There are a number of reasons for setting a default speed of 20mph throughout the 'unclassified' road network in residential parts of a city such as Norwich. Most important perhaps is that of driver recognition as to what the speed limit is. If you have 20 mph as the default then you not only establish this limit clearly, but you also adjust the driver's recognition as to what is the "normal" speed in such residential areas. The most important aspect is that drivers set 20 mph as the norm with those 30 mph areas or roads being seen as 50% faster, rather than seeing 30 mph as the norm with 20 mph as 33% slower. The psychological adjustment of normal speeds in residential areas is key to the success of reducing speeds and therefore danger to pedestrians and cyclists. Therefore any trial, pilot or whatever, that only implements 20 mph in a tiny proportion of the city is not modelling 20's Plenty in any realistic manner. When considering the val...
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Sir;
Melanie Phillips (‘Cameron’s real task’) thinks that the David Cameron’s ‘New Conservative’ Party is interested in attaching itself to the LibDems and the Greens because Mr. Cameron is quite a ‘centre-left’ Tory Leader. But the truth is that Cameron’s policy platform is a million miles away from being able to be taken seriously by us in the Green Party.
Here are ten top reasons why the Conservative policy programme is anathema to anyone who is actually remotely serious about being Green:
1 Support for anti-green nuclear power 2 Support for climate-dangerous new roads 3 Support for unchecked aviation growth
4 Opposition to EU green schemes 5 Axing environmental regulations as "red tape" 6 Opposition to congestion charging
7 Support for incineration of waste 8 Support for tax cuts for super-consumers
9 Support for low taxes for the most polluting multinational businesses 10 Support for Trident nuclear WMDs over tackling dangerous climate change.
When Cameron has changed these ten policies, THEN he can come back to us and talk about building a ‘progressive alliance’ with us. I won’t hold my breath!...
Faithfully, Cllr. Rupert Read, Green Party lead candidate for Eastern Region in 2009 Euro-elections
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