Local Roads - New Speed Limits

It states ALL LOCAL ROADS reduced to 60km

It doesn't. Clause (4) of the bit you quoted creates an exception for local roads with "special" speed limits, which are speed limits that can be put in place, case by case by local authorities.

The fundamental fact is this.

The vast majority of our road deaths are caused by speeding.

Those who speed used to ignore the previous speed limits. The very same people are going to ignore the new speed limits too.

Unless there is enforcement, it's irrelevant what speed you ask people to drive at.

Finally some data I was not able to obtain previously.

"Road Safety Authority data shows that 107 people died in road traffic collisions on local rural roads between 2020 and 2024, accounting for 14% of all road fatalities in this time."

"Approximately 882 people sustained serious injuries because of road traffic collisions on local roads between 2020 and 2024, accounting for 12% of all serious injuries recorded by the RSA during the same time."

Took it from RTE News online site this am. I went through RSA site for best part of an hour the other day and could find no breakdown or stats like that.

You Do know that sarcasm and conspiracy theories lie at the bottom of the barrel.

No pearl grabbing, no dumbing down, no great unwashed and deny it all you like, nonsense is the opposite of "facts and figures".

Reducing speeds, reduces the risks of injuries and deaths on our roads. There's no evidence to suggest otherwise, so no amount of typing and anonymous posting will change the facts.

Apart from saying enforcement is needed, the rest of the post. But, we can agree to disagree about how factual your comments are. Especially, that speed limits are "irrelevant" - that's factually inaccurate.

With thanks again to @KrisW1001 for the post above that answers yours too.

You're still missing the point, and proving my point at the same time.

You're correct that a local road connects local areas, and that a local road is very different from a motorway.

But that doesn't mean that a motorway can't be a rural road (not a local road. Again, they're not the same thing).

As KrisW1001 points out above, urban/rural simply refers to the location of the road. Road width, design, conditions, speed limit, etc., are irrelevant in this regard. If a road is in an urban area, it's an urban road. If it's in a rural area, it's a rural road.

'Rural road' is not a term used in the speed limit legislation, precisely because rural roads can be so different in nature. The terms used are motorway, national primary, national secondary, regional, and local.

While it's frustrating to have to keep explaining a simple concept, it's actually somewhat heartening too to have my initial point so well proven.

I won't stoop to personal petty comments like the last line of your post above.

What other metric is there? Just people saying it's not safe is simply not measurable as it's entirely subjective. My own experience and preference is that L roads are far safer to cycle on than any other, obviously rat runs are an exception but they are the exception.

I just think we need to get away from the correlation between speed limits and speeding, those who drive too fast for the road/conditions will continue to do so until actually caught. The vast majority of L road users drove at an appropriate speed under the previous limit without incident. Now all of those drivers have to keep an extra eye on their speed instead of on the road for fear of 'speeding' when it's nothing of the sort.

I simply don't see how this change makes a road 'safer' for anyone. The stats show L roads were already the safest ones we have.

Incidentally, have just seen this bit of another post above, which is further proof that "rural road" does not equate to "local road" -

A local road could not have had a speed limit greater than 80km/h.

Therefore, any of the rural roads being referred to by "or greater" were not local roads. The "or greater" part therefore refers to other types of rural roads, i.e. motorway, primary, secondary, and regional (where Councils had discretion to increase limits to 100km/h from the default 80km/h if the road was suitable, as is the case with a stretch of regional road near me).

Hopefully this is clear to all by now.

https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/eu-road-safety-policy/priorities/safe-road-use/safe-speed/archive/speeding/speed-limits_en

The EU Commission is going to have to reflect if Ireland is indeed best in class or just talking a lot of nonsense when it comes to saving the Irish population from the carnage of the 80kph default rural speed limit

Thanks for the link.

It clearly states that speed limits are the responsibility of national, regional and local authorities.

That means the Commission is leaving it up to us for good or bad.

I also checked out the section on road engineering and it reminded me that most of our L roads have never been engineered as such.

For the most part they have just had surfaces improved which facilitates higher speed.

L roads that have kept their 80km limit in Co Cork.

971679_322e118e7af740f58c2e9e088bb43999.pdf

Funny how all the propaganda supporting this pointless change fails to include actual data. Only theoretical data and weak platitudes.

For example - despite all the negativity about Irish drivers in some quarters - Ireland has around 300,000,000 vehicle-kilometres between road fatalities of any cause. For that reason, the claim of "slow down to save lives" is one people could question as being overstated.

14-PIN-annual-report-FINAL.pdf

As to the practical effect of lowering speed limits on L-roads, the only change I've seen is that my local authority has had to wallpaper the place with speed signs because of how often L-roads interact with an R-road main, whereas before only a fraction of the signage was needed because all roads in rural areas off the N-roads were at 80.

No doubt there will be an activist lobby looking for 60kph on regional roads too, with one of the "benefits" being a reduction in signage clutter.