In the area of Shirley, Croydon MPs decided to put in place more 20 miles per hour signs as a result of many crashes and injuries sustained to school children, crossing the nearby roads.
The Croydon Government changed most 30mph roads to 20mph roads back in November but on the week of the 15th of January, more signs have been implanted on roads such as The Glade and Shirley Church Road.
I spoke to a local resident of The Glade, Nicki Smith, and she said that, “The attempt to slow down car speeds is very sensible as most cars do travel very fast where there are little children are walking to and from school. I have seen many cars whiz across roads where people are crossing.”
So, does this change save more young people from getting injured or does it risk even more? The idea of slowing down car speeds is a good one as some vehicles have been known to travel at 32mph in areas where it is only supposed to be 30mph. However, I spoke to another lady, Caroline Sage, who lives on Shirley Church Road and she said, “I believe that it is even more dangerous as I live on a long, straight road so many more cars have begun to overtake me when I do 20 miles an hour. This is much scarier than if they had just left the road’s speed as it was!”
Croydon Council decided to put these signs up after laying speed monitors across roads leading off from The Glade. They then decided that due to the high speeds that they found, of these cars travelling off of The Glade, to change the neighbouring speed limits of certain roads.
The Croydon Government has recently put 20mph signs across New Addington, Selsdon, South Croydon and Forestdale to name a few. In every town there are conflicting opinions but the Croydon Council have decided to leave the signs up for now as they believe it to be more beneficial in the long run, once people have settled in to the new speeds.
