Meeting of the Parliament 28 September 2016
I would be happy to do that and there is a whole range of interesting YouTube videos that feature the Tufty club. I have been showing them to my children and they cannot really believe it.
All those groups recognise that the reduction of speed where people live is the foundation of reducing casualty numbers and building confidence for all to walk, push, cycle and scoot. When we consider the most vulnerable in our society—children, those who have physical disabilities and those who have dementia—we are creating safer neighbourhoods and fairer places to live by reducing speed. By reducing speed we are also reducing social isolation by encouraging people to get out and about, to play, to visit, to meet up and to shop. I hope that members across all parties will now recognise the large body of evidence that links speed with the fatality rate, which at 30mph is 20 per cent while at 20mph it is only 3 per cent.
Scotland is on track to meet its 2020 targets for a 40 per cent reduction in road fatalities from the 2004 baseline. I welcome that, but there is no room for complacency, especially when we consider that, in the United Kingdom, pedestrian, cyclist and motorcyclist deaths make up 50 per cent of road fatalities overall, which contrasts with only two fifths of such deaths in Sweden. It is clear that a particular focus on vulnerable road users is needed in our approach.
It is crystal clear that 20mph limits work. They result in a reduction in average speed across the road network of 1mph to 2mph; that might seem unimpressive, but when we consider that for every 1mph reduction in speed, there is a concurrent 5 to 6 per cent reduction in casualties, I hope that we can all agree that 20mph limits have a real impact on real people.
Since the 30mph speed limit was introduced as the urban default in 1934—after a campaign by Living Streets, which at the time was called the Pedestrian Association—the evidence on and understanding of road safety has moved on, with Living Streets today being among the growing number of bodies from 20’s plenty to the British Heart Foundation and Brake that are calling for us to move into the 21st century by dropping the limit to 20mph in residential areas.
That reflects a growing recognition that the benefits of reducing speed limits to 20mph are multifaceted and extend beyond safety to wider health and environmental benefits. With physical inactivity costing health budgets in the UK nearly £11 billion every year, we need a step change. That is why, for example, it was a director of public health and not of roads who made the investment in a 20mph roll-out across Manchester.
We also face air quality problems, particularly from nitrous oxide emissions, which studies show are reduced, particularly from diesel cars, when speed drops. Although data on direct carbon emissions is inconclusive, the impact of even a slight modal shift to walking and cycling for short journeys makes a valuable contribution to our stumbling progress in reducing transport emissions in Scotland.
Where councils—such as Fife Council—have made significant progress in building a network of popular 20mph zones, they have seen cycle trips increase by 20 per cent, while Edinburgh has seen both cycle trips increase and permissions for children to play outside double.
The progression from the initial advisory 20’s plenty zones in the early noughties to the roll-out of mandatory 20mph zones has been welcome even if, at times, it has been a postcode lottery in Scotland. Where such zones have been introduced, public support is high, with one survey showing 68 per cent support post introduction. However, the piecemeal roll-out has come with challenges, complexities and costs, which could be addressed by the introduction of a 20mph default limit in residential areas.
Let us consider the traffic regulation order process. It is a time-consuming and costly approach for councils to establish a patchwork of small, discrete 20mph zones. The transition from 30mph to 20mph in residential areas requires signage and speed bumps, which are unpopular with drivers. It costs seven and a half times more per mile to regulate with speed bumps than it does with a neighbourhood-wide 20mph limit, and it is harder for the police to enforce a patchwork of 20mph and 30mph zones, where drivers can claim confusion surrounding the point at which they left one zone and entered another.
I visited Bridge of Allan primary school, which, like most schools, is in a residential area with its own 20mph zone, but the school zones typically extend only a few hundred metres beyond the gates, ignoring the fact that, on average, children travel nearly 2km to school. If we are convinced of the benefits of a 20mph limit at the school gate, why not extend those benefits to the whole route of the average school journey through a neighbourhood?
It is no wonder that a more universal approach to establishing 20mph as the default residential limit was unanimously welcomed by council representatives at a recent Scottish conference that discussed the best way forward to secure progress. Edinburgh has begun its city-wide roll-out, but it has faced some early challenges in rolling out a coherent scheme that is easily understood by road users. It has been hampered by the piecemeal TRO approach. A far simpler and more elegant approach for councils throughout Scotland would be to flip 30mph with 20mph as the default limit in residential areas. That would allow councils to then exempt key roads through settlements that genuinely require a higher speed limit of 30mph.
This Parliament has taken bold steps in the past, such as the ban on smoking in public places. If we are convinced of the benefits of a 20mph speed limit in residential areas for the safety of our people and the wellbeing of our places, let us take a similar step and use the Parliament’s powers to make it a default limit for Scotland.