Mr Gibson argued that with the filters in place, drivers became frustrated at not being able to take the most direct route and tended to speed up and slow down at the various turns and junctions as they drove round three sides of a square. Removing the filters would remove that frustration and lead to lower overall speeds, he claimed.
What utter BS. The least-filtered 'route' in the area is Midmar Avenue/Midmar Drive/Hermitage Drive/Braid Road, which is a 20mph limit all the way - but you'd never know it from the way some drivers treat it. (Actually the Braid Road bit is probably the worst for speeding, but Hermitage Drive comes a close second, and would likely be just as bad if there weren't so many cars parked along it creating chicanes.)
Speaking as someone who lives in a reasonbaly adjacent 20mph zone with no modal filters, I can assure Mr Gibson that their absence does not appear to induce a kind of zen-like calm in most drivers. Far too many appear to regard the limit as purely advisory - and a good proportion of those like to "take the racing line" when turning right at junctions i.e. they cut egregiously close to the kerb on their off side, which is unnecessarily risky given that their over-rapid approach to the junction is unlikely to have given them sufficient time properly to observe any traffic which might be approaching along the road they're turning in to.
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