North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has challenged the Cabinet Secretary for Transport today over his claims that the Welsh Government’s default 20mph speed limit has reduced casualties since its introduction.
The controversial speed limit was brought in last September by the Labour Welsh Government.
Earlier this month, the Cabinet Secretary for North Wales and Transport issued a Written Statement in which he said that new road collision data “shows that casualties have reduced on roads since the introduction of the new 20 mph speed limits in September last year”, but Mr Isherwood has disputed this.
Challenging the Cabinet Secretary in this afternoon’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament, he said:
“The new data you quoted for the last three months of 2023, compared with the same period in 2022, actually shows that, even with the limited exceptions to default 20 mph limits applied by Local Authorities acting in accordance with Welsh Government exceptions criteria, the number of people killed or seriously injured on 20 mph roads had risen by 800 per cent, from under 5 per cent to 36 per cent of the total, whilst the number killed or seriously injured on 30 mph roads had fallen by 88 per cent, from 49 per cent to just 5 per cent of the total, with the numbers of motorcyclists and cyclists killed and seriously injured both increasing. Further, overall road casualties had increased by over 13 per cent. How do you, therefore, answer the questions now being asked about whether the overall promised reduction in road casualties, plus the promised savings to the NHS, have materialised?”
Responding, the Cabinet Secretary said:
“I don't recognise some of the statistics quoted just now. I think the most important point to raise, though, is that the number of casualties on 20 and 30 mph roads combined—which is the key way of looking at this—in quarter four of 2023, was the lowest quarterly figure recorded outside of the COVID period. That is statistically correct; it's robust.”
Speaking after the meeting, Mr Isherwood said:
“This easy dismissal of the first comparative data since the default 20 mph Speed Limit was introduced is alarming. As I warned, switching 30mph limits to 20mph limits would transfer the share of road casualties from one to the other, whilst also displacing drivers and therefore road casualties onto the wider road network.”
