I THANK Richard Buttery for his interest in 20mph limits with a letter on August 28.

What great pity he didn’t enter the debate four years ago when Warrington BC were considering whether to roll out the 20mph limits beyond the initial pilot.

If he had done so he would have found the WBC report on the pilots noted that “The two residential road trial areas produced a reduction of 9.3 casualties or 27 per cent in the study period combined.”

This reduction was on top of the authority-wide trend.

His comments on the number of casualties nationally on 20mph and 30mph roads is a reflection that over the 2011-2013 period large numbers of traffic authorities have been converting 30mph roads to 20mph, hence automatically reducing 30mph casualties and increasing the length of, and casualties on, 20mph roads.

In fact, the same statistics show that on 20mph roads in 2013 there were six deaths out of 3,164 casualties (0.2 per cent) whilst on 30mph roads there were 538 deaths out of 111,186 casualties (0.5 per cent).

On a 30mph road any casualty is 2.5 times more likely to result in a fatality than on a 20mph road.

His comments about the views of ‘independent statisticians and independent researchers’ have not stood up to scrutiny by the many traffic professionals and councillors across the country who are actually responsible for the roads and implementing 20mph limits.

Neither do the comments about ‘rolling on to bonnets’ or ‘being pushed forward down the road’. In the distance a 20mph vehicle can stop then a 30mph vehicle is still doing 24mph.

Frankly, I would rather have a vehicle stop in front of me than have it hit me at 24mph.

His comments about York and Worthing also miss the mark.

There was no survey on 20mph limits in York, only a traffic regulation order inviting objections, as in Warrington. York is just implementing its final phase of a city-wide roll-out.

While Worthing spent a considerable sum of money conducting a survey of all residents, the outcome will not be known until the end of the year.

The funding for Warrington has come from transport budgets and central government sustainable transport funds, specifically including 20mph limits.

These funds simply cannot be used for such projects as the running of ‘Sandy Lane tip’.

Of course, Warrington is not alone in implementing pilots, studying the results and following up with wide-area implementation.

This has happened in most of our major conurbations, including in the last 60 days one third of the roads in the Manchester City Council area and all the roads in the City of London.

I also welcome Julia McKie’s letter about her road in Great Sankey. If there is a particular local issue with her street then I am sure that WBC would be pleased to get a better understanding of that and how compliance may be increased.

Rod King Lymm