Councils may face legal action over flawed road safety plans

More than 20 local authorities have been given a month to remove dangerous flaws in their "inadequate" safety plans for temporary road surfaces or face legal action.

The enforcement notices, copies of which have been seen by The Irish Times, require councils to implement Health and Safety Authority (HSA) recommendations on the use of warning signs and speed restrictions along temporary road surfaces. The notices were sent out earlier this month.

The move follows a nationwide HSA investigation into the management by county councils of speed limits and signage at temporary surfaces. The investigation started shortly after the Kentstown school bus crash in Co Meath last year in which five schoolgirls died.

HSA inspectors visited 104 sites across each of the 29 main local authorities last September amid increasing concerns over traffic safety measurers at temporary road surfaces. Sites directly under the council's control and those where a contractor was at work were visited.

The findings - drawn up in an internal, unpublished HSA report - have raised serious concerns.

Inspectors found very poor traffic management at many roadworks sites. Drivers were ignoring temporary speed limits around roadworks because councils were not enforcing them, inspectors noted.

More than a quarter of all traffic plans prepared by local authorities were inadequate because they failed to address the hazards associated with a particular roadworks site, the HSA found.

Only 78 per cent of roadworks sites provided adequate warning to motorists of roadworks ahead.

This was despite the local authorities' having prior notice of the visits.

Forty per cent of local authorities also failed to prepare traffic management plans for all roadwork projects. The HSA also found many councils were unclear over their legal requirement to appoint a project supervisor for every road project and about a quarter of councils failed to do so.

Councils were particularly poor at identifying the needs of vulnerable road users, including pedestrians, cyclists and the disabled, with almost two-thirds of sites inspected failing to provide adequate protection for these road users, according to the HSA.

In its correspondence with the councils, the HSA has stipulated local authorities cannot just set temporary speed limits around roadworks - they must also enforce them.

Among the measures councils are advised to consider are the use of road lay-out changes as well as chicanes and speed bumps, where appropriate, to control vehicle speeds at roadworks.

The HSA has the power to investigate temporary road surfaces because they are work places. Along with the Kentstown crash, the HSA is also investigating a crash on a temporary surface in Co Mayo where Aisling Gallagher (22) died after her car apparently skidded.

It is understood that Meath and Mayo county councils are among those the HSA has taken enforcement action against. The HSA brought in two independent road engineers during the inspections.