20mph limit plan to help cut traffic death toll in county
THE CHAIRMAN of an influential committee is pressing a council to consider introducing 20mph limits in side streets across a county to cut casualties.
Councillor Mike Jordan, who leads North Yorkshire County Council’s transport, economy and environment overview and scrutiny committee, said introducing lower limits off main roads in villages would save children’s lives.
He aims to launch an investigation into the cost of introducing more 20mph limits in the county, which he said would be far less of a burden to the public purse than the costs associated with children who have been killed or seriously injured.
The move follows the completion of 20mph zones in all residential areas in other parts of Yorkshire, such as Leeds and campaign group 20’s Plenty For Us claiming 25 per cent of Britons now live “where 20mph is normal”.
Coun Jordan said: “Once you get off the main road you have not got much further to go, so 20mph rather than 30mph will mean the children running around, coming in an out of school, for instance, are far more likely to survive. At 30mph there’s a good chance they will be killed.
“Some of the modern cars have these frontal impact zones which help, but there are a lot of older cars, buses and lorries that don’t.”
Coun Jordan admitted there would be a lot of work introducing the scheme and that enforcement would be difficult. He said: “What we would hope to achieve if there are 20mph zones there it would slow drivers down and they would take notice of it.
“We would hope that peer pressure from the other people who live in that village would mean that those that lived there would slow down.
“Nine times out of 10 it is the people who actually live in that village and they wouldn’t want their child getting knocked down.”
Coun Don Mackenzie, the council’s highways boss, said while he supported 20mph zones in some places, such as beside schools or where there is a history of accidents, more targeted safety measures would represent better value for money for taxpayers.