30 km/h Speed Limit in Dublin - Good News

Dublin City Council is thinking of bringing in a 30 kp/h speed limit to make roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians. This is brilliant news. At speeds less than 30 kp/h people hardly ever get killed in crashes. There will be less noise and emissions and Dublin will be even better than before.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0927/1222419966379.html

ABsolutely brilliant news and should spread to all urban areas.

cactus flower wrote:

Dublin City Council is thinking of bringing in a 30 kp/h speed limit to make roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians. This is brilliant news. At speeds less than 30 kp/h people hardly ever get killed in crashes. There will be less noise and emissions and Dublin will be even better than before.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/0927/1222419966379.html

How many people have been killed in crashed in the city centre?

Given the amount of people around the city it is rare that you hear of an accident involving a pedestrian. The only family friend of ours that has ever died in the city died when knocked over by a cycle courier - they're the worst drivers in the city!

I think its a nice idea but they would be better concentrating their efforts on the mad speed limits down country lanes. By our place in Wexford its 80km/h on the most rural of roads. This contrasts to large sections of the main road down to Wexford which are only 60km/h!

Evening all.

I'm delighted you're all delighted at the reduced speed limit and in theory it's a marvellous idea but it will do nothing about Kamikaze pedestrians. One of the disadvantages of driving in a city like Dublin where the majority of people use public transport is that pedestrians rarely if ever consider things from the driver's perspective and so weave in and out of traffic, cross at dangerous spots and ignore little red men. If you've ever crossed O'Connell Bridge from any angle you'll be familiar with this.

A pedestrian education scheme should go hand-in-hand with any such measures.

Interestingly, the speed limit in the centre of my local town has been reduced to 30km/h for the last couple of months and I'm not sure that it has made an awful lot of difference because it's so gridlocked with traffic a lot of the time anyway. It might be a nice earner for the Gardaí at night when the streets are quiet anyway, but it doesn't stop schoolkids haring across the road when they've looked one way and not the other.

While cactus is right about accidents being less lethal at 30km/h, most accidents that happen in built up areas are not of the lethal kind anyway - rear-endings, people reversing out of parking spaces, pulling out too soon and squashing passenger doors.

So while the theory is nice, I imagine that the difference to be made by reducing city speed limits is going to make very little practical difference to drivers in terms of accident occurrence and won't change the practices of pedestrians.

Do you think we should ban cycle couriers?

No but we should fine them heavily and have them face other sanctions if they dangerously break the rules of the road. One sees them doing this every day of the week. I've been very tempted to hit and run when I see them doing it when I'm driving. Half them deserve to be hit the way they go about their job.

Quote :

No but we should fine them heavily and have them face other sanctions if they dangerously break the rules of the road. One sees them doing this every day of the week. I've been very tempted to hit and run when I see them doing it when I'm driving. Half them deserve to be hit the way they go about their job.

Good luck to you in that one - cyclists are up there with animals and children in the category of those who deserve our unquestioning sympathy in all situations.

Having said that, I'm dusting down the old bike in an effort to get some more fresh-air exercise - even though my knees hate cycling - and can safely say that the tables are turned in rural Ireland where cycling any time but Sunday with the kiddies or on the mountains is a lesser known dare-devil sport undertaken only by the mad, bad or dangerous to know.

We're not all that bad! I cycle in every day.

Cycling in the countryside is great fun. I went for a nice walk in the Dublin Mountains this evening (Cruagh Wood) excellent for clearing your head.

This is good news in terms of safety, but not for the environment.
This means I'm going to have to drive through the city in 3rd gear all the time, instead of 4th, which I do now.
This means my car is going to be emitting even more nasty CO2.

You can do 30 km/h in 4th.

You know I'm not including you in that, Johnfás

I'm reminded of an article written by Bill Bryson who went back to live in the States having been in England for quite a while and being shocked back into the memory that in the suburbs and towns, no one walks anywhere. Equally he was greeted with incredulity on the part of the natives who stopped to offer him a lift and couldn't understand how he'd voluntarily walk anywhere.

It's a bit like that with cycling in the country; unless you're in your glass tights and goggles or are a certain kind of skirt-wearing lady of a certain age (skirts needed to be held in the right hand as one steers with the left) it's just not done. I know I'll be sticking to the narrow laneways. My mother lives a few of miles away and ideally it should be possible to cycle there rather than drive but life isn't so bad that I'd risk visiting her on the bike. I've had too much experience of the rewritten rules of the road which state that in rural Ireland, you only wait for mechanically propelled vehicles to pass before you enter from a side road onto a main road - even at a stop sign on a main junction.

Quote :

This is good news in terms of safety, but not for the environment.
This means I'm going to have to drive through the city in 3rd gear all the time, instead of 4th, which I do now.
This means my car is going to be emitting even more nasty CO2.

AfricanDave, there's also a discussion on p.ie about a proposed EU regulation that would see all drivers obliged to have their headlights on during the day, which they say will lead to extra fuel consumption. I automatically put on the dims when I get into the car but would consider it to be a safer measure than this 30km speed limit because it increases awareness on the part of other drivers. The Irish are notorious for ignoring speed limits anyway and in cities the times you're most likely to make a difference by driving slowly are the times you have no choice but to inch along anyway. Dublin will be a city of night-time kerbcrawlers by legislation...

There used to be a sign as you cross Harold's Cross Bridge telling you to turn your lights on at all times in the city centre. Seems to have disappeared now.

If you have a Scandanavian car (eg Saab) they won't drive without the lights on.

