An opportunity to save millions of pounds on new speed limit signs in Wales has been missed by the failure to synchronise the lowering of the default speed limit on roads in built-up areas in Wales with a switch to metric speed limits.
From 17 September 2023, the default speed limit on restricted roads across Wales will switch from 30 mph to 20 mph (approx 30 km/h). The move entails the removal of existing “20 mph zone” signs and the replacement of thousands of 30 mph signs with 20 mph signs on all roads in built-up areas that have not been specifically exempted from the change.
https://www.gov.wales/introducing-default-20mph-speed-limits
The Welsh Government website says that, “Wales will be one of the first countries in the world … to have a default 20mph speed limit on roads where cars mix with pedestrians and cyclists.”. Although, considering that only a handful of countries still set speed limits in mph, it is not clear which countries are being referred to.
The cost of replacing existing speed limit signs and road markings, plus the cost of installing other traffic-calming measures to accompany the change, has been reported to be £27 million. Much of this cost could have been avoided if the change had been arranged to happen at the same time as a switch to metric road signs. Unfortunately, all of the newly installed signs will now need to be changed again when Wales (and the rest of the UK) eventually makes the long-overdue switch to metric road signs (Speed limits were originally planned to go metric in 1973).
If the speed limit reduction had taken place at the same time as a switch to metric speed limits, further costs could also have been saved in this instance due to the fact that the metric equivalent of the new 20 mph speed limit would be 30 km/h. Existing “30” signs could have been retained, but perhaps with the addition of a temporary “km/h” plate.
This lack of joined-up thinking by government is in contrast with the situation in Ireland, where a major review of all road speed limits was organised to coincide with Ireland’s switch to metric speed limits in 2005.
The greater flexibility provided by metric speed limits would also be particularly advantageous when it comes to the fine-tuning of speed limits in built-up areas: If the convention of using values of multiples of 10 is maintained, when selecting a speed limit lower than 30 mph, the only practical available imperial option is 20 mph. Whereas there are two or three available metric options : 40 km/h, 30 km/h and 20 km/h.
The lowering of the default speed limit to 20 mph on roads in built-up areas represents a drastic reduction of 33%, and has not been without some opposition. A switch to a default speed limit of 40 km/h, representing a much smaller reduction of 17%, could have been considered if speed limits had been switched to metric units at this time.
References
https://www.southwalesguardian.co.uk/news/23661719.welsh-government-spend-27m-changing-20mph-speed-limit-signs/
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/20mph-roads-newport-welsh-government-27540340
https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/every-north-wales-council-now-27539332
https://www.carwow.co.uk/news/7139/new-20-mph-speed-limit-wales#gref
Metric Views 
That would also have been an opportunity to get rid of the clutter of English and Welsh words on the signs, which just make the signs much large and more difficult to read when you’re driving. Metric road signs do not need an explanatory text in a local language or languages. They are international and are mutually comprehensible to drivers around the world.
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Unfortunately the imperialists among the British population won’t like it and will probably be destroyed especially by the Luddite organisation called ARM. They literally go around the country destroying metric signs, unfortunately the councils replace them with new metric signs and then the same people who complain about metric signs also complain that councils are putting up council tax.
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Lee Kelly wrote: “the Luddite organisation called ARM. They literally go around the country destroying metric signs”.
That’s the beauty of using temporary km/h plates.
href=”https://metrication.uk/transport/roads/speed-limits/#method2″ https://metrication.uk/transport/roads/speed-limits/#method2
The speed limit roundel can be the same design as now. On M-day, the meaning of the numeric value will change from mph to km/h, regardless of the temporary km/h plates that will have been added to all new speed limit signs. The intention would be for the km/h plates to be removed at a later date. Any unofficial “assistance” by anti-metric vandals would save the authorities the costs of doing it themselves. But, with an estimated 440 000 speed limit signs in the UK, it would take an army of vandals to have any impact.
Click to access traffic-signs-england-research.pdf
It’s also worth noting that driver location signs on motorways are in kilometres – but without the symbol for kilometre. I’ve not seen any of these vandalised.
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Sorry I was referring to town centre signs showing metres which happened in my local town years ago, that’s how I heard about this group called ARM, also I know that on motorways the distances are in kilometres but I doubt they have the intelligence or knowledge to know that..
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This is a terrible way of achieving it. Speed limits need to be appropriate in order to reflect the conditions of the roads in question; otherwise, people will just ignore them, which creates resentment. There is a 20 km/h difference between 30 and 50 km/h (which would be the km/h equivalent to 20 and 30 mph, respectively). When the Netherlands lowered the speed limits from 50 km/h to 30 km/h, they didn’t just slap a 30 over the 50; the roads were reengineered in order to justify such a speed limit. As the article touched upon, the DFT’s persistence of mph speed limits in multiples of 10 uniquely puts them in a particularly cumbersome position, as 40 km/h is a good speed limit for a lot of built-up areas but remains unviable under current rules. Even the USA uses a 25-mph speed limit, which is roughly equivalent to 40 km/h.
“Unfortunately the imperialists among the British population won’t like it and will probably be destroyed especially by the Luddite organisation called ARM.”
