County Highways are considering bringing in a 40 mph speed limit at the western end of Rawreth Lane for a distance of 380 metres. This is because according to national guidelines, there should be a 40 mph limit there because of housing at the very western end of the lane .
If this goes through , drivers coming off the A1245 heading towards Rayleigh will pass through 3 separate speed limit areas:
A 40 mph limit for the first 380 metres (the area we have marked in red on the map)
Then the national speed limit (the area marked in yellow)
Then the 30 mph zone (the area marked in pink).
County Highways have asked the ward councillors (Ron and Chris) for our opinions. What do you think we should say? Would it be simpler – and maybe safer – to get rid of the ‘middle’ national speed limit section altogether?
Is there a history of accidents in this area to warrant a change ?
Good question.
Keep with the plan (and the national guidance), there is nothing but a few houses in the middle section, reducing the speed limited would seem to be disproportionate to the benefit.
P.s. why do most of the post on with site seem to be about Rarweth? There are 13 other Parishes in the District!!!
I think the poor quality road surface & blind bend could warrant a lower speed limit, but why restrict the remaining section of the road as well.
In 7 years of commuting on that road 2 times a day i have never seen an accident.
Low speed limits are great in the right place, but i’d hate to see yet another road “dumbed” down.
A percentage of the drivers still seem to be ignoring the 30 mph reduction on the section past asda, i’d imagine they would continue to ignore any restriction further along the road as well.
Thank you for your comments. The suggestion about getting rid of the middle section was because maybe drivers would find it confusing to have a short stretch like that, but in the absence of any other comments I will follow what you say!
Brett : you are right, I am aware there has been a bias on our website towards Rayleigh and Rawreth. The number of posts for parishes since we started onlinefocus are : Ashingdon 8, Barling 18, Canewdon Paglesham and Stambridge 19, Hawkwell 14, Hockley 42, Hullbridge 30, Rawreth 188, Rayleigh 360, Rochford 49 , Wakering and Foulness 26.
Why is this? Mainly because the three of us – Ron, Jackie and myself represent wards in West Rayleigh and Rawreth, these are the areas where we pick up questions and issues from our residents , and also where we have the most knowledge. (Or coming from another angle, Rayleigh and Rawreth are the areas where we are least likely to make factual errors!)
Also, in the last couple of years Rawreth Lane has probably been the most newsworthy road in the whole district, with lots going on…
We’d like to write more stuff about the other parts of the district , if anybody in say, Hullbridge or Wakering ever has items for us, please let us know!
Buzz Lightyear makes a good point, changing the limits will have little or no effect on the morons that like to drive to infinity & beyond. Here’s a radical idea – get the police to catch these people instead of letting cameras do the work for them. Once a few speeding tickets & hefty fines have been handed out then speeds will drop ( for as long as the police keep up the pressure )
The houses along that stretch look like they’ve been there a fair few years, why is there such rush to do something about it now?
And what about the cottages half way along that stretch, do the national guidelines apply to them?
To be honest, I can’t see this making a lot of difference to anyone, so don’t think it would be an issue if the first section is restricted as proposed, but like others I think it is unneccessary to carry the 40mph limit all the way along.
I think the worst risk on this stretch of road is being rear-ended while waiting on the blind bend for the traffic lights to change , and this is as likely to happen at 40mph as it is at 60mph. This stretch is, after-all, not much longer than a natural accelleration/braking zone anyway
Personally I’d save the money for the new signs, road markings, and inevitable red tarmac, and spend it somewhere else more pressing.
I agree with Buzz Lightyear about the Police presence in Rawreth Lane.
I have seen the Police with their hand held camera in the Lane (at Laburnham Way Junction) twice this month but they always set up at about 1.30pm on a weekday when traffic is fairly quiet.
I did once make a point of asking them why they don’t take speed checks at 6.am on a weekday when the early racers to London are about, and I got a flippant reply that “it was the time the Police go off duty from their night shift”.
I guess that is why they only spend 15 minutes at 1.30pm because their early shift finishes at 2pm.
Alan, you mean to tell me you actually saw a real life policeman? Next you’ll be telling me you saw Santa and his elves!
Alan,
Don’t take that sort of nonsense from them, drop a note to the local superintendant ( cc’d to the Chief Constable ) explaining what happened. That might wake them up a bit, maybe they were more concerned about their back pay….
Reply to Rayleigh Resident,
Thanks for the advice but at the moment I feel it is better to keep the Police on our side. With all hype about Community Policing at present, I would hope that the local superintendant logs onto this site.
No doubt more housing will pop up in the area, so perhaps taking a long term view and making a single change would be useful. As a local resident I would propose 30mph for the entire stretch. I believe this has benefits in terms of both safety and traffic flow.
Laburnum Way Resident, Do you think that a 30mph limit for the whole stretch would get rid of the bottle necks that now occur at peak times along Rawreth Lane? Do you have problems getting out of your road because of this?
