London Banter - View Single Post

umpston · November 28th 05, 11:58 AM posted to uk.transport.london,uk.local.london

wrote:
umpston wrote:
wrote:
umpston wrote:

I do not believe there are any speed limits of less than 20mph on
public highways in the UK. I doubt the police can specifically enforce
the lower limits that are often signed on private roads and in car
parks, although they might well be able to arrest you for something
else if they saw your fast driving as dangerous.

There is a posted 15mph speed limit on a public road I visit regularly.
As to whether it is legally enforceable, I couldn't say. What are the
criteria for enforceabililty?

I have been told that the boundary of the speed limit needs to be
signed on both sides of the road for it to be correct, valid and
enforceable, and this particular sign is on the left-hand side only.
Does the lack of a sign on the right hand side make it unenforceable?
Come to that, should the opposite face of the sign show the speed limit
in the opposite direction? This one currently doesn't.

Are you sure it is a highway? Not all roads 'open to the public' are
necessarily highways. Council estate roads, for example, often have
'private road' status even though they may be both publicly owned and
ungated.

Well, it probably is an ex-council estate road, given its location, so
that may well apply. I didn't realise is could be a 'private road'
owned by the council. Weird. Does that mean the limit is unenforceable
if it is not on a 'highway'?

Speed limits of less than 20 are not used on the highway partly because
of the difficulty of reliable measurement (good enough for the courts)
of such low speeds. So I doubt your '15' limit is enforceable as such.
Private landowers can certainly enforce their own parking controls but
I don't know about other traffic restrictions. The police would be
able to enforce traffic laws (such as driving without due care) which
do not require the making of Traffic Orders (speed limits, one-ways,
banned turns etc do need Traffic Orders).

However, a Council may be able to make a Traffic Order for a 20mph or
higher speed-limit on a 'private' estate road - especially if they own
it. It is quite common for access roads on Council Estates not to be
offered for highway adoption - even though the land may be publicly
owned. The owner of a private road may retain the right to close the
road or divert it if ever the site is redeveloped. In contrast, and
for very good reasons, there are many legal obstacles to stopping-up or
extinguishing a highway.

Just to complicate matters some private roads are also highways (public
rights of way) but are not publicly maintainable. The landowner must
then maintain it but has no right to close it.