ARM is a by-product of the government’s and the DFT’s refusal to embrace metrication in transport. It meant that kilometres could be portrayed as something foreign and as some kind of “creeping” threat to be resisted. If they did switch them over, people would quickly get used to kilometres, and they would become second nature. The thought of change is quite often more scary than the actual change itself.
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Safety has got to be a primary concern when changing over from mph to km/h. It is essential that the driver know at a glance whether the sign in question is in mph or km/h. I was in Mauritius in 1978 and saw dual-unit sped limit signs there – a red circle with a diagonal line: the imperial speed limit was in the top left half and the metric speed limit in the bottom right half. I assume that is what HMG had in mind for the UK in the 1970’s.
In South Africa, the change-over was phased over a few months – the safety element was that the km/h signs were of a totally different design to the mph signs – the two could not be confused. In the case of Ireland, where both the imperial and metric signs were identical (complying with European standards), the change-over was done with great publicity over one weekend and metric signs had the letters “km/h” below the number.
At such time as the UK changes over to metric speed limits, it should be remembered that there are now multiple speed limit reminder signs, so might be appropriate to implement the first phase of the change-over a number of weeks using transfers. I would use a yellow background rather than a white background for metric signs with the letters “km/h”. During the first phase, all 60 mph signs nationwide being changed to 100 km/h followed by 50 mph being changed to 80 km/h the second phase, 40 mph to 65 km/h during the third phase, 30 mph to 50 km/h during the fourth phase and lower speed limits during the fifth phase. Each phase would last about a week. Once this was done and all mph signs had been converted, permanent km/h speed limit signs could be erected as needed using a white background but, like Ireland, retaining the letters “km/h”.
What the Welsh exercise has taught us is that speed limits can be changed nationwide should the political will be there.
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Unfortunately I don’t believe that the British will ever accept going to km/h, metrication is seen as only a European measurement system not a global one, no matter how it could reduce accidents by decreasing speed limits and reducing the amount of confusion for foreign drivers in the UK, the UK will be stuck in the imperial system for centuries to come, I’d prefer to finish the job and go completely metric, but just like many things the country is run by imperialists and their supporters.
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Alex M wrote. “When the Netherlands lowered the speed limits from 50 km/h to 30 km/h, they didn’t just slap a 30 over the 50; the roads were reengineered in order to justify such a speed limit.”
I know exactly what you mean: putting obstacles such as boxes of flowers on either side of the road surface so that literally only one vehicle at a time can pass through, hence the need for a much lower speed. I don’t think it would work like that in the UK as the public generally accept changes in speed limits if the need is properly explained to them. And if that need is there in the first place, there is no need to reengineer the road. Also, remember that vehicles such as ambulances, the fire brigade or the police may need to travel along those reengineered roads too. The obstacle could easily constitute an impediment and thus slow down response times.
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Lee Kelly wrote: “Unfortunately I don’t believe that the British will ever accept going to km/h, … no matter how it could reduce accidents by decreasing speed limits and reducing the amount of confusion for foreign drivers in the UK”
Lee, I think we have to move away from the idea of metric road signs primarily being advantageous for foreign drivers. Of course, they will be and, Brexit or not, most if not all of the foreign vehicles on British roads are from Ireland or continental Europe where metric units are used. But it will also be more than beneficial to the two generations of Brits who have been taught metric at school and are denied the opportunity to use that education in the place, apart from the kitchen, where virtually the whole public is exposed to units of measurement at all, namely on the roads. Even if the mile cannot be abandoned for the time being (I don’t why it couldn’t, but perhaps there is some reason why it can’t), just why can distances not be displayed in metres? Why are there signs showing ‘yards’ (or rather ‘yds’) on road signs when that ‘yard’ is not used for commerce and commercial transactions? Why is it that measurement units on the road seems to be completely detached from measurement units used in trade? Or rather that it is felt that metres and yards have to co-exist, even sometimes on adjacent road signs (think: road width and height to a tunnel in metres signed so many yards ahead)? Who allows this crazy situation to continue and why can the powers-that-be not see how crazy it is?
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@ Metricnow The concept of traffic calming has been incorporated into UK road design since the 1930s, so it is by no means a new thing and that is a misrepresentation of it. It covers a whole host of things and works best when incorporated in a seamless manner. You also missed the point that I was making. Speed limits are not arbitrary, they need to be set in regards to the conditions on the respective roadway, so you can’t just treat mph values as km/h and call it a day. People accept lower speed limits when they make sense in regards to the conditions of the road, they don’t when it is done in a heavy handed way on roads that should support a higher speed limit. Metrication and the merits of lower speed limits should be treated as two separate issues and not unhelpfully conflated in such a way.
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Alex M:
The point of the article was that metric speeds offer a wider range than mph, the way the latter is used now with increments of 10. In that sense there is a link between the two. I am taking the article at its word, that mph speeds increase in increments of 10, larger steps than the corresponding increases in km/h. I happened to see a speed limit of 35 mph on my travels this year. It looked like a normal road sign, but whether it is allowed or whether it was put up, say, by a construction firm rather than the local authority, I don’t know. It certainly struck me as not fitting in with the normal pattern of mph signs.
