Speed limits not spin

I must confess to being pretty baffled by the Conservatives’ latest plans to try and slow down traffic outside schools.

They’ve now issued application packs to local schools in which they ask schools to pay for, or spend time raising sponsorship money for, ‘advisory’ 20 mph signs featuring a cartoon snail, rather than a speed limit warning, outside schools

Everyone I’ve spoken too about having a 20 mph speed outside schools wants an enforceable limit, not a cartoon snail. And they certainly don’t want the money to pay for them to be taken from schools when it could be spent on education.

These signs should be properly funded from the roads budget. And they should be designed to get the message across to drivers, not to appeal to children.

Southampton City Council is already imposing 20mph limits outside all schools and Portsmouth City Council’s scheme will do the same on most residential roads.

A recent Audit Commission report shows that Britain’s roads are among the safest in the world for adults – but not for children. A child pedestrian in England is three times more likely to die on our roads than in Italy and twice as likely as in France.

You can read the Echo report here.