30k speed limits for all urban areas on the way

Funny how you never use the same calculations that lead you to conclude that Irish drivers are just so overwhelmingly safe to assess the safety of cyclists.

Drivers get calculations. Cyclists get anecdotes.

I wonder if the families of the three people killed by drivers in the last 24 hours will be reassured by your claims.

Funny how the only way you can defend all the lawbreaking by cyclists is with "look over there." BTW my anecdotes also apply to motorists - as a pedestrian I am treated with respect by motorists as a rule. Indeed, if genuinely dangerous behaviour by drivers were common, I would probably have seen it commonly. And I'm not the only pedestrian who has noticed Irish cyclists penchant for lawbreaking.

Your side does use calculations and data, just usually irrelevant or out-of-context claims, like your false claims that "drivers" or "motorists" a.k.a a cohort of 2.8 million people kill whatever number of people you're claiming this time. Or the propaganda piece in one of DaCor's recent posts, the "Top tip" of which is totally irrelevant to about 99.9% of Irish drivers.

As to your question of whether or not any of this would provide reassurance to the families of those who've lost their lives recently, I don't know, perhaps you could ask them.

And while you're at it, perhaps you could also ask them which of Ireland's 2.8 million drivers they blame for their losses, since you have so much difficulty putting a number on the "drivers" you are accusing.

Well, this may come as a surprise, but this thread is about 30kph regulations which (like most) will only apply to motorists. So it's important to get the facts right when making regulations, especially when they will affect 2.8 million people, no?

Cyclists are only relevant to this in so far as they shriek about how everyone else needs to be regulated more and have iron-fist enforcement, which would be credible if they themselves never ran red lights or played zoom-zoom on the footpaths. (Warning, sarcasm ahead) But hey, maybe I shouldn't tar all cyclists with the same brush, after all, I'm sure there are legions of them that have never gone through a red light or cycled on a footpath.

And FWIW as a pedestrian I hold both motorists and cyclists to the same standard: stay off the footpath, and at least observe traffic controls. Motorists seem to be generally OK with that. Cyclists? Not so much.

Just for giggles, I decided to take to google maps (I picked Swords just because its local to me), but I knew I could pick anywhere.

I wanted to test exactly how long it would take me to demonstrate how full of b****x your claim of "stay off the footpath ........ Motorists seem to be generally ok with that" was . Turns out it took all of 25 seconds.

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.461152,-6.2186246,3a,75y,169.37h,91.13t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sY-cSKXOVXxr-dcMtt8JRaQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

And finally for now, Portmarnock. about 30 seconds

https://www.google.com/maps/@53.4212795,-6.1389503,3a,75y,4.57h,88.58t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s74ePsvXcIXFUVAI0MvTNkg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

More side swerves there than the Irish rugby team, anything to avoid facing up to the obvious hypocrisy of using a particular calculation to 'prove' to yourself that Irish drivers are the safest in the world, while using an anecdote or two (and NOT the same calculation) to confirm that cyclists are "lawbreaking scum menacing pedestrians on the footpath".

When you say 'observe traffic controls', you're not referring to fundamentals like speed limits, presumably, given how often you've told that it doesn't really matter that most drivers break speed limits most of the time?

Right, so 'observe traffic controls' excludes obeying speed limits in your book, despite the fact that speeding is recognised all over the world as one of the top four causes of road deaths. But hey, we wouldn't want to 'punish' the poor downtrodden drivers of Ireland by requiring them to actually obey traffic law.

Your position would make a classic case study of cognitive dissonance.

This one's specially for you, as you push the position that three or four people being killed each week is just the inevitable consequence of the 'freedom' of being able to drive and the freedom to break speed limits.

https://x.com/CyclingInKK/status/1702323151949136236?s=20

Spent a few days in Dublin this week for work. Did a fair bit of walking, mainly around Ballsbridge/Sandymount area. Sometimes during the day when there were varying degrees of traffic gridlock, and sometimes at night when vehicles could move freely at speeds of 50km/h or even more, if the driver chose to break the limit.

Key point is I didn't once feel even remotely endangered or threatened by a vehicle moving at 40, 50 or even 60km/h, rather than having to stick to a 30km/h limit. All these areas - and surely every urban area that will have a 30km/h limit imposed - have footpaths, street lights, and designated crossing points. So long as a pedestrian sticks to the footpaths and crosses only when the pedestrian lights are showing the little green man, they'll be safe in 99.99999999% of all cases.

Realise now somebody will probably go googling for the once-in-a-blue-moon instances of a pedestrian being hit by a vehicle that mounts the footpath, or that doesn't stop when the lights are showing green for pedestrians. So if necessary, I'll knock a couple of 9s off the end there, and say the pedestrian would be safe in "only" 99.999999% of cases. But point stands.

This incident occurred in Galway City 30kmph zone yesterday evening.

I have to laugh. Way to completely miss the point, buddy.

The point is that the sort of urban streets for which 30km/h limits are being proposed do have footpaths, street lights, and designated crossing points. So long as a pedestrian stays on the footpath and crosses only at a designated crossing point when they have the right to do so, they'll be safe from passing vehicles in that 99-point-whatever-number-of-nines per cent of cases, whether traffic is going by at 40, 50, 60, or even 80km/hr or more.

Of course I've walked on a road without footpaths, and crossed a road without a pedestrian crossing. I live on a rural L-road in County Wexford which I walk, and indeed cross, every day. But this is not the sort of road for which a 30km/h limit is being proposed. And even on this road or any other like it, I don't feel threatened or endangered by vehicles moving at 60km/h or more, so long as I walk sensibly and with due regard for my own safety.

Anyway, yes - when I'm walking in an urban area that has footpaths and pedestrian crossings, I stick to the footpaths and pedestrian crossings, just as all pedestrians in urban areas with footpaths and pedestrian crossings should do. What do you do - wander around the road itself, and cross wherever you feel like it? And if so, do you really think that motorists travelling at 45 km/h instead of 30 km/h are the ones putting you in danger, rather than your own actions?

I'm still laughing here.

Well, we have data to show that such radical measures are not necessary. Fatalities in Ireland are so low that they can be measured in the low single-digits per billion vehicle-kilometres and are low by all other measures, and pedestrians only make up a fraction of each number. So it's the benefits that are being overstated, not the negatives.