
“If you are putting a 20mph speed limit up you are in fact losing a 30mph speed limit and increasing it to 60mph because we cannot issue a ticket for 20mph.”
He said the police carried out regular monitoring of the Meole Brace area including traffic flow and anti-social behaviour.
Mr Dannatt said that even if police did not have tickets to book people for breaching the 20mph zone, officers had powers under Section 59 of the 2002 Police Reform Act to issue a written warning and possibly a subsequent fine.
He said: “There is no legal reason why the police cannot enforce the 20mph.”
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errrrr …. is it not the case that the police can report someone for summons to court for speeding instead of giving a ticket …. or is that too much work for everyone involved ????
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Enforce cash fines and beatings for people exceeding the speed limit.
Old people driving excessively slowly or showing little or no observation skills should of course be allowed to continue to cause accidents!
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Squire, presumably you have found a secret formula so that you will never get to be old. Mostly this is reserved for boy racers who drive recklessly and suffer premature termination of their useless existence.
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Maybe, if the highways departments actually listened to police objections when planning some of the speed restrictions that they do come up with, instead of going ahead with them against police advice, then thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money could be saved and scenarios like this wouldn’t happen. Shropshire Council plans to reduce speed limits on hundreds of roads in the next few years. Many of these reductions are not needed and no doubt money will be wasted on new signs for reduced limits that will be un-enforcable and not needed.
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What an absurd limit 20mph is.
The police can’t enforce it because it is too slow.
When are our political do-gooders going to get a grasp of reality and stop pushing all this ‘go slower’ and ‘get out of your car’ rubbish?
30mph worked for decades with far inferior cars with terrible brakes so why are we penalising modern cars today?
We should be putting speed limits up with modern cars not reducing them.
That would mean less drivers being fined and less money for the camera partnerships though – oh and the treasury.
Quick, better make the limit 10mph and the fines £100 a time.
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Couldn’t stop laughing for 20 minutes hahaha.
Why don’t they issue a ticket for speeding at 40 mph and rip in half…… hahaha
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Reading the full story in the paper it seems that Hugh Dannet from the council is saying one thing and the police are saying something else….what sort of common sense is needed just to seek police opinion before implementing unworkable schemes and making sure they will work before wasting taxpayers’ money?
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Shropsman I gather from reading the full details in the paper that the local authority has not provided the necessary legislature to allow people to be prosecuted, as for your challenge that summonsing somebody is more work than issuing a ticket is not correct, there is not a dot or crossed t more.
I can already foresee that as soon as Granny Speed, aged 78yrs, the widow of a WW2 veteran who has angina and recently suffered a fall in the snow gets hit with a £60 fine and 3 points for “they’re doing me for travelling at 20.13mph in a 20 zone, it not what Cyril fought in Anzio for”, it will be front page news, because everybody knows “this is the first time in 30yrs that I’ve been in excess of the speed limit and I get caught, and where were the police when I had my milk stolen in 1967?”. Heard it all before, got the T shirt.
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Shrewsbury town centre is now a 20 mph zone.
This is a complete joke our money has been wasted on speed limit signs.
Just walk along Barker Street on a saturday and you will see why.
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oldies are not the only ones the speeding dangerous manouvers crossing lanes on motorways
withoul a single look no signaling—the list goes on these people are not waiting for god –
they are beconing him to come quickly
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Quoting from the BRAKE website: ‘At 20mph, 95% of pedestrians hit by a vehicle survive. At 40mph, only 15% survive.’
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It would be a joy to go as fast as 20mph through shrewsbury town centre but the reality is that such speeds are not possible since the council numpties put their new traffic scheme in.
The pointless obsession with speed reduction will soon see us having to follow a man with a red flag as we drive along – still the mindless numpties at Shropshires mindless, pointless, overstaffed and ever failing council will be happy.
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Don’t you just love this Country!
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Captain Sensible, could you explain what you think is ‘mindless’ or ‘pointless’ about making our urban roads safer for all users (pedestrians, cyclists, bikers, and other motorists)?
Surely local government has a duty of care for its citizens.
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“Quoting from the BRAKE website: ‘At 20mph, 95% of pedestrians hit by a vehicle survive. At 40mph, only 15% survive.’”
As a life long pedestrian Huw, I try not to be hit by a vehicle at any speed, but how do these surviving pedestrians know at what speed they are being struck?
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I see that the same highways department are now going to spend large sums of money reducing road speeds on non-dangerous roads like the Buildwas to Much wenlock road (star april 1st), where will it all end? A bankrupt council with lots of silly speed limits but no one able to travel the roads anyway because of potholes that they can’t afford to repair?
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Pedestrians can’t tell exact speeds.
But forensic investigators of crash scenes, using basic physics, can.
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What a waste of our money by one body not consulting with the other on practicalities prior to implementation of these regulations.
The suggestion by the council appointed traffic manager to use the police reform act 2002 i.e Vehicles used in manner causing alarm, distress or annoyance instead of the correct regulation would appear a misuse of the Act. It would also requires a warning to each motorist before it could be implemented.
Only an idea chaps…consult with each other!It will save us the tax payer the expense and hopefully a united effort will cure the problem of speeders and the roads be safer.
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“Quoting from the BRAKE website: ‘At 20mph, 95% of pedestrians hit by a vehicle survive. At 40mph, only 15% survive.’”
If those statistics really are true, then it goes to show that pedestrians should be even more aware of traffic when crossing a 40MPH road than a 20mph road and in reality this is probably true that they are,unfortunately though, in my experience pedestrians can become too blase about 20 mph limits and wander out aimlessly. If you reduce the risk factor, in some cases, you reduce the risk awareness too.
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