Hertfordshire's top cop assures councillors over 20mph zones

The increasing number of 20mph zones across the county are designed to create environments where people feel safer, where the air quality is improved and where people are more likely to walk or cycle.

But at the latest meeting of the county council’s public health and community safety cabinet panel (June 4) concerns were expressed that the lower speed limits were not being enforced by the police.

Liberal Democrat Cllr Sandy Walkington pointed, as an example, to the high number of roads in his St Albans South division where speed limits had been reduced to 20mph.

And he said there was a “misunderstanding” amongst motorists that they could drive at up to 30mph and not be prosecuted.

Outlining his concerns to the chief constable, he said: “Most of my division is now a 20mph zone. And the current position is that the police just don’t enforce it.

“I’m not sure is that your decision or is it the police and crime commissioner’s decision?

“But it just seems to me, if it is now the new normal for places like my area, it’s deeply frustrating that there is an absolute misunderstanding, ‘it doesn’t matter, we can drive up to 30 because no-one is going to enforce it’.”

But the chief constable said ‘there had been no decision from him not to enforce 20mph zones’.

“I’m equally clear there’s no decision from the commissioner not to enforce the speed limit.

“There are thresholds that are set, for a certain amount above a speed limit when someone will be prosecuted.

“But that doesn’t say someone can’t be stopped and advised at something beneath that.

“And where 20mph are in sensible places like outside schools, if there are problems we should be there and enforcing it.”

Nevertheless the chief constable did acknowledge that the constabulary could not enforce all speed limits all the time.

“The honest point is that I can’t enforce every single speed limit, on every occasion, at every location,” he said.

“But this is where the community intelligence is really key.

“If you have got significant issues of ignoring a speed limit at a vulnerable location – and a school is a pretty good example – then reach out through the teams and we should be putting something in place around it.”

Earlier in the meeting Liberal Democrat Cllr John Hale had also raised an issue around the enforcement of speed and other driving offences.

And the chief constable highlighted the work of around 120-130 officers in the Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire road policing unit.

He said they were deployed every day of the year and that they targeted key roads where there were most accidents and the highest number of people killed or injured.

But he also highlighted the impact that speed indicator devices had on motorist behaviour.

And he said: “One of the very best ways of controlling speed are the little green smiley faces and the red unhappy faces, because it positively affects driver behaviour.

“Even the white van, the stereotypical white van person changes behaviour.

“So I think there is some thing about how we can use that technology to target those areas.”