It’s now three weeks since the Welsh Government introduced a new default speed limit of 20mph in built-up areas across Wales and we’re all enjoying it and getting used to it - aren’t we? Never before has the issue of how fast you can drive your car caused such division or become such a political hot potato.

Labour maintain it is the right call and is one that will improve air quality and save lives. Meanwhile, the Tories in Wales are using it as a political stick to hit Labour with at every opportunity, despite initially being behind the plan when it was first mooted, and a Plaid Cymru MP last month praised elements of the change but argued that it wasn’t in the best interests of more rural communities. Good to see we’re all on the same page at least. To get the latest Carmarthenshire stories sent directly to you for free, click here.

Whether you support it or not, the legislation was part of Labour’s manifesto and they have effectively delivered on a promise after retaining power in the Senedd following the 2021 election. However, since the 20mph default limit came into force on September 17, a petition asking for it to be reversed has garnered more than 450,000 signatures - that’s more people than the number that voted for Labour at the last Senedd election (although, not all who have signed it live in Wales).

To see what all the fuss was about, I decided to take a spin around my delightful hometown of Carmarthen and really try to notice how difficult or easy it is to adhere to the new speed limit and to discover if it will have a truly detrimental effect on my life. Keys in, ignition on, let’s go......

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I start my journey at Carmarthen Museum, firstly because it has a wonderful coffee shop, and secondly because my photographer could park somewhere for free while he sat in my passenger seat and filmed me driving and talking. And I thought it was stressful enough sticking to the new speed limit.

Now, the first thing to say about Carmarthen is that the town centre is quite small, has several one-way roads, can be quite bad for traffic and already - prior to September 17 - had certain 20mph zones which the local council had introduced in recent times, especially during and after Covid. So, King Street, for example, had a 20mph limit anyway, as did Lammas Street. Driving through those roads at 20mph does not seem slow, because they are quite narrow and there are often cars pulled up on one side of the road (or both on Lammas Street) meaning they naturally seem to fit a 20mph limit.

Pulling out of the museum, I head west into the middle of town through Abergwili. Due to the narrow stretch of road which runs through the village, 20mph doesn’t seem slow here to me. There is street parking on the right-hand side but on the left-hand side there are always cars parked along the pavement, meaning motorists often have to slow down or come to a complete stop. The same goes for Abergwili Road as you drive into Carmarthen, although I did find that slightly more difficult to stay at or under 20mph - with fewer cars on the side of the road the carriageway appears much wider in front of you, and it could be very easy to drive like it was a month ago without really realising it.

That brings me onto my first real point of note on this journey (and I’m not really hugely pro or anti this limit change, as we’ll come to later): I’ve spent an awful lot of time already - between Abergwili and Carmarthen - looking at the speedometer. Now, I may have done this just as much over the previous two decades or so, but I’m certainly conscious of the fact that I’m constantly looking at my speed, and if I creep up to 21mph or 22mph then I ease off. It may be a good thing that I’m driving slower, but perhaps less of a good thing if my eyes spend more time not actually looking at the road. However, this may merely be a new thing because the limit has only just changed; asking people to undo years and in some cases decades of instinct was always going to throw up teething troubles.

As I get into Carmarthen I turn right into King Street - a one-way street full of shops and cafes which was temporarily pedestrianised during the Covid pandemic. I then realised that it was already subject to a 20mph limit, but the wrong turn was in its own way proving my point thus far: I’m not noticing that much difference so why are so many people shouting and screaming about this change? I must stress, however, that this street is bang in the heart of town, where one would seldom drive at 30mph, even if allowed to do so. I fully appreciate that there are areas of town where this would seem painfully slow, as I was about to find out.

Down Spilman Street and again the 20mph limit doesn’t strike me as slow given that this road is regularly busy with traffic in the daytime, which brings me onto my second glaring realisation: I should do this trip again (maybe without the camera in my face!) at night-time, because thus far the centre of town, due to the natural congestion that occurs every afternoon, is a constant slog of people driving at 20mph or less anyway. If I were driving down Spilman Street late at night I might be a tad more irritable and far more likely to break the speed limit.

Around the corner and down what’s known as Jail Hill and again you’d be very fortunate to ever get the chance to do 30mph here; tailbacks and traffic lights at the bottom of the hill ensure that you’re never more than a few yards away from a complete stop. As I go around town and hit the top of Lammas Street, I take a right at the first roundabout and then a left at the second and head towards the Johnstown area. So far my journey has been a 20mph, stress-free, everybody’s happy, ‘what’s with all the shouting?’, totally normal experience. Then I hit Picton Terrace.

