Police 'don't want to be left holding the baby' with 20mph speed limit roll-out in Wales – Commissioner
A strong evidence base exists on safety grounds for the roll-out of the 20mph speed limit in Wales, a police and crime commissioner has said.
But Dafydd Llywelyn said police did not want to be left “holding the baby” when it came to enforcing the controversial default limit.
Mr Llywelyn said there needed to be societal change, and enforcement on an incremental basis. He had been asked at a Dyfed-Powys police and crime panel meeting if he was satisfied that he had sufficient enforcement resources.
The Plaid Cymru commissioner said police carried out the majority of speed enforcement on the country’s roads via the Welsh Government-funded road safety group GoSafe. This, he said, included the deployment of motorcyclists who could record drivers’ speeds, as well as the more familiar vans.
He said he understood the safety rationale behind the 20mph limit, which came into force on most residential streets last month.
It was estimated that a single road fatality had average costs in excess of £1 million associated with it, such as investigation work and foregone income of the deceased, he said.
“If this policy reduces that figure, I’m 100 per cent supportive of it.”
But he added: “We made representations to the Welsh Government from a policing point of view that we didn’t want to be holding the baby for enforcement.”
The “grace period” for people breaking the 20mph limit is coming to end with enforcement set to begin from December.
Mr Llywelyn said he supported further discussions about the 20mph limit given the number of people who have signed a petition calling for it to be rescinded. The petition to the Senedd had been signed by more than 464,000 people as of October 27.
The commissioner said 108 people had died on Dyfed-Powys’s roads between 2018 and 2022 compared to 138 from 2013 to 2017.
