Speed Limits - AA campaign

E39MSport

I heard that man Conor Faughnan talking about the need to review speed limits before asking drivers to stick to said limits and show more responsibility etc...

I just receved the AA Newsletter and he has an article in there on it. Asking readers to help identify limits that need to be changed based on locals experience.

Here it is: - ( http://www.aaireland.ie/AA/Ezine/AA-Ezine-February-2012/Bad-speed-limits.aspx?utm_campaign=10194784&utm_content=40176483129&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Emailvision )

Country boreens with grass growing up the middle and an 80kph limit. Very safe major roads with triple and even four-lane carriageways but speed limits so low that you barely feel that you are moving. The setting of Irish speed limits has become a mess.

The AA has been arguing this issue with government literally for years. Now with the new government we have been promised meaningful co-operation at last. With help from AA Members and motorists countrywide we have a chance, we hope, to get this shambles sorted out once and for all.

Speed limits are set legally by the local authority not by central government. While speed limit categories are set out in road traffic law, which limit to apply on which road is a decision made locally. The problem is that some local authorities have done their job well, some have done it badly and some have not done it at all. The result is limits that have no consistency from one county to another, and many examples of dangerous, careless and just plain ridiculous local variations.
Help us by reporting bad limits...
80 Speed Sign

I met with government on this issue recently. We have been asked to provide a list of bad speed limits nationally and have been promised that we will be supported when that list is presented to local authorities to fix.

We are asking all of our regular readers and correspondents to report bad speed limits to us directly. Send them by email to publicaffairs@aaireland.ie If you can include a photo then so much the better. To be fair, please also let us know if you have come across examples where you think the local council has done a good job, maybe by changing a limit or by assessing a road properly.

We want to collect as many photos as possible from as many sources as possible, so don’t be reluctant to drop us a line. We’ll publish the best photos on our website, and we have raided the kitty in here so we will offer €25 for every photo that we feature online. We would also like to find, if we can, the single most ridiculous speed limit in Ireland. Some stiff competition there so we’ll probably ask you to vote on that later on.
n83 speed limit sign

But for all the humour that we can find in it, this is a very serious issue. It genuinely makes a mockery of speed limits and of the road safety strategy. I have said it many times – the reason why our road safety strategy has been working is because of us as Irish drivers. We have supported all of the new laws and driving behaviour has improved out of all measure. This has been achieved in spite of, not because of, the way speed limits have been set. If we are taking limits seriously then we demand that the people setting them take them seriously as well. Please join our campaign and lets get it right once and for all.
The N4 – an example of how not to do it...

The N4 is the national primary route from the M50 in Dublin to Sligo. At the Dublin end for a stretch it is four lanes wide with a solid centre divide to prevent cross-over accidents. It also has an 80kph speed limit. Regular users will know that as you approach from Sligo or Galway you are on a motorway for many miles at 120kph until suddenly the road doubles in width but the speed limit drops to 80kph.

Further west along that same national primary route in Co. Sligo the road is a narrow, winding single lane. There are ditches on either side lined with white crosses erected by local people marking spots where people have died. The speed limit on that lethal stretch is 100kph.

Big Nasty

Makes sense, we all know boreens with 80kmph or even 100kmph limits and national roads with 80kmph and in some case 50. Although the 'limit' is not a target and all that. :cool:

i wish theyd change that 30 one on the loop onto the m50

Mr. Presentable

E39MSport wrote: »

IThe N4 is the national primary route from the M50 in Dublin to Sligo. At the Dublin end for a stretch it is four lanes wide with a solid centre divide to prevent cross-over accidents. It also has an 80kph speed limit. .

This limit is the cause of much complaint here, isn't it? Me, I think it is as fast as it should be and perhaps too fast. There are bus stops, bus lanes, junctions, bike lanes along it until the M4. All good reasons why the limit is low. Sure, reduce it at the Sligo end, but not change it at the Dublin one.

Atomic Pineapple

No need for this messing, go back to the old system of a black and white sign stating your governed by a national limit of 100km/h and have some cop on regarding how you drive to road, traffic and weather conditions.