Lets face it, while public transport is still dodgy, the DTO has progressively made driving through the centre of Dublin less and less doable. It is getting to the stage where even visiting culchies like me might be persuaded to give up the car.

The poor quality of the bus service is by far the biggest problem - you can wait twenty five minutes for a bus to make a train connection from the centre of Dublin - it should never, ever, be more than 10 minutes.

Bus service is hit and miss. There are vast areas of the city which are very well service, in fact there are areas which are served too well. Then there are areas served very badly indeed.

johnfás wrote:

There used to be a sign as you cross Harold's Cross Bridge telling you to turn your lights on at all times in the city centre. Seems to have disappeared now.

If you have a Scandanavian car (eg Saab) they won't drive without the lights on.

True. But Sweden has the worst roads in Europe -quite a lot of them are unsurfaced. I drive with mine on because my car is invisible silver (not my choice).
The cheapest way of making cars visible is to paint them a nice bright colour - yellow and red vehicles apparently have far fewer accidents.
Perhaps a few nice bright go faster decals would do just as well as the side lights.

Speed is the prime factor that decides whether people live or die in crashes. I'm shocked how easy you all seem to find it to right off a few dodgy old ladies or wobbly cyclists.

Speed is the prime factor that decides whether people live or die in crashes, correct. However, what I think a few people here are disputing is not whether one is less likely to die if they are hit at 30 km/h but really the necessity of the measure in Dublin city centre. As has been mentioned, you do really hear of very few accidents in Dublin city centre. It is rare that someone is killed there. You do however, hear of accidents on windy country roads with limits of 80 km/h on a weekly basis. I wouldn't be surprised if there was one announced on the news this evening.

Edit:
Here - http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0928/rta.html

johnfás wrote:

Speed is the prime factor that decides whether people live or die in crashes, correct. However, what I think a few people here are disputing is not whether one is less likely to die if they are hit at 30 km/h but really the necessity of the measure in Dublin city centre. As has been mentioned, you do really hear of very few accidents in Dublin city centre. It is rare that someone is killed there. You do however, hear of accidents on windy country roads with limits of 80 km/h on a weekly basis. I wouldn't be surprised if there was one announced on the news this evening.

Edit:
Here - http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0928/rta.html

I've just had a quick look for stats and it seems to be about 30-40 a year (pedestrians and cyclists). Mainly the young or the old. I think that is a shocking number.

Is that the Dublin figure or the national figure for pedestrians and cyclists?

johnfás wrote:

Is that the Dublin figure or the national figure for pedestrians and cyclists?

I had picked up on a bad year: but this is bad enough for anyone I would think:

Quote :

Over the five-year period from 2000 to 2005, 96 vulnerable road users were killed and 3,766 vulnerable road users were injured in collisions in Dublin City, accounting for 83% of all fatalities and 53% of all injuries that involved vulnerable road users (pedestrians, cyclists and motor cyclists)

http://www.paueducation.com/charter/index.php?page=doc&doc_id=1016&doclng=2&menuzone=6

I agreed that it might be a good solution. However, my main point was that it appears to be a lack of focus. If 96 pedestrians died over a 5 year period and that accounted for 83% of deaths on Dublin roads then over that 5 year period 115 people died on Dublin roads over those 5 years. That, over a 5 year period, is less than a third of the annual death toll on Irish roads despite about a third living in the Dublin area.

It would seem to me that therefore, the primary focus of all measures should be outside Dublin. That is not that we should ignore Dubln.

johnfás wrote:

I agreed that it might be a good solution. However, my main point was that it appears to be a lack of focus. If 96 pedestrians died over a 5 year period and that accounted for 83% of deaths on Dublin roads then over that 5 year period 115 people died on Dublin roads over those 5 years. That, over a 5 year period, is less than a third of the annual death toll on Irish roads despite about a third living in the Dublin area.

It would seem to me that therefore, the primary focus of all measures should be outside Dublin. That is not that we should ignore Dubln.

I'm not suggesting that us culchies should be ignored. But Dublin City Council can't help us. I'm a great believer in picking the easy fruit off the low branches, and its a lot easier to cut deaths in towns and cities than it is to control what is happening on thousands of miles of rural roads.

Plus, I think the environment in Dublin would be more relaxed and enjoyable.

cactus flower wrote:

johnfás wrote:

I agreed that it might be a good solution. However, my main point was that it appears to be a lack of focus. If 96 pedestrians died over a 5 year period and that accounted for 83% of deaths on Dublin roads then over that 5 year period 115 people died on Dublin roads over those 5 years. That, over a 5 year period, is less than a third of the annual death toll on Irish roads despite about a third living in the Dublin area.

It would seem to me that therefore, the primary focus of all measures should be outside Dublin. That is not that we should ignore Dubln.

I'm not suggesting that us culchies should be ignored. But Dublin City Council can't help us. I'm a great believer in picking the easy fruit off the low branches, and its a lot easier to cut deaths in towns and cities than it is to control what is happening on thousands of miles of rural roads.

Plus, I think the environment in Dublin would be more relaxed and enjoyable.

Wouldn't banning cars and making everybody walk around in their slippers male the environment in Dublin would be more relaxed and enjoyable?

Typical introduce an abritary law that can`t be enforced and that will ultimately lower respect for the law rather than actually tackle the route causes of fatal accidents and tackling dangerous drivers.

Typical introduce an abritary law that can`t be enforced and that will ultimately lower respect for the law rather than actually tackle the route causes of fatal accidents and tackling dangerous drivers.