Over half of Sheffield roads now 20mph as figures show rise in child traffic injuries
88 accidents on local roads have involved children over the past three years
More than half of Sheffield’s residential roads have 20mph zones rolled out while there is a surge in the number of serious road traffic accidents.
During the Members’ Questions segment of yesterday’s (October 1) Full Council meeting, Green councillors asked how covered Sheffield roads are with 20mph zones and how many people got killed or seriously injured over the last few years.
Cllr Ben Miskell, the Chair of the Transport, Regeneration and Climate Policy Committee, told Cllr Douglas Johnson that as a result of Sheffield Council’s 20mph Speed Limit Strategy, the city has been divided into 119 zones of roughly equal size.
Cllr Miskell said: “To date, we’ve successfully rolled out the policy in approximately 70 of these zones – meaning around 60pc of residential roads now benefit from reduced speed limits, with further progress planned over the coming year.”
Right after this came Cllr Paul Turpin’s question of how many people were actually Killed or Seriously Injured (KSIs) in a road traffic accident on Sheffield’s streets in each of the last three municipal years.
Cllr Miskell said the council welcomes the 15pc reduction in fatalities and serious injuries reported in the latest Department for Transport data released last week but “our Vision Zero pledge means we will not rest.”
In terms of the municipal years of 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23, Cllr Miskell noted that:
In 2020/21 there were 239 KSIs of which eight were fatal.
In 2021/22 there were 279 KSIs of which 11 were fatal incidents.
In 2022/23 there were 298 KSIs of which 14 were fatal incidents.
However, of the total of 816 incidents, only 90 occurred in 20mph zones (NB: the implementation of 20mph zones is an ongoing process, therefore four or five years ago there were fewer 20mph zones in Sheffield.)
During this three-year span, Cllr Turpin was also told (in writing) that 88 incidents involved children aged between 0 and 15.