Bill to be introduced with rising scale of speeding penalties

Minister for Transport Shane Ross is to introduce legislation on graduated penalties for speeding.

He also said he would consider provisions to require car manufacturers to introduce “limiters” on engines, which would prevent vehicles going beyond a specified speed.

The Minister said “speed remains a top killer and it is something we must face up to”.

Mr Ross was responding during transport questions in the Dáil to Independent TD Tommy Broughan who said speeding remained a serious problem and that to date this year almost 10,000 speeding offences have been prosecuted in the courts.

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He said figures from the Courts Service showed that in 2017 almost 26,500 speeding offences were prosecuted in the courts, of which 6,634 resulted in convictions. Similarly, in 2018, almost 23,000 speeding offences were prosecuted in the courts, of which 4,245 resulted in convictions.

Mr Broughan a long-time campaigner on road safety said that 81 people have been killed to date on the roads, a higher number of deaths than the same time last year.

Speed limiters

He suggested the State make car manufacturers take some responsibility for speed limits.

“Is it time that we required them, as Volvo seems to be doing in Sweden, to go down the road of having limiters installed in cars?”

He said that Volvo allow for mistakes to be made at reasonable speeds and in some jurisdictions there are special limits for adverse weather conditions and night driving.

Mr Ross said he would not turn down any suggestions that worked to save lives.

“I am in the process of putting forward a road traffic Bill, which tackles the problem of speeding and addresses it with graduated penalties for speeding,” which would increase the fine and penalty as the speed increased.

He said that if Mr Broughan wanted to bring amendments to the legislation “I will look on them as benignly and as favourably as possible”.

He also said they were dealing with speeding in housing estates where 30 km/hour speed limits have been introduced.

Provision had also been made for a 20 km/h speed limit which “should only be used in very limited circumstances, set out in the updated traffic signs manual.

“It is not intended to replace the 30 km/h speed limit as the norm in housing estates.”