New guidelines for setting speed limits “must make sense” and will involve “an appeals process with independent oversight”, Minister for Transport Paschal Donohoe has said.
Mr Donohoe said the main effect of the guidelines would be to reduce speeds in areas where road users were vulnerable – but he said he did not believe there were “large areas” where road speed limits were too low.
He said the setting up of the appeals process – under which members of the public could challenge the setting of a speed limit – was a further “body of work”.
Originally proposed by his predecessor Leo Varadkar in 2013, one of the most visible effects of the guidelines will be the removal of specific signage, such as 80km/h signs from rural lanes, and replacement with a white sign with black diagonal lines. This internationally recognised signage advises drivers to set a safe limit in accordance with the local conditions.
Mr Donohoe said a driver’s chosen limit would have to be within the existing 80 km/h maximum, but the change in signage would remove the temptation for drivers to believe it was safe to drive up to the speed limit.
In addition, Mr Donohoe said the guidelines encouraged local authorities who set speed limits to consider new “urban slow zones” where traffic speeds would be restricted to 30 km/h in places such as housing estates.
Local authorities
Road Safety Authority chief executive Moyagh Murdock said there was a wide body of research that showed deaths and serious injuries to pedestrians were significantly reduced if the vehicle was going at 30k/hr as opposed to faster speeds.
Department of Transport adviser John Mc Carthy said the guidelines were suggesting local authorities carry out a primary assessment, dividing rural roads into those less than seven metres wide and those above that figure. Roads less than seven metres wide would have a speed limit of 80km/h while routes wider than seven metres would have a limit of 100km/h.
Mr Donohoe said a speed limit is the maximum speed at which vehicles may legally travel on a section of road. He added that if they are to be effective speed limits need to make sense in the circumstances in which they are employed.
AA Ireland communications manager Conor Faughnan welcomed the removal of inappropriate 80km/h signage from rural lanes, but said the exercise must not be another “tightening of the ratchet” in reducing speed limits across the State.
He said there were a number of roads which were good pieces of infrastructure with the engineering and the design to carry vehicles travelling at higher speeds. If people were being forced to drive on these roads “at speeds in which they would fail a driving test” then speed limits generally would be “brought into disrepute”, he added.
