This morning's commute and other commuting stories

Well, it most certainly won't be Met policy to 'ignore' 20mph speed limits. More likely it will be expressed in terms of policing priorities, in which 20mph is likely to be quite far down the tree.

The Met does some 20mph enforcement, though obviously too little, and its level of activity in this respect appears to have declined in recent years. When Islington and Hackney adopted 20mph throughout their boroughs, there were a few enforcement bursts, probably partly for publicity (not necessarily self-serving, but also to inform drivers), but these have declined in recent years. Inevitably, there has been talk of councils taking over enforcement powers from the police:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-councils-could-seize-power-from-police-to-fine-speeding-drivers-a4010261.html

From the article:

The Met issued 12,251 tickets for speeding in 20mph zones in 2016. It only targets areas where there is known to be a problem.

Long before the introduction of 20mph limits (just signs), as opposed to 20mph zones (fitted with speed humps etc.), the Met always said it wouldn't enforce them unless it got funding for the enforcement (that's partly why it took so long for limits to happen, and there was an element of 'let's call the police's bluff' to it). A critic of the police once said to me at a meeting that there had long been a tendency by the police of wanting to fight crime and not police what they see as 'regulatory' offences. I'm sure the police would dispute that, but while my experience of policing is limited, I can see a logic to the claim.

The problem continues to be that there is hardly any traffic policing in London, and what dedicated traffic police there are are mainly concerned with collision investigation, so it's basically pared down to an indispensable function--never mind that with more traffic policing there would probably be fewer collisions overall. It's simply bizarre that there's been no political will to fund traffic police for so long. This isn't just a Boris Johnson/Tory thing, either--the situation was very similar under Livingstone, although obviously it's got worse since 2010.

I still remember a police trial in Haringey a long time ago, probably nearly 20 years. They received funding for two officers to do nothing but traffic enforcement. This proved amazingly effective--although obviously I'm reflecting the verdict of people supportive of the project, including the officer who addressed the meeting. They found large numbers of weapons and amounts of drugs in cars they searched, as well as wanted criminals--I think the phrase was 'denying criminals the use of the roads'. Over the years, I've repeatedly heard it said that criminals are much less likely to adhere to traffic regulations than non-criminals. I don't know if there was a report about this scheme and what it might have said, but needless to say, the trial was not continued. :(