Westmeath County Councillors agreed to reduce speed limits on over 1,900km of local roads by 20kph following a long discussion about what was branded a “crisis in our country.”
Approval was unanimous after an hour of consideration to reduce the speed limits on rural local roads, urban areas, and national secondary roads.
A presentation given by Neil Egerton, the Executive Engineer from the Transportation Department at Westmeath County Council, at the meeting on Monday, 22 July, where he outlined plans for the council to commence a review of speed limits of rural local roads, in accordance with the Road Traffic Act of 2004 which became law in April of this year.
The default speed limits for the roads would mean that rural local road speed limits would reduce to 60kph, urban area roads reducing to 30kph, and national secondary roads reducing to 80kph.
It was revealed that 85% of the county’s roads will reduce from 80kph to 60kph under the default speed limits.
Commencement dates for the speed limits are the end of November 2024 for rural local roads, and the first half of 2025 for urban areas and national secondary roads.
During the council discussions, councillors highlighted various issues which they considered important in relation to the problem with Ireland’s growing accident and death rate on our roads.
Road safety has been a prominent issue in Westmeath in recent weeks following the double tragedy in Castlepollard in early July 2024, and the passing away of Marcin Nowosielski, and Texan tourist, Joe Marroquin, in separate incidents.
CRISIS
Cllr Aengus O’Rourke labelled the situation as “a crisis in our country in relation to the carnage we hear about almost daily on our roads.”
The Fianna Fáil councillor continued: “Ireland is very much an outlier in Europe. Road deaths were falling by between 2-4% last year whereas in Ireland, road deaths were increasing by 19%. Over 180 people died last year.
“Those type of figures were up by 23% of where we were in 2019 so we are in an absolute crisis.
“That’s not to mention all of those who are long term maimed in many ways and are no longer able to work. The devastation it brings onto families is just unspeakable.”
SCHOOL SAFETY
Cllr Denis Leonard called for more funding from national government to implement traffic calming features in local towns and villages to slow down traffic, especially outside school areas.
The implementation of speed ramps was something considered important by Cllr Andrew Duncan.
“They’re cheap and they work,” said the Fine Gael councillor. “There should be speed ramps outside of every school. It is such a simple solution.”
Cllr Aoife Davitt said that reducing the speed limits couldn’t just be a “tokenistic measure” and that she would be interested to see the investment, whilst also warning about the dangers of drink-driving.
“Just by reducing the speed limits is not going to be the answer to it,” commented the Mullingar councillor. ”In 2019, there were 316,000 who were breathalysed. In 2023, 166,000 were breathalysed, and even though that number reduced by half, there was a 5% increase of people who actually were detected for alcohol use.”
