[mcv]

I can understand the situation is different in the UK. It's certainly seen some big decisions that weren't rooted in any kind of reality. And of course many other countries also suffer from the occasional decisions made for completely the wrong reasons.

But I'm not yet convinced that's the case here. I don't know the details of what's going on in Wales, but the Amsterdam decision to go from 50 to 30 makes a lot of sense. According to the graph matsemann posted (https://www.nullvisjonen-agder.no/images/grafikk/dodsrisiko-...), 30 is significantly safer than 50, whereas 40 is still in the middle of that curve.

Also, in Netherland, 30 is already a standard speed limit in many places, and it doesn't make sense to confuse the situation by introducing new speed limits in between the existing ones unless there's a really good reason to do so.

[nvm0n2]

It's pretty obvious what's going on, as this is one of several related actions all of which are intended to penalize or restrict car usage. We know the safety argument isn't the real reason because nothing has changed about safety lately that would trigger a sudden re-think here, they weren't talking about it before and the actual expected changes are in the order of single digit deaths per year. If it was a genuine concern about safety they'd have been pushing for this limit 50 years ago.

What's actually changed in the last few years is the new political obsession with net zero. Politicians don't have a mandate for that and haven't won the argument for it, which is why these measures are facing so much resistance.