Readers on speed limits and road safety: ‘Changing the law means nothing without adequate enforcement’

A planned significant overhaul of speed limits on Irish roads was a major talking point last week as the State looks to to make roads safer in response to a rise in road deaths so far this year.

The proposals will shortly be brought to Cabinet by Minister of State for road safety Jack Chambers following a review.

The review will form the basis of new guidelines to be developed over the coming period which will then issue to local authorities recommending new default speed limits for different categories of roads. Local authorities will then use these recommendations to set new speed limits.

Under the proposals, the new default speed limit on national secondary roads would drop from 100km/h to 80km/h. The default speed limit for the network of local and rural roads throughout the country would be reduced from 80km/h to 60km/h.

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Urban roads, which include built-up areas like housing estates and town centres, would reduce to 30km/h. Arterial roads and radial routes around urban settings would be set at 50km/h. There are no proposed changes to the speed limits on motorways and national primary roads contained in the review.

The planned overhaul and road safety in general was a hot topic on the Irish Times letters pages across the week. Below are some of our readers’ contributions on the subject.

Sir, – While it is commendable that the Garda Síochána carried out a nationwide speed check, I would question the decision to advertise this operation in advance.

Drivers forewarned are naturally going to adjust their driving for the day in question, but will more than likely revert to their old habits from tomorrow on knowing that checks are unlikely to happen.

To really make it more effective, the Garda traffic unit should have just proceeded with the operation without any warning in order to get a real picture of people’s driving behaviour.

They also need to carry out these speed checks on a more frequent basis rather than a one-day blitz every now and then. – TADHG McCARTHY, Bray, Co Wicklow.

Sir, – The proposed reduction of default speed limits on national secondary roads and local roads will have little effect.

There are many sections of secondary road where driving at 80km/h would be insane. And there are many sections of local road where 60km/h would be incredibly dangerous.

Local authorities should review speed limits on a section by section basis, and make new speed limit bylaws to impose safe limits. In many cases these limits would be well below the new default limits.

Local authorities already have the powers to do this and they surely have the local knowledge of where they need to prioritise efforts. – T O SULLIVAN, Dublin 5.

Sir, – Monday’s national slow down day saw more than 300 motorists caught speeding by high-visibility Go Safe vans. More than 100,000 motorists were monitored.

Contrast this with the June 2023 Galway County Council speed survey of vehicles entering Craughwell from the Loughrea direction. Of 45,000 vehicles entering the 60km/h zone, 84 per cent were speeding with the average speed registered at 88km/h.

The crucial difference was the latter survey was done by an unmarked detection system. Ciarán Cannon TD brought this survey to the Dáil’s attention and the Taoiseach promised to act.

Simple, effective solutions are deployed by our European neighbours, yet our Government and related State agencies have done little by way of targeted measures, such as hidden speed cameras, junction cameras, artificial intelligence cameras that can detect phone usage, no seat belts, etc.

There should be double points in high-risk school and roadworks zones, while points should be introduced for driving in or obstructing bus and bicycle lanes.

We are now entering into a seasonal period of darker and wetter days when pedestrians, cyclists and motorists will face heightened risk.

It is time for our politicians to step up to the mark. – STEPHEN McGOVERN, Donnybrook, Dublin 4.

Sir, – On national slow down day 310 motorists were caught exceeding speed limits, including one idiot doing 161km/h, despite plenty of advance warning.

As the real extent of speeding is likely to be higher (because of that advance warning), perhaps the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee might consider increasing fines and penalty points on errant motorists.

Anyone driving at 161km/h or 155km/h should be getting an automatic ban and a €10,000 fine, at least.

Perhaps, as in Finland, the fine should be based on the income of the driver, as well as getting an equal number of points as lower-income drivers. (A millionaire is far less affected by an €80 fine than someone on minimum wage, so less of a deterrent.)

It is not necessary to drive above the speed limit to get to where you are going. Speeding, which is dangerous driving, increases the chance of you not getting there at all. – DAVID DORAN, Bagenalstown, Co Carlow.

Sir, – Further to “Ireland’s speed limits to reduce by 20 km/h on secondary, rural and urban roads under new plan” (News, September 6th), in March 2022, Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TIL) reported on the consequences of a broad reduction in speed limits on Irish roads.

Its report estimated that such cuts would have a minimal impact on carbon emissions, would impose costs on the Irish economy of up to €3.8 billion over 30 years due to longer transportation times and, most significantly, would likely lead to an increase of 35 deaths on the roads per year, as many motorists would avoid high-quality, safer, but now slower roads, for more dangerous, but more direct, minor roads.

This is an illustration of the unintended negative consequences of ostensibly positive changes to the law. – DR MICK O’CONNELL, School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Dublin 4.

Sir, – One of the reasons some of us exceed the speed limit slightly, albeit unwittingly, is not necessarily because we are in a hurry, but because the driver behind is. When a pushy, aggressive driver crowds one’s tailgate, the angry vibrations are palpable, and it is only human nature to try and put some distance between you and him.

