London Banter - View Single Post

Martin Underwood · November 28th 05, 12:42 AM posted to uk.transport.london

Terry Harper wrote in
:

On Sun, 27 Nov 2005 21:29:12 -0000, "Martin Underwood"
wrote:

I thought that the street lights had to be closer together than 200
yards for it to be a de jure 30 limit. No street lights and you need
repeater 30 signs. No speed limit, or one above 30 and you need
repeater signs on the lamp posts.

Gosh - is as far apart as 200 yards? I nearly said 50 yards: I'm glad I
didn't now. 200 yards is two "diagonal bar" signs on a motorway junction
countdown which is a hell of a long way - at 30 mph it would take you nearly
15 seconds. I'm sure most street lights in built-up areas pass much more
frequently than this. At 200 yards apart, there'd be a lot of dark space
between the pool of light from each street lamp. I presume the spacing is a
maximum of 200 yards apart *on the same side of the road* and that typically
street lights are interspersed on opposite sides of the road so in reality
there are lights (on one side of the road or the other) every 100 yards.

I'll check my HC tomorrow - and pace out the spacing of the street lights on
my road when I go to post a letter.

What are the rules about the visibility of speed limit signs? Even in
November, with few leaves on the trees, there are several signs which you
can only see when you get very close: too close really to slow down safely
from 60 to 30 in the remaining distance, even though you can see the road
much further ahead. I wish all speed limit reduction signs, especially going
from 60 to 40 or 30, were preceded by 300, 200, 100 yard countdown markers
to help judge the point at which you need to reach the lower speed. Even on
roads that I drive every day, where I think "I know there's a 30 limit
coming up soon" it's difficult to locate the exact point without either
overshooting it or slowing down unnecessarily early. I remember seeing the
3,2,1 countdown idea (either as signs or as white lines across the road)
proposed in the AA Magazine "Drive" many years ago. It's a shame no-one
picked the idea up and made it law.