Criticism of upcoming Mayo speed limit changes

There has been further criticism in Mayo of the upcoming national speed limit review, which will see speed limits drop on many roads throughout every county in Ireland.

At last week’s meeting of the Claremorris-Swinford Municipal District, Aontú Cllr Paul Lawless said he was totally opposed to the "blanket approach" being used by the Department of Transport in reducing speed limits.

Under Phase 1 of this initiative, the majority of local roads will change from 80km to 60km. Phase 2 will see national secondary roads being reduced to 80km from 100km and the third phase will see urban speed limits reduced from 50km to 30km. Roads that meet certain criteria set out by the Department can be given special speed limits to maintain their pre-review speed.

Cllr Lawless said Mayo Co Council needs to proactively look at the criteria to ensure that the national secondary roads remain at 100km.

“This is a shocking level of dictation to us,” he said.

Cllr Damien Ryan said he fears that lowering the speed limits on national secondary roads is going to introduce a risk that did not exist previously.

“Whoever came up with this one-size-fits-all approach will create more risk and will put our statistics in the wrong direction,” he said. “This is an erosion of a reserve function of elected members and we have no say in this at all.” 

Cllr Lawless added that the lack of enforcement was the biggest issue.

“If people still drive at 120km down byroads and local roads then changing the speed limit is irrelevant. The government will pat themselves on the back because they appear to be doing something,” he said.

The council's Head of Roads Tom Gilligan said the speed limit reductions are part of Vision Zero, a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries. The World Health Organisation estimated that a five per cent reduction in speed would lead to a 30% reduction in road deaths. However, he added that enforcement would be equally important.