Photo Gallery - Speed Limit Signing


Freedom! National speed limit signs on the A5102 at the edge of Woodford, Cheshire. But note that the street lighting continues on the NSL stretch, and there is a house in the distance. Anti-car local authorities could easily cut the limit to 30 here simply by removing all the speed limit signs. In fact this road was cut to 40 mph a couple of years after this photo was taken - see the Speed Limit Reductions photo gallery.


Looking in the opposite direction from the previous picture - a sensibly sited speed limit boundary before a side turning, pub and church (just visible on the right above the trees). The partial development on the road beyond this point makes a 40 limit appropriate, but some local authorities would have made it 30.


In the absence of any signs to the contrary, the speed limit in a built-up area is 30 mph, right? Well, it isn't on this road in Heaton Moor, Stockport, as it forms part of an extensive 20 mph zone, where no repeater signs are needed if the limit is enforced by traffic calming measures. Yet here the humps are sufficiently far apart that exceeding 20 mph would not be difficult. How are drivers to know that is the limit, particularly when similar traffic-calmed roads are still 30?


This street in Heaton Norris, Stockport is now part of the 20 mph zone mentioned above. But there should be a 20 mph sign on both sides of the road, and traffic calming measures are conspicuous by their absence here. Cobbles do not count as "traffic calming".


At this location on the A535 entering Alderley Edge, Cheshire, there are two 30 mph signs on one side of the road, and none on the other, making the limit technically unenforceable. Underneath the second sign is the message "Children please drive slowly" - suggesting it's OK for adults not to.


A 20 mph limit (not a 20 mph zone) in the small West Somerset town of Dulverton. This covers a narrow, winding stretch of road without proper footpaths, where 30 mph is never going to be a safe speed. However, as in practice the 20 is never going to be enforced, would it not be better as an advisory limit?


(Last updated September 2004)

Photo Gallery Index

Return to Index Page