It doesn’t seem like you’re going slowly to start with - it’s a built-up area with houses on either side. About halfway up there is a set of traffic lights to allow pedestrians to cross, which obviously acts as a speed reducer. But after that the road is straight and fairly wide, with pavements on both sides and barely a bend at all until you reach the next set of traffic lights a few hundred yards away. And after you pass Picton Monument on your right-hand side, it’s still straight, and wide, and now with quite a steep downhill stretch. For the first time on my spin I can really feel myself driving very, very slowly. I have to change down a gear and it feels a bit like when you reach the top of the dip on Megafobia but you’re sat at the front: you thought you’d be going faster than this and it feels like you’re waiting for something to happen.

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Next I go up Job’s Well Road, down College Road and back towards the centre of Carmarthen. Again, until you reach the section where Model School is located, driving at 20mph can seem very slow as parts of the road aren’t necessarily as built-up as they are elsewhere, at least not on both sides. As opposed to earlier on, I’m kind of in town but not really. Coming back towards the centre of town I head through Pentrefelin Street, down Waterloo Terrace, left at Barn Road and along Francis and then Richmond Terrace. Again, no real issues here as these are narrow roads with give-way sections, speed bumps and a lollipop lady along the way. Heading back out of town towards Glangwili Hospital, I drive down a part of Priory Street, over a speed bump and a pedestrian crossing, and continue onto Abbey Mead.

Here I feel like I’m driving slowly, constantly checking my speed. There are no cars in front of me but there are a couple of vehicles behind me. I can feel others judging me and labelling me a slow driver. A month ago I would have been, now I’m just sticking to the speed limit. This presents another issue: even if you are accustomed to the new law, it doesn’t mean that everyone else is. Not yet at least. By the time I get near to the hospital itself, driving at 20mph seems natural due to the number of cars parked on the side of the road because of ongoing issues that healthcare staff have to endure thanks to the health board’s inability to provide ample parking. Before you know it I’m onto the dual carriageway which leads onto the A40 and all is as it ever was.

So there we have it, a leisurely but at times very slow drive through Wales’ oldest town. As I mentioned earlier, I have never been vehemently for or against the new default limit, and am at something of a loss as to why some people are foaming at the mouth over something which could, and probably will, save lives. If one life is saved, then a driver being slightly frustrated as they inch down Monument Hill in Carmarthen in second or third gear is a small price to pay.

Ultimately, people will still break the speed limit, they always will. Previously, doing 35mph in a 30mph zone could get you into trouble, but doing 35mph in a 20mph zone could get you into all sorts of trouble, so the difference is, even those driving too fast will probably be driving slower overall. In reality, how jarring the new speed limit seems depends a lot on the time of the day, the volume of traffic, and which road you’re actually driving along. One thing I did and continue to find confusing is the signage around Carmarthen (and I’m sure it’s similar all over Wales).

Carmarthenshire Council has admitted that it will “take some time” for all road signs to be updated so that they reflect the actual speed limit. This leads, at times, to drivers seeing a 30mph sign and wondering if they should actually be driving at 20mph or whether that road is still in fact subject to a 30mph limit. I mean, it's not like we've had since 2019 (when the manifesto was published) or at least since July 2022 (when the plans were rubber-stamped in the Senedd) to sort all this out! There is a map, of course, but I don’t know anyone who will check that every morning before they jump in their car to make sure they adhere to the exact rules of the road.

Carmarthenshire councillor Edward Thomas said this week: “This new legislation is a significant change to a long-established speed limit regime and we are requesting that communities exercise patience in allowing the new limits time to bed-in, and then to reflect on their wider impacts before submitting requests for further changes.” The council also confirmed that it had identified more than 100 sections of road across Carmarthenshire which will “retain a higher speed limit”, but has not responded with a full list of these sections. In addition to which, a spokesman for GoSafe told me this week: “GoSafe’s casualty reduction officers complete multiple checks, including checking road signage, before starting enforcement. If the road signage is not appropriate, they will not enforce.”

In short, this isn’t over. Some roads which are now subject to a 20mph speed limit are still marked with 30mph signs, and some 20mph limit roads may revert back to having 30mph limits in future. As long as we’re all clear on that......

The fact that this topic has become such a thorny issue in Wales reflects the divisive nature of politics, social media and life in general in the modern world. There has been widespread outrage, when surely there are other things to be more outraged about. As stated above, it was a part of Welsh Labour’s election manifesto, and more people voted for Labour than for any other party, by far. That’s how democracy works, thank god. There will always be another election. I would probably concede that I’m not a fan of the new legislation, overall. It works in some places, it doesn’t in others. But after a couple of weeks or so of endless debates I quickly got bored and moved on. It’s probably time we all did the same.