30k speed limits for all urban areas on the way

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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..

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.

Given that we have only about 6,000 smoking related deaths in the state each year which is quite low given the huge number of cigarettes smoked, I think it’s safe to say that all smoking regulations should be removed.

Ditto all laws relating to motorised vehicles.

Are you aware of the saying "hard cases make bad law?" In case it needs to be repeated, there are 3.2-3.3 million drivers in Ireland who have nothing to do with these hard cases.

Did you actually read the article you quoted?

It is said that 'hard cases make bad law;' but it can be said with at least as much truth that hard cases make good law.

30k speed limit in miles is 24 miles a hour in Dublin ,Cork ,Limerick ,Galway I believe all Irish politician parties and their cars what speed the drive in cities should be made public .