30k speed limits for all urban areas on the way

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121539725#Comment_121539725

It's always interesting to hear the bloke who persistently downplays the dangers of speeding by motorists (one of the top causes of road deaths) calling for greater enforcement against cyclists.

Enforcement for thee but not for me.

SeanW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121539730#Comment_121539730

Ah yes, you mean the same road deaths that 99+% of Irish drivers have nothing to do with? The same fatal incidents that are so rare that the average Irish driver would have to drive over 300,000,000 kilometres before being even involved in, let alone the cause of?

And the accusation of "Enforcement for thee but not for me" is ... amusing coming from a cyclist.

loco_scolo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121539738#Comment_121539738

Okay SeanW, as someone already said ages ago, it's useless discussing anything with you. I should have taken their advice.

Last retort from me, no one is coming to take your car away. Sensible lower speed limits in urban areas will make roads safer, more friendly to pedestrians and cyclists, be better for the environment (pollution, noise, tyre pollution etc), make our cities nicer places to live.

It's going to happen anyway with or without your opinion. Hope you enjoy the benefits.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121539738#Comment_121539738

How rare are deaths and injuries with cyclists Seanie?

Chiparus

Sean I am an emergency worker , I am also a motorist, having owned Porsche 911 ( air-cooled),and numerous BMWs - the most exciting being a 335i.

I completely support the reduction of speed limits - especially in urban areas, all you are doing is speeding to get to the back of the next queue.

magicbastarder

Your periodical friendly reminder of how fast traffic moves in Dublin. It's 11am and there's essentially no traffic, and Google maps states that to drive from DCU to UCD is a 32 minute, 14km drive; an average of 26km/h. On roads which are nearly all 50km/h limits or greater.

magicbastarder

I suspect if Google made their data available, they'd be able to allow a rough estimate of how much difference a max of 30km/h would make in Dublin. Depends on how granular the data is I guess.

It'd just be a case of flattening the occasional spike where the cars go above 30 and hold them at 30.

Consonata

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121539725#Comment_121539725

You keep trotting out this thing that "98% of drivers aren't the problem why should *I* be impacted if I am a good driver". But that is simply not how public policy works. We legislate for the minority of cases, the "worst case" scenarios, so that people don't take the piss and die.

Beta Ray Bill

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121530438#Comment_121530438

I get ya, and you're most likely right about the vague thing.

The vagueness thing p!$$es me right off. Government bodies and politicians in this country 100% absolutely refuse to be clear. IE deliberate omission of the details that matter.

Unrealistic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121533771#Comment_121533771

I spent many years living in a London sized city and worked in the city centre. I owned a nice car but very rarely drove it into the city centre. It was expensive to park and it took ages to find a parking place. The public transport on the other hand was cheap and efficient and, on nice days, being able to walk 5km to work on wide pavements with well designed underpasses was a nice change of pace. Having absolutely everyone who wants to visit the city centre of a large metropolis arrive by car is a recipe for gridlock. Normal Joe and Josephine Soaps have multiple options to get into the Central London. They are not being excluded from the city. Limiting congestion by pricing is a blunt instrument but I don't think any option is ideal.

SeanW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121540094#Comment_121540094

And it bears remembering that not every urban area is Dublin City Centre. Nor is every journey in the daytime. At any rate, if lowering speed limits made so little difference, there would be no incentive to do it, no?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121541293#Comment_121541293

Not according to some of the crap-on-motorists brigade. One of them regularly trots out a claim that "Motorists are killing X or Y people every week" as if fatal accidents were a collaborative effort all 3-odd million of us collectively participate in.

But even if I accepted that regulation should be for the lowest common denominator and not a vast super-majority, that principle would still have to be balanced by proportionality.

magicbastarder

sorry, i didn't know you were unfamiliar with dublin. most of that journey would not be in the city centre; DCU is out in the northern suburbs and UCD is out in the southern suburbs. about 8 of the 14km would be outside the canals.

anyway, 14km was clearly an unusual route, it also can be done in 10.8km, at a current average speed of 16km/h.

FWIW, to get from DCU at the moment to the canal (via ballymun road and mobhi road) is currently indicating an average of 24km/h. that's not entering the city centre, which is usually taken as being bounded by the canals.

Unrealistic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121539738#Comment_121539738

For the benefit of anyone still trying to absorb this rubbish, let me spell it out clearly. SeanW's argument hinges on the nonsense claim that dangerous driving can only be classified as such when it is too late and someone has been badly injured or killed. So drivers can drive along every day at inappropriate speeds* but, according to SeanW, as long as they haven't hit anyone, they've done nothing wrong. But the same driver; who SeanW believes is doing nothing wrong as they come around a bend with a little too much speed 999 days in a row, suddenly becomes an anomalous, statistically insignificant, outlaw when they do the exact same thing on day 1000, when there happens to be someone walking on their side of the road and a car approaching on the other side as they come around the bend and they can't avoid a fatal collision. That's the illogical rubbish SeanW tries to paint as being 'informed by data'.

