EVEN city council vehicles are failing to stick to the 20mph speed limit imposed on a busy Oxford street.

And now the county council’s head of transport has admitted a 20mph limit should have never been placed on St Giles. Eighty five per cent of drivers were clocked speeding in the zone in an Oxford Mail survey.

Reporter Ben Wilkinson used a radar gun to record the speed of 100 motorists in St Giles on a Monday morning last month between 11am and noon. Private cars, public buses, council vehicles, coaches, vans and lorries all breached the limit, with the fastest vehicle hitting 31mph. Lorry drivers and coach drivers were the worst offenders with their average speed being 27mph. The average speed for all vehicles was 24mph.

Oxfordshire County Council cut the speed limit from 30mph to 20mph on most roads in the city in September 2009 at a cost of nearly £250,000 in a bid to make them safer.

Police enforcement since May has seen 569 vehicles stopped and 127 drivers fined in St Giles.

Rodney Rose, county council cabinet member for transport, said St Giles should probably never have been made a 20mph zone, although it could not be switched back.

He said: “I find St Giles a very difficult place to do 20mph. The road tells you to do more than that.

“The 20mph zones were really brought in to control the roads around Jericho and Walton Street.

“I am not surprised you found it (the average speed) more than 20mph.”

He said the city centre limit was designed to protect cyclists and pedestrians in narrow streets, adding: “I personally never felt 20mph in St Giles is something we should never have put in anyway.”

But he said: “I wouldn’t change it. I still hope that 20mph limits over the whole of Oxford city would do the job they are intended to do.”

James Styring, chairman of city cyclists’ group Cyclox and a former member of the now defunct 20’s Plenty campaign group, last night said he was not surprised by our survey’s results.

But he said he was shocked to hear the larger vehicles were so far above the limit.

He said: “I find it shocking that professional drivers break the speed limit.

“It is a busy road. Somewhere that close to the centre of town with so many pedestrians and cyclists should be a 20mph zone.

“Just because sometimes speeds feel a little bit low doesn’t mean you can break the speed limit.”

Police began to enforce the 20mph zones in May after complaints from councillors and residents.

Elsewhere in the city, Three police operations in Morrell Avenue, East Oxford, since August 7 have seen 170 vehicles stopped and 34 motorists ticketed.

The Oxford Mail speed check in St Giles found the average speed among cabbies was 25mph, van drivers 24mph, and Oxford City Council vehicles 23mph.

Stagecoach and Oxford Bus Company drivers on average travelled at 20mph. The top speed recorded was 31mph by a black lorry.

In August, police said they were not fining drivers unless they were caught doing 32mph or more.

Police spokesman Lucy Billen said: “At the moment police are giving roadside cautions and advice to drivers exceeding these limits in a 20mph zone.

“In due course, there may also be a speed awareness course which may be enforced to persons driving over the 20mph limits.”

Former Oxford student Anna Semlyen, campaign director of 20’s Plenty for Us, said: “It might be that people are breaking the law but the street scene is safer than before.” She added: “If you were to take it back to 30mph it would be more dangerous.”

An Oxford Mail speed check in September 2010 found 81 per cent of drivers using Morrell Avenue in East Oxford were breaking the 20mph limit.