Home » » Those pro-speed petitioners: do their opinions count? Not for 38% of them, no.

Those pro-speed petitioners: do their opinions count? Not for 38% of them, no.

We've stated repeatedly we are Bristol's premier data-driven transport new outlet, compared with the evening post, which is driven by "what gets the most paper sales to our dying customer base" and "what generates the most page hits". Controversies involving parking, cyclists and speed zones hit all three.

Sadly, we don't have access to the BEP customer dataset or the details on commenters they extract from their linked-up google accounts. What we do have, however, is the python code needed to convert the published signatory list into a CSV file, with some extra flags to indicate whether or not the petitioner is in a 20 mph zone or not.

            20 mph ward  rest of BRS  CUBA    other 
Pro            920         305         116     201
Speeders      1552        3365        2289     705

As a graph, showing the numbers by area, things become more obvious



Of the speeders, 38% of them don't live in in Bristol. Which means they are, as far as Bristol elections are concerned, as relevant as residents of the Isle of Wight. They don't have a vote, all they have is a whine.

Looking at Bristol itself, we see a marked split between those people in wards with 20 MPH zones vs those which aren't.

Even though the pro-20 MPH petition is a fraction of the size of the speeder's one, it is not far off having 40% of the total petitioner count from the 20 MPH zones themselves.

 This implies some things
  1. The people who get most worked about 20 MPH zones don't appear to live in them.
  2. Many of the people who get worked up about Bristol's 20 MPH zones don't even live in the city.
  3. They must live very unhappy lives.
  4. A lot of the people in the 20 zones seem pretty happy with the zones and their lives.
We'll collect some more data next week, and make up some new conclusions. Until then,  get out there and get some signatures for whichever petition you care about.