OPINION:The AA isn't against speed limits – but it is against limits that are inappropriate to particular roads, writes CONOR FAUGHNAN
THE INTRODUCTION of the 30 km/h zone in central Dublin has caused a tremendous amount of fuss, most of it needless. In 90 per cent of the affected area it is a perfectly good idea. It will not really affect motorists and most of the time you won’t notice the difference. But there are places, relatively few of them but important ones, where it is just plain silly. This is what is driving motorists and other road users mad. Speed limits have to be linked to reality, to the layout of the road and to pure common sense. They must have some sympathy for the careful driver who is obeying the rules and driving the car properly.
The Dublin scheme features a few major traffic engineering bloopers. There are a handful of larger, flowing streets at the edges of the zone and in those locations there is no safety dividend but only added disruption and confusion, not to mention penalty points. It is hardly surprising that there has been such a backlash against the measure since it came into place.
The AA wants to see the bloopers fixed so we are left with a viable and properly constructed low-speed area that everyone can support. This apparently pitches us into a much broader debate. It is clear that motorists are not the only ones who are hopping mad. There are arguments about improving road safety and about the wider vision for a civilised, pleasant city centre. Councillors are getting both ears filled with passionate arguments from differing sides.
The Irish Times editorial last Tuesday took an interest, but Frank McDonald took the lead in terms of passion when he wrote in these pages yesterday. He has the severest criticism for local councillors for “buckling under tremendous pressure” from powerful lobbies or vested interests in considering making what are in effect small changes to the edge of the scheme.
McDonald rather over-eggs it in my view. I must say that I am rather amused to be thought of as the “powerful lobby” in question. It gave me a bit of a Monty Python moment: where’s the Powerful Motoring Lobby? He’s sitting over there!
I represent the AA on Dublin City Council’s traffic policy committee, and when that body met in October and voted to recommend the original scheme, I dissented and put the AA’s views on record.
I am happy to do so again now: the AA has no problem with properly engineered 30km/h zones, we have welcomed them in the past. The AA has no problem with 90 per cent of the streets affected in Dublin.
The AA has no problem with 30km/h
speed limits in the vicinity of schools and pedestrian-rich environments. The AA understands fully the road safety arguments and can point to an exemplary record in supporting and lobbying for positive road safety measures. We do object to speed limits that conflict with the engineering of the road and force motorists to behave in ways that are – despite Frank’s protestations – just plain wrong.
On roads like Winetavern Street, Wood Quay and Eden Quay cars must now behave in a way that would have failed the driving test last month. That should be fixed. We believe that if these errors are corrected then we will be left with a viable scheme which the AA will fully support.
There is a broader road safety point to be made that affects much more than Dublin. It is very important that motorists across the Republic treat speed limits with respect and obey them. An essential corollary is that limits must be set consistently and logically. The AA has argued against absurdly high 80km/h limits on minor country roads with just as much vigour.
The AA did not in fact describe the scheme as a “punitive measure” or an assault on motorists’ rights. We really do not fit the pantomime villain of McDonald’s piece.
In any case it is hardly constructive to think in terms of motorists versus cyclists versus pedestrians, as if they were sworn adversaries. Many of us drive and cycle, or take the bus, and we all end up as pedestrians when we get there. Most of us would broadly share the sort of vision for the city centre that both McDonald and the recent editorial alluded to; the calmed and pleasant civic space. But there is more to that than a simple “two wheels good, four wheels bad” analysis.
Dublin is still a city with no metro and a chronic public transport deficit. Realistically the motor car, much cleaner and greener in the 21st century, will continue to be a very important part of our transport mix. Its role should be prominent but not dominant in a vibrant, busy, active and pleasant urban environment.
I hope that this is what we end up having, but I would sound a note of caution against expecting a major road safety improvement. It is entirely clear that if you have a choice between being hit at 50km/h and hit at 30km/h you will fare much better at the lower speed. McDonald cites a Swedish study that makes this point, and no one disputes it. But that is not quite what has been happening in Dublin. Many of the most horrible crashes people will recall involved trucks and buses with cyclists and pedestrians at speeds lower than 30km/h, and these will not necessarily be prevented by the new limit. It would be a pity if a future critic called the scheme a failure because some accidents continued to happen.
Nevertheless, I think we are heading for a good solution. It is to the credit of the scheme’s proposer Andrew Montague and other councillors that next Monday the city council will vote on putting a compromise proposal to public consultation with those few key streets removed from the zone. We could wind up all winning, apart from poor Frank McDonald being deprived of an enemy. I hope that when next he has to jump back out of the way of an errant cyclist whizzing past him on Dame Street he will reflect that not all of Dublin’s problems are caused by motorists.
Conor Faughnan is director of policy with the Automobile Association