Isn’t 20mph ridiculously slow for a car?

It’s true that 20mph can feel slow in a modern car. However 20mph is the right speed for motorists to share our streets with children, cyclists, older people and those with disabilities. Consider this:

If a child makes a mistake and steps out 40ft in front of a car then assuming the driver hit the brakes in half a second:
at 20mph they’d just stop in time
at 30mph they’d hit that child still doing 27mph – the equivalent of dropping them out of a third storey window
at 40mph they’d hit that child still doing 40mph – they wouldn’t even have had time to brake!

Hit at 30mph a pedestrian is seven times more likely to be killed than at 20mph.

Research shows children can’t accurately judge vehicle speeds above 20mph

Slowing down to 20mph will add less than 60 seconds to most urban journeys. For urban journeys the factor that affects journey time most is the number of stops and starts.

In addition, most locations will be within half a mile of an arterial road with a higher speed limit. The few seconds additional journey time is a small price to pay in return for safer, cleaner, quieter streets for our children, older people and everyone.