At the same time he struggles mightily to not be informed by data that is inconvenient for his position. Specifically the fact that statistically Ireland has among the highest percentage in Europe of short journeys (2km and 5km) undertaken by car rather than on foot or by bike. While, at the same time, Irish people report safety fears as their main reason for not cycling and not walking more. Having scared so many people into only travelling by car most of the time, to get to a level of deaths that SeanW considers acceptable, when other countries have been able to get the same result while allowing people to choose to make many more short journeys outside of cars, is a testament to Ireland's failure to provide real road safety for its citizens.

*S.I. No. 182/1997 - Road Traffic (Traffic and Parking) Regulations, 1997 Obligation Regarding Speed

7. A vehicle shall not be driven at a speed exceeding that which will enable its driver to bring it to a halt within the distance which the driver can see to be clear.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121544931#Comment_121544931

Don't forget the contrast with the bit where he tells you how cyclists are really dangerous.

SeanW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121544931#Comment_121544931

No actually my argument is much simpler - the fact that there are over 300,000,000 vehicle kilometres between fatalities is an ipso-facto indicator that a great majority of decisions are made correctly. As to your hypothetical, I agree that your hypothetical driver is bad, but if this type of behaviour is so commonplace, how come Ireland ranks near the top/bottom of international rankings by every measure for road safety?

As to the supposed lack of people travelling short distances by other means, I suspect this may have more to do with Ireland's dispersed settlement pattern than anything else. Nor am I saying there is no room for improvement - by all means if building a cycle lane or other active travel facility would be helpful than by all means go for it.

Rather I am calling for proportionality. If you want to drive a nail into a wall, you use a hammer not a wrecking ball. Same rule should apply to regulations on motorists - they should be proportionate and not excessive.

SeanW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121543962#Comment_121543962

Actually I live in the GDA for years, but was mostly familiar with the Northside and the Western suburbs. Never went much South of Grand Canal. I plugged your journey into Google Maps and it shows a winding route with frequent turns that goes through the city centre - of course that's going to be slow.

But journeys that make extensive use of arterial routes such as the Navan Road, the Swords Road, the Drumcondra Road, the North/South circular roads etc, not to mention roads in immediate suburbs like Blanchardstown, is going to be a completely different kettle of fish, especially for journeys taken in the off-peak such as late at night.

magicbastarder

From the canal at whitworth road to Omni in santry - a direct run outbound through drumcondra - an arterial route in its entirety, outbound, in the morning, is currently averaging 19km/h.

magicbastarder

And here's a question for you - are they saying they're going to make the navan road 30km/h? Or the drumcondra road? If not, they're not really relevant.

SeanW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121549663#Comment_121549663

Dublin City Council's "Love 30" consultation showed they wanted to make just about everything 30kph including most of the arterial roads with very few exceptions. I distinctly remember that the Navan Road, the Swords road, the circular roads, the Chapelizod Road etc were all to be included in 30kph limit reductions.

AFAIK This would have made the DCC areas 30kph zones far more comprehensive than even what happened with the 20MPH zones in London etc where there were lots of exemptions for arterial roads.

Furze99

In certain urban areas, particularly residential areas - the 30kph is not unreasonable. There should also be much stricter enforcement of drink and particularly drug limits whilst driving. Can't see a problem with double points on public holidays either.

However hard cases make bad law and low limits on busier urban roads will be counter productive. Likewise in rural areas, blanket type reductions will be largely ignored. The vast majority of road journeys are made safely and by drivers who drive responsibly and with care. Discommoding law abiding drivers who are responsible to try and catch the few eejits will be very very unpopular. When we see drivers who have never got a penalty point in many hundreds of thousands of miles driving being penalised, then the crap will hit the politician's fans.

Aside from this, this bill is under debate afaik and not law yet, Why are we seeing adverts from the RSA about it?

magicbastarder

Partial rollback of the changes in Wales:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-68859568.amp

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122041907#Comment_122041907

Wouldn't be an election coming up there, by any chance?

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122041959#Comment_122041959

Or maybe they've just realised that pandering to the hysterical minority isn't the best basis to be making laws on.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122042513#Comment_122042513

Or maybe they've just realised that pandering to the hysterical minority is the best way to get re-elected?

SeanW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122043352#Comment_122043352

Don't you need a majority to get elected in a democracy? If so, it looks like plans to roll back the blanket 20MPH limits are pandering to the majority.

At any rate, it's only right and proper that these bizarre rules were changed as (part of the UK, most likely) Wales has broadly similar road safety data to Ireland.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122055585#Comment_122055585

Wait, does 'broadly similar' mean that they have a 25% increase in deaths over same period last year, like we do?

Tenzor07

Even without a posted 30kph limit, there's many things the councils can do to bring drivers speeds down such as reducing the width of roads, more traffic calming measures such as speed ramps, chicanes, mini-roundabouts, one way streets, segregated cycle lanes..

SeanW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122056491#Comment_122056491

No, I meant in terms of having hundreds of millions of vehicle-kilometres between any cause of fatality. According to that data (which may be somewhat out of date by now) we're about even with the UK.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122057351#Comment_122057351

So the 25% increase in deaths over same period last year, probably even higher than that after three deaths in 24 hours, is specific to Ireland then.

SeanW

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122057620#Comment_122057620

Well the speed limits (the thread topic) didn't increase 25% in the last year, so I don't know what you're getting at with these minor statistical fluctuations.