Guest blog by Ellen Booth, senior campaigns officer at Brake
Ed Miliband visits Jet petrol station in Mexborough to hear about 20 is Plenty campaign
Today I travelled down to sunny South Yorkshire to meet Judith, a local campaigner for 20mph limits, at the Jet petrol station she runs in Mexborough. In just three weeks, she gathered more than 2,600 pledges from local people to stick to 20mph or less in built up areas, as part of Jet’s ‘20 is plenty’ campaign. Her local MP, Ed Miliband (you might have heard of him! He’s the leader of the Labour Party), visited to receive the signatures and talk to us about the campaign.
Ed turned up on the dot, with a big smile on his face, to tell us that he thought Judith had done a fantastic job in raising the issue locally and gathering so much support for a great cause. Judith didn’t waste a second telling him about her campaign to get the limit reduced in residential streets in Mexborough. Not only did Ed say he supported her campaign, he asked her to contact his office because he wanted to see how he could help make it happen.
I took the opportunity to tell Ed about Brake’s national campaign to reduce the default urban limit to 20mph in all communities. I explained that 20mph limits are shown to be highly effective in preventing deaths and injuries, particularly among children and adults on foot [1].
I explained that at the heart of this campaign is the safety and wellbeing of children. Traffic is the biggest killer of teenagers, and the second biggest of primary age children [2]. Every month five children are killed and 179 are seriously injured on foot and bike [3], causing pain and trauma to families, and a costly burden for health and emergency services.
I told Ed that Brake works with communities up and down the country that are crying out for road safety measures to make their streets safer for families to walk and cycle without fear of fast traffic.
Ed asked lots of questions and showed real enthusiasm for the campaign. He agreed that 20mph limits are important to creating safer, happier communities. All in all, it was a great day!
Read more about Brake’s campaign for 20mph limits.
[1] Effect of 20 mph traffic speed zones on road injuries in London, 1986-2006: controlled interrupted time series analysis, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 2010
[2] Death registrations in England and Wales: Table 2 Deaths by age, sex and underlying cause, 2009 registrations, Office National Statistics, 2010
[3] Reported Road Casualties Great Britain 2009, Department for Transport, 2010 and Reported Injury Road Traffic Collision Statistics 2009, Police Service of Northern Ireland, 2010. Statistic refers to children under 16 years old
Going slower is definitely a bonus, but on the other hand, it might cause more speeding fines for people who aren’t used to speeds, plus changing the signs from 30 to 20 will cost money and time and with the economy the way it is, i don’t think local councils are going to pay out for this idea, but on the other hand it could be a kick start for the councils into spending their money, yes it’s nice to have but its not always good to sit on