Local Roads - New Speed Limits

Ok so, 9 out of 10 Motorways….

Where is the 30k limit on the M50?

Those that presently speed on local roads will continue to do so as they don’t care if they get fined as they won’t pay the fine , in county Limerick it’s mostly drug dealers or their runners speeding round dropping their deliveries to local villages/towns or collecting drug debts that cause accidents . The guards don’t seem to go near these people so the only people impacted will be regular working people going about their daily business struggling to adjust to new speed limits .

driving law is like every other aspect of the law in this country it generally gets people who have not been in accidents ever. We had one of the highest number of uninsured drivers in the EU at one point so you can be sure as hell someone who drives uninsured ain’t going to be too bothered about other driving rules. Drivers with 20 plus road convictions driving while banned. Poorly maintained cars etc.

every day on the motorways tail gating or erratic lane switching cause a pile ups screwing the road up for everyone else. I’d like to see significant points given for rear endings on motorways.

Driving is not that bad here but the cohort outside the law are pretty bad. With apps like Waze identifying speed camera locations you can be routinely passed by people doing 160 plus on a 120 limit. Foreign reg cars seem to operate on Irish roads with impunity.

That 80kph is the std speed limit on rural roads across the EU. I must be embarrassing to the Irish intellegencia to admit that it's necessary to blanket Irish rural roads with a lower limit to precent the poor peasantry from mowing each other down.

I'm sure Micheal will be looking for a pat on the head from his EU betters for introducing such a progressive humanitarian measure

But the M50 does have a 120km/h speed limit. It also has other speed limits, @GSBellew never claimed it didn't.

It can both be true that all Irish motorways have a 120km/h speed limit and that some Irish motoways have speed limits less than 120km/h.

The message should be that people should be determining their speed by the general width, layout and profile of the road and not mainly its bureaucratic classification. This excessive focus on road class in going in the wrong direction.

M8 south of Glanmire is also at 100 km/h. Oh, also in Cork, the N25 east of Dunkettle, and N22 West of Bishopstown are 120km/h but neither is a motorway.

Motorway restrictions and speed limits are independent things. Any road can be given any limit up to 100 km/h. 120 km/h is only allowed on dual carriageways, and then only if the design of the road allows it.

Getting back on topic, local councillors are able to vote any local road back up to 80km/h so any road that's legitimately good enough for 80km/h will eventually return to that speed limit... a lot of these already kept their 80 limit on the 7th when others dropped to 60. (actually they can vote then up to 100 too, but I'm fairly confident in saying that there are no L-roads that meet the design standards for a 100 km/h limit).

It's not that different to development plans in that a draft is prepared by qualified technical staff. The public have an opportunity to comment on it. Changes can be made and then councillors vote on it. It's the same with 'special' speed limits. What's changing here is the national "default" limit for local roads, in cases where special limits haven't been applied. Search for the Fingal special speedlimit bye laws for an example. They were set for the whole county in 2021 and some have been updated since then. But the special limits only apply to specific areas (towns and villages mostly)

The decision is made by the local councillors. It can be made agreeing or disagreeing with engineering advice. The difficulty for them is to go against "technical advice" and take responsibility for that decision.

All byelaws (including parking) are voted on by councillors.

Donegal CC states is is replacing 2,500 road signs. Anyone wage a guess the cost?

32 County cost?

I've travelled all the N72 in the last year and atrocious is what most of it is and frankly it pretty much needs to be 80km. Lismore to Dungarvan is an alright stretch though. Some primary roads like the N24 have large 80km sections as the councils can designate speed limits.

Saw that post too and laughed at the part about the Regional roads. All that 'stupid Paddy' stereotype has a strong solid foundation to it.

A certain class? What’s that, fifth-year honours Irish? Just say “metropolitan elite” and be done with it. Or better, stop turning everything into a tedious made-up war of ideologies.

The problem with what @Charles Babbage suggests is that everyone has their own idea of what the “appropriate” speed is based on the width of the road, etc., and inexperienced drivers will always underestimate that risk.

I know a lot of people who were very successful at rallying. It's telling that every one of these is very careful and cautions driving on the public road, and these are people who know how to travel at very high speeds without landing in a ditch. The more you know, the more you know that you don't really know much at all. (And I guess that once you’ve got your kicks on a special stage, there’s no thrill in breaking the speed limits).

The other thing is that it's been proven that the bigger and more isolated the car is from the conditions outside, the faster people drive, even when the conditions don't support that. There’s a famous study with bikers, where the same riders drove a test-course at a much lower speed when they were told to ride in normal clothes versus their protective leathers. Same riders, same bikes, same course, so the chance of falling hadn't changed, but the penalty for falling off was suddenly much worse. If you’ve ever driven a classic car, you’ll know that 80 can feel a lot faster than 120 would in a modern SUV.