Sometimes it takes quite a lot of emotional courage to stick to the strict letter of the law. And this will inevitably be exacerbated when and if the new lower speed limits are introduced. Perhaps increasing the signage, both in size and numbers, would give the abiders of the law more moral support. – RODNEY DEVITT, Dublin 4.

Sir, – Why do the solutions put forward to problems in Ireland invariably default to more top-down state control and less freedom for Irish people? I am referring to the dispiriting news that the Government is set to reduce speed limits on Irish roads. Any policy response should start with an acknowledgment that Irish roads are, statistically, among the safest in the EU and, by extension, the world. While the figure of 127 deaths on our roads so far this year is troubling, it should be contextualised against the total figure of 188 for 2013. 20 years previously in 2003, this total was 293. Factored into this should be the surge in car ownership in the past decades; there are now 2.8 million vehicles licensed in Ireland. Given the sensationalist coverage in the media in recent weeks, one could be forgiven for thinking that our roads are becoming more dangerous; but this isn’t the case.

While speed may indeed be a contributor in the majority of road traffic accidents, it seems to this reader premature to draw the conclusion from a spate of recent accidents of which the causes have been neither investigated – much less conclusively proven – that limits need to be drastically reduced. Supporters of this reactionary proposal will probably claim it is no hardship for motorists to drive more slowly but the logical conclusion of this argument is to steadily reduce speed limits to the point that all vehicles travel at a walking pace. This might reduce road traffic accident fatalities to zero but at what cost to a functioning economy? Will gardaí now be redeployed away from making city streets safer for tourists to sitting in squad cars at the side of rural roads pointing speed guns at motorists?

One could level an accusation of opportunism at a Government keen to be seen to “do something”. But this is understandable given we now have a public discourse that places an unrealistic expectation on our politicians to legislate away the risks unavoidably inherent in everyday life – and blames them when this proves to be impossible. – PHILIP DONNELLY, Allenwood, Co Kildare.

Sir, – International Transport Forum research carried out on behalf of the OECD examined road safety performance in 10 European countries. It concluded that there was a direct correlation between speed and the number of crashes. Its recommendations were a reduction in speed limits on roads and for different types of vehicles.

It also recommended speed limits where people can survive crashes, stricter enforcement, safety upgrades on road infrastructure and speed controls.

A three-year study carried out by the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health on speed reduction to 20 m/ph on 76 streets in Belfast city in 2016 showed that it had little impact on long-term outcomes including collisions, casualties and speed, and really only reduced traffic volume in these streets.

What it did find was lower emissions and better quality of life; in order to reduce crashes or collisions it recommended more driver training, better marketing, social engagement, in-car interventions, more CCTV and police communication and enforcement.

Legislation to reduce speed limits on its own, even with fixed GoSafe vans, and on/off enforcement, will not stop road collisions but a combination of all of the aforementioned might. – CHRISTY GALLIGAN, Letterkenny, Co Donegal.

Sir, – I could offer my two-year-old son a box of crayons. Upon assessing the risks, I could implement a set of rules surrounding the use of said crayons. Principally, the living room walls are not to be coloured. I walk away and fail to enforce these rules. How long do you think I have before my living room looks like a poor man’s Jackson Pollock exhibit?

Changing the law means nothing without adequate enforcement of the law. – KEITH TANNER, Clara, Co Offaly.

Sir, – John FitzGerald’s thought-provoking article (“Young men take risks, but a lot less so than previously”, Business, Opinion, September 8th) points to the remarkable drop in road fatalities (129 to 19) in the 20 to 34 age group between 2007 and 2019. He put this down to a big decline in risk-taking behaviour on the road, especially by young men. He rightly suggests that proper research should be undertaken to understand what causes such risk-taking behaviour and what gave rise to the progress achieved between 2007 and 2019.

In addition to proper research and publication of the likely main cause of each accident, which is sorely lacking, encourage young drivers to be careful by offering them access to cheap insurance with a high excess payment if a claim arises. The cost to the State to underwrite such a scheme would encourage safer driving, less uninsured driving and be a better investment than large additional resources to monitor on-road behaviour. I note that in France, the speed limit on most departmental roads is being restored to 90km/h, having been reduced to 80km/h a few years ago. – NIALL PELLY Snr, Foxrock, Dublin 18.

Sir, – Michael McAleer’s article on the proposed new speed limits is headlined “Planned changes useless without proper enforcement” (Opinion & Analysis, September 7th). It could be argued that they would be worse than useless, as they would join the many rules and regulations openly flouted by motorists. People break the rules because they know they can get away with it, and this leads to the normalisation of dangerous driving.

The technology is there to personalise bad driving and to bring the consequences directly to bear on the motorist. In-vehicle data recorders – akin to flight data recorders in aircraft – can help with automatic policing, including full surveillance of traffic offences. In this way they can have a positive influence on driver behaviour. In some jurisdictions, insurance companies insist that new drivers have these devices fitted to their cars, so that they can gauge driving behaviour and set the premium accordingly. Isn’t it time we started using smart technology to save lives? – MIKE NORRIS, Dublin 18.