30k speed limits for all urban areas on the way

I'm strongly in favour of lower, and more rigorously enforced, urban speed limits.

I would suggest making the urban limit 30kph, putting up many many speed cameras and charging a simple fine to those who exceed it by less than 10kph An automatic charge of say €80, just to pay for the implementation. Proper criminal proceedings above that speed, with appropriate endorsements.

Surely since cars have a much greater mass than bicycles. their speed limit should be much less than bicycles.

Involved, or culpable?

The culpable drivers did something to cause a collision. The remainder of the 3,257,621 did not. They have a right to ask that road safety measures be proportionate.

No, I'm calling for laws that are proportionate.

Wouldn't want any disproportionate enforcement or anything

Do you understand what 'proportionate' means, because I suspect you don't.

200 more claims - shocking!. Up 187 on 2022 - what is the world coming to?

This means that there were 1740 uninsured claims in 2022, which proportionally is 1.3% of total claims. Given that uninsured vehicles make up 8.3% of the total, one might wonder why they are proportionately involved in only a sixth of the claims that an equal number of insured vehicles would have been.

I'd say the amonunt of national angst and outrage over uninsured drivers is rather disproportionate, as are the resources devoted to enforcement.

If the country didn't have such a fatuous legal system in the first place, the problem would be trivial, but Barristers having a slightly reduced opportunity to take their fee cut of multi-million payouts has to be one of the most serious issues facing Irish society. /s

Spot on. My car has six gears, at 30 kph I'd likely be in 4th. But at least it's not a diesel, because 17 years ago I made a conscious decision not to polute and to instead cop the punishment of higher registration fees and excise in order to do the right thing, because unlike the clueless EPA or Greens, I knew what 3-nitrobenzanthrone is.

This has been covered multiple times earlier in this thread. Using Galway as an example, the only roads that have been made 30km/h are relatively central streets with short distances between traffic lights. Main arteries with longer distances between traffic lights have been increased from 50 km/h to 60 km/h or even 80 km/h.

So you aren't replacing a driving pattern of a steady 50 km/h with a steady 30 km/h. Instead you are replacing a pattern of accelerating up to 50 km/h and then braking back down to zero, with one of accelerating up to 30 km/h and then braking back down to zero. For that type of driving, emissions are lower if you are only accelerating up to 30 km/h.

So going by that logic, if you're concerned about 30kph limits causing more pollution, then should the 120kph motorway limit be reduced to 90kph? In Germany they're trying to reduce the sections of unrestricted Autobahn's to cut Co2 emissions.

The average speed of a motor vehicle in Dublin city centre is about 16kph, having a 30kph limit would mean that less hard accelerations to 50kph speeds are needed on city streets, which from the many old Diesel cars on the road usually means a lung full of black sooty smoke for the local residents walking down their street.

I hear the out of touch 'Taliban' in the RSA are still going full tilt for reducing road speeds across many roads. Such a simplistic, authoritarian approach that will be ignored by those who are likely to be driving dangerously. The RSA are not fit for purpose and Liz O'Donnell should be shown the door.

This is your regular public service announcement that @SeanW 's argument revolves around a completely illogical assumption that road deaths result from some uniquely outlandish behaviour on the part of drivers involved in fatal collisions that no other drivers ever demonstrate.

In the real world a large number of drivers are willing to overtake when they can't quite see far enough ahead and take their chance that they will get back on their own side in time. Most of the time that has no negative outcome but, in a small number of tragic cases, an approaching car appears where the overtaking driver had gambled it wouldn't be.

In the real world a large number of drivers are willing to chance taking a look at their phone while driving and hope that nothing untoward happens during their moment of distraction. Most of the time that has no negative outcome but, in a small number of tragic cases, they drift out of lane at just the wrong time or just fail to notice that the car in front has started to indicate and slow down.

In the real world a large number of drivers are willing to travel at a speed slightly faster than that which would give them enough time to stop when something happens ahead of them. Most of the time that has no negative outcome but, in a small number of tragic cases, they come around a bend with just a little to much speed to keep tight enough in to their own side of the road at the exact time that another car is coming around the bend towards them.

In the real world road deaths occur when commonly exhibited unsafe behaviour coincides with another road user being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, in SeanW's world, road deaths occur because of some very specific behaviour by a tiny fraction of drivers, that no other drivers in the country exhibit. Yet he can never actually articulate what that behaviour is. He only defines it by its outcome.

More and more cars are coming with on-board wifi now.

Did you read the article you linked to at all?

"there were 188,000 private vehicles on Irish roads without insurance, which is one-in-12 - the second highest in the EU."

Seanie's theory is that errant/dangerous drivers are the 'rare exception' and we wouldn't too much enforcement impacting ODDs. This data suggests that we need a lot more enforcement.

Of course I read it, how else do you think I was able to arrive at those 188,000 representing just 8.6% of the total and having only one sixth the rate of accidents of insured vehicles? The amount of BS in Irish society trying to play up uninsured cars as a huge problem is bonkers and completely disproportionate to the very minor problem they actually represent.

The real problem, and one that is very serious, is the sky's the limit litigation system Ireland allows. It makes insurance expensive, motivating some to avoid insurance.

When I started driving, my car registration cost of about €180, also included 3rd party personal injury insurance coverage. The government was the insurer, and instead of allowing insane, limitless claims, created a defined injury system with fixed maximum payments for each and every type of injury, thus keeping costs contained. There was no legal requirement for insurance because every registered car was covered for personal injury.

New Zealand has the most intelligent insurance system of any country I have ever come across. Ireland is a disgusting legal cesspit. The degree to which Irish society is rigged to require the legal profession and it's massive fees at every turn is insane. I lived 30 years in Australia and never needed to engage or pay a lawyer for anything, and that includes buying and selling properties, and administering a deceased estate which included filing for and getting a grant of probate and transferring a property, which took less than 2 hours and cost about €80.