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This news report from RTE news only reinforces in my mind what the UK could have done if it had converted road signs to metric way back in the 1960’s when it had the chance under Labour or at any time since then:
Maybe some day? We sure hope so.
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@Metricnow “The point of the article was that metric speeds offer a wider range than mph”
The main point of this article seems to be to suggest that Wales could have taken the opportunity to phase in km/h speed limits by treating 30 mph as 30 km/h, which I think is flawed for several reasons. As much as I want the UK to use metric speed limits, Metrication should be rolled out nationwide and apply to all speed limits. While this just addresses one particular issue while creating many others, Speed limit signs, unlike distance signs, are safety-critical and have legal weight behind them; therefore, they need to be consistent and widely understood. With that in mind, the Irish approach of putting km/h on the actual road sign works out better than putting a plate underneath, as suggested here. After all, it can be phased out once people are accustomed to km/h speed limits.
I fully agree that the DFT’s insistence on using multiples of 10 puts them in a uniquely cumbersome position.
@Ezra Steinberg “my mind what the UK could have done if it had converted road signs to metric way back in the 1960’s”
Labour were going to switch the road signs back in 1973, but sadly, when the Conservatives got into power, they indefinitely postponed it and allowed political inertia to set in. Unfortunately, I don’t have much hope that a current Labour government is any more likely to switch over than the current government is. All we can do is try to push it further up the political agenda and explain why it would be better. After all, I think imperialists are a very tiny minority, and I would argue an increasingly irrelevant one at that. Most people just don’t give it much thought and like to stick with what they are used to.
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Alex M wrote: “The main point of this article seems to be to suggest that Wales could have taken the opportunity to phase in km/h speed limits by treating 30 mph as 30 km/h””
Road signs need to be replaced when speed limits are changed. Road signs also need to be changed when they are switched from mph to km/h. The main point of the article was intended to be that money could have been saved if both issues had been addressed at the same time, which would have meant changing road signs just once. As it is, “all of the newly installed signs will now need to be changed again”.
If the new default speed limit in built-up areas had been chosen from a metric range of speed limits, it seems quite likely to me that 40 km/h would have been selected, just as 120 km/h seems likely to be selected for the motorway speed limit.
When road signs do switch to km/h there will need to be some sort of review of speed limits if we are to avoid signs like this one in Myanmar:
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The Irish combined the changeover to km/h with a national review of speed limits while the SOuth Africans changed their road signs to Worboys-like roadsigns when they metricated.
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Alex M wrote, “Metrication should be rolled out nationwide and apply to all speed limits.”
I can’t see anything in the article suggesting it should be otherwise.
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@ Isaac, Thanks for the clarification, and I agree with you. Unfortunately, metrication just isn’t on the current government agenda, and governments have a short-term view of things. People advocating for lower speed limits are primarily doing so because of safety concerns; while there are many good reasons to adopt metric road signs, general safety isn’t among them. Another good missed opportunity was during the Warboys committee, whose stated goal was to make them more in line with those in Mainland Europe. So why wouldn’t they use the same units as mainland Europe as well?
“When road signs do switch to km/h, there will need to be some sort of review of speed limits if we are to avoid signs like this one in Myanmar.”
There is a simple solution to that: 30 mph (48 km/h) can be simply rounded to 50 km/h, while 20 mph (32 km/h) becomes 30 km/h. Then the new national speed limit of 60 mph (97 km/h) can become 100 km/h; there are even creeping examples of that, such as 0-62 mph figures and limiters saying they are limited to 62 mph (which are clearly soft conversions of 100 km/h). 50 mph can easily become 80 km/h, as they are identical. The problem comes from switching over to 40 mph speed limits, as it is roughly 65 km/h and therefore can go either way. Maybe a rural speed limit of 70 km/h and an urban one of 60 km/h.
The national speed limit of 70 mph (113 km/h) on motorways and duel carriageways would be closer to 110 km/h, but I would prefer to raise it to 120 km/h and maybe have a 110 km/h speed limit on duel carriageways to distinguish them. The UK already has one of the lowest motorway speed limits in Europe, with plenty of other European countries having a 130 km/h speed limit and the German autobahn famously being unlimited in parts.
40 km/h can simply be set aside to be phased in at a later date if deemed appropriate, and speed limits of under 30 km/h would really only be used on private property.
I personally prefer the km/h to be on the sign to avoid confusion, but I hope that it can be phased out at a later date when it is deemed unnecessary clutter.
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Many modern cars now allow to display speed in km/h instead of MPH by flicking a button. I display speeds in my car in km/h and find it absolutely fine. The speed limits in MPH are automatically translated to km/h in dashboard so no chance of confusion. I can also drive in 3 digit speeds in motorways legally 🙂
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“Many modern cars now allow to display speed in km/h instead of MPH by flicking a button.”
That is all well and good but the reality is that most people aren’t going to bother as long as the road signs are still in imperial units. Therefore any meaningful change requires the government to bite the bullet and finally commit to the very long overdue switchover to metric.
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