YP Letters: Blanket 20mph limits are expensive solution

LEEDS City Council has recently imposed a blanket 20 mph speed limit in my local area of the triangle comprising Cross Green Lane, the Outer Ring Road and Selby Road.

This has cost nearly £30,000 and indeed LCC has spent over £5.2m in the last 10 years creating 20mph speed limit areas in the city.

Whilst fully accepting the need to reduce road accidents, one has to question whether this blanket whitewash approach to road safety is really cost effective.

A recent Government report has shown that there has been no significant improvement in road safety where such zones have been created.

LCC is budgeted to spend a further £600,000 in the next 12 months on introducing further 20mph zones. Rather than this one-size-fits-all solution, would it not be more cost effective to take a more targeted approach by installing traffic calming measures, near schools and on roads and junctions where speeds and accidents are a problem?

This would probably have a greater effect on reducing the accident statistics, and at a probably lower cost too.