There is a fascination with road deaths in the Irish media. Almost every day a higher figure is quoted, and compared with “this time last year“. The figures invariably increase.
So a problem does exist, and it is getting worse, but how can it be solved? Well that is another story, it is very easy to identify a problems and to talk about it, but solving it requires action.
The government talk about “excessive speed” and “drink driving”, both of these are certainly contributors and due to bad drivers, the government would like to “crack down”, an admirable idea, and I’m sure they would enjoy the monetary speeding fines generated in such a crack down, indeed the extra penalty points on the respective drivers licences will ensure the government’s two percent insurance levy kickback will be higher.
But what about the other causes of road deaths, as a driver without any political connections I can consider these with some authority and independence, from the ground. I believe that poorly surfaced roads, and inappropriate speed limits are to blame for many accidents. The margin of many roads are in a terrible state of repair, so cars are forced to drive more towards the centre line of the road then the margin, and because this isin’t an occasional oversight by the local authorities roads department, both sides of the road are equally bad, so opposing traffic has a higher chance of colliding. Now on to inappropriate speed limits, lets look at the classic example, a sensible 50kmph limit exists in in an urban town or village, but for some reason the limit continues for some distance into the countryside. A classic example is found in Co Cork. On the Ballinhassig to Five-mile-bridge road. After leaving Ballinhassig heading West for the latter area the 50 kmph stays in force. While theorists may argue a slow limit would reduce accidents, empirical research disagrees. Drivers who have somewhere to go will accelerate and pass slower cars in the zone, or if unable to pass in the zone they will pass soon afterwards with an understandable agressiveness. One wonders if the limit exists as a cash cow, where the traffic corps can enjoy fish in a barrel revenue collection?
What is the solution?
Well putting up Accident Blackspot signs is a favourite…
as is lowering speed limits…
But how about surfacing roads properly?
I think this is a right-to-speed thing.
Don’t you think that kids who live close to roads deserve to encounter cars traveling less than 100 kph when they jump their garden walls in pursuit of a kicked ball?
Is there a national right to travel above 50 kph when outside of a built-up area?
When driving in other countries on roads without margins, why do their citizens find no compelling reason to travel above 40 mph on roads lacking shoulders?
I’m not advocating a switch from 50kmph to 80kmph, rather a staggered approach where the 50 becomes 60 and ultimately 80, you see having a slow limit going on might look good on paper and protect “kids” playing football. I understand that some people live in the bungalow belt, but (cliche alert) in a democracy the needs of the many outweight the needs of the few (well thats the general concept), sure to take an extreme example if everyone drove at 10kmph there would never be an accident, but we live in the real-world and people have places to go and things to do. I guess that in other countries “public transport” is a real alternative.
Most cars ignore the step-down speed limits imposed as they enter and exit Cashel’s town limits. In fact, many have upshifted and are going faster than 80 kph in front of my house, which is 350m around a sweeping curve from the 100 kph sign. They just can’t control the urge to get to Limerick.
I think drivers need additional cues that they’re in a slow-down zone–things like unbroken lines instead of stripes, large red boxes painted on the roads with the giant number 50 encircled on them.
Years ago, I used back roads for fluid lane movement. Then I encountered a cow on the road at a bend, a loose horse on the trot, a JCB reversing across both lanes of traffic and a log truck that shed its load. I quickly learned that drivers have to learn how to share and that sharing sometimes means slowing. Based on the speed of cars speeding past my front door on a national road inside a town’s boundary limits, my perspective is certainly a minority opinion. I wished people would respect the pavement in front of my place, for the sake of the footballs that bounce there, the cats that cross there and the dogs that walk there in the lane of traffic.
Common sense needs to be used when it comes to speed limits. There’s never going to be an ideal solution for everyone.
Yes, traffic should move more slowly in built up areas but speed limits on the outskirts don’t always match the landscape around them. Everyone can think of stretches of road where the speed limit is 50 or 60kph and there are no houses to be seen.
There are some areas near where I live, where the speed limit is e.g. 50kph one side of the road, and 80kph on the other.
Clearly this is a mistake since the metric conversion, and there are many such mistakes around the country.
Is there a forum or contact number or email where you can report such things to the councils to have them corrected?
