Council to slash speed limits on local roads from November

Dramatic changes are on the way for motorists in Westmeath following an agreement by the county council to slash speed limits on 1900km of local roads across the county to 60kmh – and to drop it to 30kmh in built up areas.

There was unanimous approval for the proposals introduced by the council executive, and some members also called for increased fines and enforcement on the roads in a bid to lower death rates and keep the roads safer.

The council decision means that from the end of November, the current default speed limit of 80kmh for rural local roads defaults to 60kmh. In the first half of next year, the current 50kmh default speed limit in urban areas reduces to 30kmh and the current 100kmh limit on national secondary roads defaults to 80kmh.

While councillors had the option of introducing by-laws to retain current limits on certain roads, they were not interested in considering that option and instead opted for a blanket reduction in speed limits – but they did still have a week to make appeals over individual roads if they wished.

Setting out the background to the speed limits change, Neil Egerton, executive engineer in the county council’s transportation section, explained that as well as addressing the road safety question, the reduction in speed limits is intended to help lower Ireland’s carbon emissions.

Mr Egerton told councillors that in 2021 the government launched the Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030 as a first step in achieving the 2020 Programme for Government commitment of bringing Ireland to ‘Vision Zero’. Targets included a 50% reduction in road deaths and serious injuries by 2030.

Approximately seven out of every 10 fatal accidents in 2023 were on rural roads.

Cutting fatalities

Senior engineer Damien Grennan told the meeting that as things stand, 85% of the 1914km of rural local roads in Westmeath have a speed limit of 80km an hour.

“Under this default, all of those roads will be reduced to 60kmh. We want to get speed down. It reduces the number of fatal accidents. It reduces the number of fatal collisions. It reduces the severity of injuries and the unfortunate follow-up on those things,” Mr Grennan said.

He added that it was the council’s recommendation that all of the local rural roads go with the new default speed limit. But he said that decision was the responsibility of the members. He said the review on national roads is going to happen towards the latter end of this year and the executive will be returning to the members early next year with proposals on those roads.

Mr Egerton told the meeting that there is a projected €3.8 billion investment in road safety to take place during the first phase of the action plan, which runs through this year, and went on to quote from a Road Safety Association (RSA) leaflet that states ‘the faster the speed, the bigger the mess’.

County boundaries

Reacting, Cllr Tom Farrell said he wondered how the system would work across county boundaries and pointed, by way of example, to the N55, which has an 80kmh limit between Athlone and Tang and 100kmh between Tang and Ballymahon.

He also wondered if the councils had any role to play in the speed van system, pointing out that at present people tend to know where the speed vans have parked because oncoming motorists flash them to make them aware. His view was that there should be more money given for unmarked cars to catch speeding motorists, and also that there should be special speed limits at all national schools.

A welcome for the changes came from Cllr Vinny McCormack. “I think the measures outlined are positive and will undoubtedly have a positive impact in terms of reducing the incidence of serious road collisions and certainly speed is one aspect that needs to be tackled,” he said.

Mobile phones

“Another issue that needed to be tackled,” Cllr McCormack said, was that of driver distraction principally brought about through mobile phone use.

“Maybe a bit of pressure needs to be brought to bear on some of the technology companies to put in place measures that would reduce mobile phone usage while driving,” he said.

Continuing, he said he was keen to see speed in urban areas tackled, particularly as someone who lives in a village with a particularly bad speeding problem (Ballymore). He asked if it was possible that speed reduction measures be introduced in such locations in conjunction with the introduction of reduced speed limits.

Cllr Denis Leonard was of the view that the speed limit at all national schools should be 30kmh. He added that he was concerned at the fact that the figures for road fatalities were on the way up and said there were two big contributors to it – enforcement and infrastructure: “The funding coming from the national government is not sufficient for traffic calming,” he said, remarking that it was being provided for just two areas in Westmeath this year.

Responding to Cllr Farrell’s query about differences across county boundaries, Mr Grennan said there needs to be continuity, but the new guidelines are robust and clear, which should mean everyone ends up in alignment.

Mr Grennan said the council works closely with schools and is keen to see speed reduction at the schools across the county. He pointed out that towards the end of this year as work starts on the urban areas, that will also affect schools.

Welcome

Welcoming the changes, Cllr Frankie Keena said they will represent a sea-change for motorists: “It’s a good initiative,” going on to enquire what would happen with tertiary roads and cul-de-sacs.

He also asked whether it would open the possibility of extending footpaths on roads that would have the new lower speed limits in place.

In his contribution, Cllr John Dolan said that the first thing to consider was personal responsibility. He said that the quality of road was a factor, but he was of the view that enforcement would be most important and that there should be consistency of approach across the country.

Stating that he had previously served as a fire officer, Cllr Andrew Duncan said that he had attended a lot of accidents and they were nearly always caused by speed or weather, the more severe being almost always determined by speed. “The speed was always a direct determinant of the severity of the accident,” he said.

“There will be people who will have issues with this, but they should not be getting much heed,” he continued, adding that road safety should be paramount – particularly the safety of children – and should override everybody else’s concerns.

He added that one safety measure that simply works is ramps. And it was his view that there should be speed ramps outside every school.

Public view

Cllr Niall Gaffney said that where speed ramps are installed, the need for enforcement diminishes; however, there was also a need for a buy-in from the public, and he felt it would be important that there should be an information campaign to let people know that the change was going to affect every rural road.

Cllr Aengus O’Rourke felt anything that could be done to improve the circumstances around road safety was to be welcomed. “There’s no doubt about it, we’re in crisis as a country in relation to the carnage that we’re hearing about almost daily on our roads,” he said.

He questioned whether the move would be effective if it were not backed up with proper sanctions: “I’d start with sanctions first, a complete review of sanctions,” he said, saying that there had to be a suite of measures that, combined, would give the initiative an impact which would turn around the upward trend in accidents.

Cllr Paul Hogan expressed concern about the levels of speed in some housing estates as well as on narrow rural roads. While welcoming the changes, one urban change he was unsure of was that requiring a drop in speed along the entire 4.2km stretch from Cornamaddy to Golden Island.

Cllr David Jones was of the view that speed ramps work, as was evidenced by their impact outside the secondary school at Killucan.

Cllr Alfie Devine said that he too, in his work as a member of the fire service, is regularly called to accidents. However it’s not always necessarily speed that is the cause. Many accidents were down to mistakes by drivers he said, and he was concerned that there are too few gardaí to police 1900km of road.

Education

Cllr Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran said children at school should learn about the dangers of speed. He said the gardaí do police traffic, but mainly in towns. It was simply not possible to have enough gardaí to prevent the carnage that was taking place on the roads, he said. It was also not good practice to let hedges and briars grow and to raise the surface of roads every year without backfilling either side, he said.

A call for enforcement and better maintenance of the roads in question was made by Cllr Ken Glynn, while Cllr Aoife Davitt took the view that reducing speed limits was not going to be the answer to all problems. By way of example, she cited the fact that in 2019, 316,000 people were breathalysed, whereas the figure for 2023 was just 156,000. And even though the number had reduced by half, there was a 5% increase in people who actually failed the breathalyser.

The cathaoirleach Cllr Liam McDaniel said he fully agreed with any measure that slows down traffic and that, therefore, he was 100 per cent behind the proposals.