New road rules criticised as 'knee-jerk reaction'

Members of Mayo County Council continue to voice their opposition to the national speed limit review, which proposes to reduce the default speed limit on national secondary roads from 80km/hr to 60km/hr.

The issue was raised at meetings of the council and Ballina Municipal District last week after it emerged that the review has now been delayed until February 1, 2025, at the earliest after it had been originally scheduled to come into effect in November.

Cllr Michael Loftus said he was not surprised to see the Government delay the implementation of the speed change, adding that it was also not surprising they have yet to make significant movement on the phase of the scheme focused on urban areas, where default limits will reduce from 50km/hr to 30km/her.

“It has been said that councillors don’t care about safety on the roads but it is a huge priority of ours. The reduction to 60km/hr is a knee-jerk reaction. It is going make people impatient and lead to more accidents,” he said. “The Government moved this on to February because they know the knee-jerk reaction is wrong.”

Cllr Loftus said greater levels of enforcement would help to tackle road safety issues.

“The rules aren’t being enforced by Gardaí because they don’t have the resources. It is crazy to do this in rural areas and it has to be addressed by our TDs. We need to put more Gardaí on the roads.”

He said setting speed limits was a reserve function of elected representatives and it was now stripped away from them.