On the subject of limits, I stick to them all, even the outrageous ones, simply because it’s not up to me to decide that I can break them. But I would *very* much like there to be a forum for the public to vote on speed limit changes on certain roads. Imagine there’s a road that’s 80kph and should be 60kph, or vice versa, and there was a forum for the public to express their opinion, and if this opinion was occasionally reviewed and taken on board - I feel it would go some small way towards making the situation better.
If we’re crawling along the N7 at 60kph at 4am without a car or pedestrian to be seen for miles around - we should have a voice.
It’s certainly a better idea than breaking the limit and lining the pockets of the Gardai or whoever.
Whenever a problem exists its valuable to look at who profits from it. A really low speed limit is admired by 1) the gardai as it is a guaranteed revenue stream while drivers break it 2) residents of bungalow blitz properties who enjoy the lower engine noise and easier access to and from their driveways 3) the minister who cannot be blamed for any road deaths in the area as the speed limit is already low (and the public think that speed it the only concern). It is only the passing driver that gets loses out. yawn.
I agree that badly thought out speed limits can be a killer, but only at the upper end of the scale. In Waterford a new 2 lane ring road was opened recently, a really good safe road which ended up with a 60kph speed limit, at any point when you turn off of this road onto terrible country roads the limit extends to 80kph. This is ridiculous and from what I’ve seen, it is in rural areas on roads with speed limits that are too high and not too low that the majority of fatal accidents seem to occur.
I don’t think driving in a 50kph zone for an extra minute or two ever killed anybody, impatience is the real killer. I often see people risk their own lives and the lives of their fellow road users purely out of impatience, sure the might have ‘places to go and things to do’ but all their impatience gets them is maybe 30 seconds or a few cars ahead when they reach their destination.
All yes all speed limits must make sense, otherwise people on the ground will view them as advisory rather then regulatory. Limits of 50 where a 60 or 80kmph would be appropriate make a joke of signs, and yes limits of 80 where a 50 would be appropriate also make a joke of signs. Like the boy who cried wolf, people stop listening when signs and indeed all laws stop reflecting real world needs.
I’m probably going to sound like a gun nut here, but I honestly believe that bad driving kills people, not speed. We should be petitioning out TDs to classify accidents into 1, 2 or over cars. I feel that, in Ireland, there are far too many 1 car accidents caused by people who simply can’t drive.
As for speed limits, they’re a joke! If we had a country wide look at speed limits, then maybe people would take notice, but at present, they are just advisory. When was anyone ever done for speeding on the Ballygarvan Road in Cork, for example?
Mik, yes yes yes bad driving is also to blame, and so is X, Y and Z, and given time all thouse could be looked at, but they are all so vague and unfixable within the near future, that talking about them wastes time. However, speed limits are so straight forward. I also drive the Ballygarvan road to get to the Airport business park from time to time (I live in Cork). There are four speed trap areas on it. One is in the 50kmph on the carrigaline side of the village in the GAA gateway, plenty of space for them, and they catch alot because the road is straight, the other is by the church in the entrance to the new housing estate, they catch people who haven’t braked entering the speed limit and use the uphill to slowdown. But moving out to the 80kmph section you are half correct, there are rarely any checks there, and I don’t cycle anymore, there used to be checks in the two John A Woods entrances.
I think the ultimate problem with the anti-speeding/bad driving campaigns is that the effort is directed at getting people to slow down for ideal reasons, as opposed to setting things up so that people have an obvious practical incentive to slowing down/driving well. It breaks my heart to see the deaths continue, when severe legislation could end the problem overnight — huge fines, driving suspension, and enough road-watch employees to enforce the solution. notice I’m suggesting ‘road-watch employees’, not gardai - there is absolutely no need to get the gardai to do this work; it can be done by a monkey with a speed gun. Ireland is now one of the richest countries in the world, and won’t hire enough speed gunners to effectively stop the slaughter on its roads. Note, people are dying for the sake of transport. Transport! It’s not like it’s a medical epidemic, or a war. As many irish have died in traffic accidents as US soldiers have died in Iraq since 2001. Does that make any sense at all? For transport?!? The blame lies with a deeply negligent government. Individuals obviously don’t want to die, or be responsible for killing someone, so it makes no sense to blame drivers. Given the upshot of the negligence in failing to ennforce severe enough laws, the kind of negligence we’re talking about here is indeed criminal. If enough people realized this, and developed a sense of outrage, we might find a minister with the balls to solve the problem.