As indicated by Road Safety, Minister of State Jack Chambers has indicated that the speed limit will be reduced in line with plans drawn up by the Government following a significant rise in road deaths this year, reports Breaking News.
Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast, he described the rise in road accident deaths in the state as “shocking”, noting that 127 people have already died in road accidents this year.
“The tragedies have shocked the nation. As minister, I want to bring a comprehensive response. The immediate response is around enforcement with An Garda Síochána, and also scaling up the communications campaigns with the Road Safety Authority. But I think parallel to that it is important to bring legislative and policy change and bring reform which I think will have a lasting impact,” he said, reports Breaking News.
“That is why we have had a speed limit review which has been undertaken for the last couple of years. It will bring radical changes to end the inconsistency and fragmentation of speed limits across our road network,” Mr Chambers added, reports Breaking News.
“In urban areas, in residential built-up areas, it is about changing the default limit there from 60km/hr to 30km/hr, but also in parallel, keeping the arterial and radial routes in urban areas at 50km/hr,” he said, reports Breaking News.
Finally, zones are proposed to be increased from 100 km/h to 80 km/h for minor national roads, motorways (120 km/h), major national roads (100 km/h) and regional roads (80 km/h) will remain unchanged.
“Within that though there will be discretion, with good design and safety standards that speed limits can be revised upwards by local authorities in terms of local, rural and national secondary roads,” Mr Chambers said, reports Breaking News.
In response to plans, AA Ireland’s head of communications Blake Boland welcomed the proposal to lower the speed limit.
Mr Boland told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland: “When we look at the number of road deaths we have had and in the wake of what has been happening over the last few weeks and months, it is very difficult to argue with anything that is going to help us reduce fatalities on the roads. We have a couple of little concerns about how this is going to be implemented, but we have to stand together and do whatever we can, and if that is reducing speed limits in some scenarios, it is very difficult to argue with that,” reports Breaking News.
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