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2003 Financial Times Information All rights reserved Global News Wire - Europe Intelligence Wire Copyright 2003 Irish Independent Irish Independent July 7, 2003 LENGTH: 296 words HEADLINE: SPEED LIMIT HIKE 'WON'T INCREASE ACCIDENTS' BODY: ROAD safety groups last night defended a proposal to increase the country'stop speed limit to 75mph on motorways, saying it won't increase the likelihood of accidents. The recommendation to increase motorway speed limits to 120km/h (74.5mph) is oneelement of a report being prepared by a government review group, whose task is to assess the country's speed limits and change them to the metric system operating on other EU countries' motorways. The group - which was set up last March by Transport Minister Seamus Brennan and includes representatives of the National Safety Authority,AA Roadwatch, the gardai and local authorities - is responding to a government promisemade to the EU to change all road signs to kilometres. Ireland's motorway speed limits are currently 70mph. The 120km/h recommendation is ineffect rounding the 70mph speed limit up to meet the motorway speed limits in operation across the EU. Although excessive speeding has been identified as the leading cause of car accidentshere, Conor Faughnan of AA Roadwatch yesterday insisted that if the 120km/h limit was implemented it wouldn't have a negative affect on road safety. "It is a stupid distortion tofocus on the review group's motorway speed recommendation as these roads are by far the safest ones we have. In the conversion to kilometres per hour some speed limits willgo up, while others will go down. "It also makes perfect sense to completely review the country's speed limits, as they vary chaotically in areas," he said. This view was supported by Brian Farrell of the NationalSafety Council. He said, however, that the proposed increase might never take place asthe report being prepared by the Government's review group was still in the draft stage. Bill Corcoran JOURNAL-CODE: FII LOAD-DATE: July 7, 2003 -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Tom Wade VMS Systems Sent: Thursday, 2003 July 10 13:46 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:26281] Irish speed limits >A government committee is assessing all existing speed limits in view >of their >coming metrication. I spoke on the phone to the person chairing this committee about its progress. The report should be delivered to the Minister by the end of July. >Limits will be rationalised. At present there are bad >country roads with a 60 mph limit and stretches of motorway or other high >quality roads with a 30 mph limit. Yesterday I read in the Irish Examiner about >a Garda (police) speed trap on a high quality road with a 30 mph limit. They >were writing away, having a real field day. Everyone agrees the current limits are not consistent. Since the recent introduction of 'penalty points' after many years of poor enforcement, they are realizing that they have to make sense if they are going to be obeyed. I was glad to hear that Conor Faughnan of the AA was on this committee. His presence should at least prevent widespread rounding down of the limits. The fact that 120 km/h is being suggested rather than 110 km/h is also promising. The amount of activity and publicity this time around has me much more optimistic that this time it will be done. >One proposal is to increase the >speed limit on the motorways from 70 mph to 120 km/h. This piece was leaked, and appeared on the front page of the Sunday Times. It makes sense to increase the motorway speed, provided it is to be enforced (our problems are caused not by limits that are too high, but by limits that are widely ignored and poorly enforced). The article seemed to find this controversial. Interestingly enough, there was no controversy at all about the actual metric changeover itself (the article did mention the metric units, although the did use 'kph'). There seems to be no opposition at all to this aspect, which from this forum's point of view is the most significant thing. >This is the speed om most >European motorways, ... 130 km/h in France, 120 will do me. >A sector that is not progressing at all is tiles and carpets. Almost >everything >is priced by the square yard, no metric in sight. I wrote to the Director of Consumer Affairs about this in light of a recent directive mandating unit pricing. They wrote back to confirm that pricing by the square yard or the lb (some butchers still do it) does not fulfill the requirements (use of imperial is permitted only if metric pricing is given too). I intend formally complaining to the ODCA after checking with local carpet shops. The problem, of course, is that price per square yard looks cheaper. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom Wade | EMail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] EuroKom | X400: g=tom;s=wade;o=eurokom;p=eurokom; Unit A2 | a=eirmail400;c=ie Nutgrove Office Park | Tel: +353 (1) 296-9696 Rathfarnham | Fax: +353 (1) 296-9697 Dublin 14 | Disclaimer: This is not a disclaimer Ireland | Tip: "Friends don't let friends do Unix !"