I think that it would be confusing for motorists to have three different speeds in one short road when there is much for a driver to watch out for along there now.
The risk of a 30mph limit along the entire length of Rawreth Lane is that you move the bottleneck from the current 30mph limit to the start of Rawreth Lane at the A1245 Junction. The NSL allows cars to clear the area of the junction quicker.
Failing to do this risks having cars queueing on the A1245, and this is not good for keeping the main arerial road flowing, and is dangerous if the right turn lane for Rawreth Lane is full, causing stationary traffic to tail back into the outside lane of a 70mph dual carriageway.
Besides, where is the bottleneck anyway. The new Asda lights have caused a bit of a traffic queue to develop (this could be improved with some fine-tuning of the phasing), but in most cases the traffic queues from the Hambro corner mini-roundabout.
As for dropping the speed limit to suit future development, new developments should be designed to not impact on existing infrastructure, and better still should include measures to improve existing infrastructure. This usually gets discussed as extra school places or medical facilities, but should also include road and public transport capacity.
Interesting to note that without notification, and almost seems to have been done overnight the speed restrictions have come in on Rawreth Lane – coming off the A1245 which is national speed limit onto a 100yd stretch of 40mph before a long stretch of 50mph before hitting 30mph as you hit Makro. Although there are signs up every few hundred yards with the speed limit, I have to say I didn’t even notice them until I was half way down the road.
Nothing like informing local residents that this change was actually going to happen and when it was going to happen.
Like you Corey, I did not notice the 50MPH signs for a while.
It is interesting that the new westbound RED notification sign is back to back with the older RED eastbound sign (as you approach the 30MPH sector) and is approximately 40% smaller.
I thought there was a common standard for road signs but this smaller new sign is less noticeable. It is also on the right hand side of the road where it is less visible, especially when driving into the sun.
cjav sorry you were unaware of the impending speed limits . rawreth parish council have been pressing for this for some time .The statutary notices were dually displayed on various lamposts and in the echo some time ago. The 40 mph stretch is some protection for our residents at bedloes corner and also the entrances to the playing fields .I am surprised they have been erected so quickly as we have been told no earlier than the end of july .
Oh it was displayed on lamp-posts – who came up with the clever idea of displaying it in such a manner that 99.99% of motorists will not see it? As for putting it in the newspaper – great, I don’t read that newspaper.
Where are the signs that are usually displayed a few hundred yards in advance to advise drivers there is a change in speed limit?
As for the residents at Bedloes Corner, I am sorry, but they are a few feet away from a road that still maintains a 70mph limit. Also why are those houses protected with a 40mph limit when there are a few houses further down the road who are not offered the same level of safety and have a 50mph limit closer to their houses (they do not have front gardens as the houses at Bedloes corner do). Are they not entitled to the same level of protection?????
How long has that stetch of road been a 60mph limit, and how many accidents have occured outside those houses due to speed in the past 10 years, 5 years or even 2 years? I don’t know of any, so please enlighten me if my knowledge has some holes in it.
Please don’t get me wrong here, I am not bothered by the change in speed limit – it only adds seconds to my journey, but what does bother me is the distinct lack of notification to this, and I am sorry as far as I am concerned, there has been no notification. An A4 piece of people on a busy road does not constitute reasonable notification, and not everyone reads the echo.
I actually agree that notification on lamposts is not satisfactory . I also cannot for sure say that essex county highways advertised in the echo and not in the outer hebrides times !! as sometimes any obscure publication can suffice in their eyes . I do not say it is ideal and the implimentation does seem unusually hurried and i would have wished that they had better publicised it . As for the rest of Rawreth lane up to the 30mph limit it was our policy to have reduced the speed limit to 40 not 50 for the precise reason that you stated but county did not support that . We have an overall policy for the whole parish to reduce speed where sensible . I am sorry that the large numbers of people using rawreth lane could be inconvenienced by adding to their daily grind but our council will defend the residents safety .You are lucky that you do not live in suffolk where all villages without execption have a 30 mph limit regardless of the status of that road . Now that is what i call enlightened .
Could I add that there is still a National Speed Limit (white circle with black diagonal stripe) sign displayed in between the 50 and 40mph section going towards the Old A130 just past the farm turning – very confusing and possibly a “get out” to anyone caught speeding.
A couple of the new signs are not properly visible (particularly one near the Cricket field) – again possibly unenforceable. Also, I believe Road Traffic Law states that if there is a speed limit sign displayed on one side of the road it also has to be displayed on the other? Again, providing another “get out” for speeding motorists. (Hubby has been reading a rather interesting book on how people evade speeding fines etc – just call him Mr Loophole the Second!!).
I, for one, am pleased to see these new limits enforced and was becoming quite frustrated with motorists doing 60-70mph tailgating me when I slowed down in the 30mph zone.
CC
Just because the signs are up doesn’t make them enforceable? They only become enforceable when the police are sitting there with their guns and catch speeders. Something I have only witnessed the police do along Rawreth Lane once in the 28 months I have lived here.