Issues Speed limits: Our speed limits badly need an overhaul, argues BARRY McCALL
It's possible to drive 800 kilometres across northern France on motorway with an unvarying speed limit of 130 kilometres per hour. It is barely possible to drive eight in Ireland without at least one seemingly arbitrary change to the limit. And many of these changes simply defy logic.
Take the example of a motorway, one section of which is several years old and the other brand new. Different speed limits are in force for the two sections. Which one would be the higher? You might think it would be the lovely new section, but you'd be wrong. The M50 in Dublin, which was recently extended as far as Ballinteer, has a 70 mph speed limit for most of its course from the M1 to Firhouse, and on the new section from Firhouse to Ballinteer has a 60 mph limit.
Making this even more daft is the fact that southbound traffic entering the road from Firhouse encounters a sign indicating a 70 mph limit only to find another one indicating a 60 mph limit just 100 metres or so up the road.
And then, of course, there is the by-now infamous Stillorgan Road or N11.
This is a high quality dual carriageway which has a 40mph speed limit on the approach to Donnybrook as it bypasses UCD. A particular sore point with drivers on this stretch of road is the fact that the Garda regularly lie in hiding under the Montrose overpass to catch speeding drivers. "Shooting fish in a barrel", is how broadcaster Pat Kenny has described this activity.
Of course, there may well be very good reasons for having such a low speed limit on this extremely high quality, apparently safe stretch of road which pedestrians do not have to cross because of the presence of the overpass. If these reasons do exist it is very difficult to explain how veritable dirt tracks in other areas have the general national speed limit of 60mph. One example of this is much of the roads network around the Dublin mountains in areas such as Glencullen and Stepaside.
Another shining example is the Ring of Kerry. The Kenmare Road from Killarney via Ladies' View and Moll's Gap is one of the most scenic drives in the country. However, much of the road is barely wide enough to accommodate to reasonable sized vans, on one side there is rock and on the other there is a drop which would put the fear of God into stunt drivers.
Yet vehicles are permitted to drive at 60 mph for much of it. The road improves considerably and widens out as traffic approaches Kenmare, and yet the speed limit then drops to 40 mph - a considerable distance from the town.
Given these daft anomalies it is little wonder that many drivers simply ignore the speed limits or, at best, treat them as some sort of aspirational target. The National Roads Authority (NRA) commissioned a comprehensive national speed survey from independent consultants a number of years ago.
This was completed in 1999 and was published by the Authority in May 2000.
The survey was based on so-called free speed, that is the speed at which drivers choose to travel when not constrained by factors such as traffic congestion, narrow roads or bends, slow moving vehicles, and so on. Free speeds, therefore, are a more accurate reflection of driving habits than the data obtained from the NRA's traffic counters.
SOME of the key findings of the survey were that 51% of cars exceed the general speed limit of 60 mph on two-lane national primary routes, with 13% in excess of 70 mph; 94% of cars exceed the speed limit at the 30 mph sign on urban national roads - 49% travel at more than 40 mph; and 68% of cars exceed the 30 mph speed limit on urban residential roads with more than 10% in excess of 40 mph.
According to the NRA, the report highlights that motorists are driving at the same speed on two-lane roads as on dual carriageways and are not allowing for the fact that there is a 50% greater risk of having an accident on a standard two-lane road than on a dual carriageway.
This last statement is particularly damning of our speed limit policy. The fact that there is such a greater risk of accident on a standard two-lane road calls into question the logic of having the same speed limit on a mountain road in Kerry and on a stretch of motorway in south Dublin - surely there should be some difference? But as long as there is none it is likely that Irish drivers will continue to treat speed limits with little more than contempt.