Twenty is plenty, Archbishop
May 31, 2023 11:22:39 GMT
Post by WDB on May 31, 2023 11:22:39 GMT
A couple of weeks old now, and it's not so much the precipitate primate that caught my attention as this remarkable ignorant comment piece in The Times. I've actually seen similar sentiments expressed elsewhere - and it's best not even to look at the comments from the below-the-line-dwellers - and it does make you wonder how these people cope with, say, a tax return or a central heating programmer.
And yet it’s not hard to have some empathy. Not only because that is the Christian way, but also because it is nigh-on impossible to drive at 20mph — what hope for the rest of us if the Archbishop of Canterbury can’t manage it? If you’ve tried, you’ll know it’s excruciating.
I don’t know about automatics, but manual cars just aren’t designed to dribble along like that. You’ll typically hit 20mph at precisely the time you’d naturally be nudging the accelerator and shifting from third to fourth. So you don’t change up — or do you? Twenty miles an hour in third is a revvy racket; in fourth it’s hard to resist doing a Welby. Lord, lead us not into temptation.
Fourth gear at 20? I won't be buying any more clutches but I certainly wouldn't want to be the next owner of that one. But I discovered an early form of one-pedal driving in my manual S60 diesel, which would was happy in third gear at any speed from about 15 to 75 or so. That was before widespread 20 limits, of course. Today I'd just leave it in second - not that I'd take it into a city at all. Now most of my urban driving is electric, so I have only one gear. And yes, the car will very happily go a lot faster than 20. As will the driver, who is, of course, the real design problem here.
At least this article does acknowledge the 25 percent reduction in collisions, injuries and deaths in the three years that 20 limits have been in force in London. Twenty-five percent! But apparently it's still unreasonable to ask drivers to update their own skills and learn some new habits.
And yet it’s not hard to have some empathy. Not only because that is the Christian way, but also because it is nigh-on impossible to drive at 20mph — what hope for the rest of us if the Archbishop of Canterbury can’t manage it? If you’ve tried, you’ll know it’s excruciating.
I don’t know about automatics, but manual cars just aren’t designed to dribble along like that. You’ll typically hit 20mph at precisely the time you’d naturally be nudging the accelerator and shifting from third to fourth. So you don’t change up — or do you? Twenty miles an hour in third is a revvy racket; in fourth it’s hard to resist doing a Welby. Lord, lead us not into temptation.
Fourth gear at 20? I won't be buying any more clutches but I certainly wouldn't want to be the next owner of that one. But I discovered an early form of one-pedal driving in my manual S60 diesel, which would was happy in third gear at any speed from about 15 to 75 or so. That was before widespread 20 limits, of course. Today I'd just leave it in second - not that I'd take it into a city at all. Now most of my urban driving is electric, so I have only one gear. And yes, the car will very happily go a lot faster than 20. As will the driver, who is, of course, the real design problem here.
At least this article does acknowledge the 25 percent reduction in collisions, injuries and deaths in the three years that 20 limits have been in force in London. Twenty-five percent! But apparently it's still unreasonable to ask drivers to update their own skills and learn some new habits.
