THE Welsh Government's controversial decision to introduce 20mph zones had record-breaking backlash.
However, in 1988, local mothers took to the streets with their children to call for even stricter regulations.
The introduction of widespread 20mph zones has been a heated topic of debate for the past year.
A record-breaking petition calling for the Welsh Government to stop and reverse the decision garnered 469,571 signatures.
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The Welsh Transport Minister Ken Skates confirmed in April 2024 that some roads would return to 30mph following backlash against the controversial.
The process of reverting some of the controversial 20mph speed limit zones began in September 2024.
The 20mph zones have been one of the most heated topics in Welsh politics in recent years.
However, this debate goes all the way back to the late 1980s when children took to the streets calling for 10mph zones.
In 1988, protestors gathered at the scene of a horror crash in Machen in Caerphilly demanding action to prevent further accidents.
One person was killed and ten injured when a car plunged into a crowd outside the Fwrrwm Ishta pub along a stretch of road described as a ‘racetrack’.
Traffic was halted as a fifty strong crowd handed over to Superintendent Elgar Williams a petition signed by hundreds of people calling for a public inquiry.
A photograph of the demonstration captured a young child holding a sign which read:
Thou shalt not kill! Please drive slowly through village”
Another child held up another placard with “maniac motorists miss out Machen please” written on it.
The same year angry mothers blocked of a Newport street in a bid to make their area safer for their children.
With their children, they formed a human roadblock across London Street, turning back more than 30 vehicles.
A mother-of-five Chris Jenkins said: “We want sleeping policemen put in the road to slow down the traffic.”
A nine-year-old girl was knocked down on Friday and there have been countless near misses, she added.
The demonstration was attended by young children holding placards above their heads which said ‘10mph’ and ‘reduce speed, reduce death’.
In this photograph from 1988, Mrs Potts on the right, led protestors outside the home of Mrs Masser, who died after a collision in Cromwell Road the week before.
Residents who predicted the fatal crash on their ‘death trap’ road raised a petition expressing their fury after the pensioner was killed.
We have said it time and again that someone was going to get killed unless something was done.
"Now look what has happened,” said the mother-of-three Mrs Janet Potts.
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