Cars to be fitted with speed limiters from July 2022.

So what are the causes of car crashes then?

And are you certain that there is no value in speed limiters?

If you want more details on RSA research, then contact the RSA. I've found one of their research people to be fairly decent at responding. I'm not your researcher here. I'm posting what every safety authority, and every police force in the world will tell you, that speeding is a major cause of crashes, deaths and injuries on the road.

What we are seeing on this thread is a total resistance to a reasonable safety measure, mainly because the lads won't be able to get their jollies going vroom vroom.

Do you think there's much of an overlap between A and B in the real world?

You're certainly adept at wearing someone down by repeatedly deflecting from direct questions.

There might be some overlap, but if it was significant, I don't think the RSA would be quite so specific in their language. They're absolutely not one and the same. Look at the 80km/h 1.5 lane width road I posted above - that is unfortunately a common sight in this country.

You've posted the collision statistics, I'm asking how applicable they are.

You seem to have decided that the statistics are NOT applicable from the outset, despite the obvious evidence that we all see around us each day.

What is the huge principled objection to requiring drivers to obey the speed limit all about?

Maybe we should just concrete over all remaining green spaces in the country to save drivers the effort of having to slow down a little and drive to the road conditions?

I haven't decided that they're not applicable - the RSA have themselves specifically differentiated between "excessive speed", and "breaking the speed limit". There may be some overlap of course, but the RSA's junior cert level statistics publications don't show it. Presumably because it doesn't suit their one-dimensional narrative.

My contention is that the laser focus on speed limits is a major distraction from other aspects of road safety. ie: below the limit = safe. Above the limit = dangerous. Which according to the RSA's own wording (not mine) does not appear to be true.

Secondly, I don't believe that any of these systems are currently as reliable as they need to be to prevent unexpected vehicle behaviour (see example of the 30km/h sign above).

As I said, I have zero problem obeying the limit, and in fact I find myself far more often being amazed that some roads are 80km/h at all, rather than being impatient that the limit is too low.

If it were up to me, I'd remove VAT and VRT on all ADAS systems (and bike helmets - mine was €90 cheaper from the UK), give money that goes to EV grants to people with older (less safe) cars, and make people do advanced driving courses after 2 years to take the N plate down.

The real agenda is that the advocates of this nonsense are mostly Dublin based peddle pushers who don't want to deal with cars ever travelling at more than 30 kph and passing them. Motorways have the lowest accident rates, while having the highest speeds, so motorway speeds shouldn't even come into consideration when talking about tackeling road mortality.

Amazing how those Dublin based pedal pushers, with no professional lobbyists or full time staff, have managed to influence the whole EU authorities and the entire motor industry? Or maybe you've misread the situation.

But interesting, yet again, to note the outraged response to the outrageous suggestion that drivers will be required to obey speed limits.

I'd imagine the industry is well down the road of implementation by now, given the planned timescale. Even if we end up with single top level limit for a start, that will be a move in the right direction while the more comprehensive solution is being developed.

I suppose if drivers don't want an expensive solution like this imposed, they could just start obeying the speed limits.

In my opinion, they'd be better off spending the money trying to make automated driving (or at least, automated driver assists) work properly. Things like ABS, seatbelts/airbags, better car design (so for example the passenger compartment doesn't break apart on impact, etc.) , have probably saved far more lives than people realise, but instead of giving incentives (and punishments) to car manufacturers to force them to research how to make even better cars (next big thing is AI-supplemented controls IMO, it will save a lot of lives), we get this message of 'Dont Speed' as if that will solve everything. By that logic, we should ban all aeroplanes, because it's not possible to be safe while travelling at 250 kph on any stretch of land (planes usually take off at 250 kph).

The simple fact is (as the aeroplanes example illustrates) that the "safe" speed for any particular stretch of road (even a straight road like an aeroplane runway) is determined mostly by the features of the vehicle travelling on it - an aeroplane is perfectly safe going 250kph down a straight road, some well-designed cars are also perfectly safe at that speed on a straight road, however a crappy POS car designed with "cheap production costs" rather than "safety and driver comfort" might not even be safe going 120 kph, especially if it's fitted with absolute-bottom-of-the-range-but-still-perfectly-legal-for-some-reason ditch-finder tyres (and of course they'll be unbalanced too, since it's not illegal to fit tyres without balancing them, as such).

If they really wanted to save lives, they should start by banning the sale of **** tyres aka 'ditch-finders', which is something that can easily be done right now. I'm amazed there's noone campaigning for better minimum tyre standards.

The NCT has generally been great for increasing safety on the roads - they could easily test stopping distance in the NCT and pass/fail based on it.

For now, stopping distance is not even considered on a car as far as legality goes - a car that usually takes ~47m to stop from 100kph (eg. tesla model 3) is considered safe for the same speed limit as cars which have ~27m stopping distance at the same speed (eg. porsche 911). If manufacturers were pressured on these items, and we managed to increase the safety stats for the bottom 10% of vehicles, we could all safely travel at higher speeds, reducing our time on the road overall and thus reducing the crashes from driver fatigue.

We may not quite be there yet with fully automated driving, but “assisted” driving has already been used here very successfully for years - eg. Anti-lock braking system. Similarly, AI-assisted driving has the potential to save many road deaths per year.

Its a double edged sword though, a lot of the drivers aids in modern cars are turning people into lazy detached drivers, I notice it myself since I've gotten cars with parking sensors, ESP, adaptive cruise, etc i'm simply not paying as much general attention as I used to in an older car.

Ill be perfectly happy when autonomous cars are a reality on our roads but all this nannying middle ground of "yeah you are driving but not really unless there's an accident in which case it was your fault not the car's" kinda stuff is pretty stupid.

So you’re saying that planes are safe then, once in the hands of trained humans. ie. There is nothing inherently dangerous about going 250kph down a straight road, it’s more to do with circumstances/planning - exactly what I’m saying.

Now I’m not proposing we change the limits to actually 250kph, but we could easily and safely do let’s say 160kph on some straight stretches of motorway instead of 120, if all cars were up to a certain (much higher) standard than the current minimum legal requirements, and still save lives at 80kph due to the better handling and braking characteristics.

The point I’m making is that what’s safe in a Porsche 911 might not be safe in a Chevrolet Aveo, but if we demanded a higher level of safety (meaning handling and braking characteristics, which would help to avoid a crash) from a Chevrolet Aveo as you find in a better car, it would probably save a lot more lives than going down the route of trying to set “perfect” speed limits on every road which is going to fit everyone in all weather conditions etc. - a nearly impossible job as borne out by everyone’s experience of ridiculous speed limits (both too high and too low) in the real world.

I’m well aware that planes apply thrust via their engines instead of their wheels, this has no bearing on what I’m saying - the simple fact is that there are cars on the road right now which are designed to easily go at 250kmh in a straight road, most of these are relatively expensive, but they do exist already. It would be too expensive to demand that all cars be able to do 250kph, but demanding higher braking/handling characteristics will save lives even at 80kph (bottom end cars are usually absolutely terrible handling-wise even when brand new, and legal “cheap” tyres that are sold here may as well be unregulated).