>1. The report from the working group will go to the minister within two >weeks. >2. The DOT wants metric speed limits in place next summer. > >Brennan supports lowering rural speed limit
The recent publicity about this was sparked by the introduction of penalty points for the offense of not wearing a seatbelt, which came into effect last Monday (seatbelt conformance is still surprisingly poor here). The Minister was interviewed on the radio, and the subject of the speed limits also came up. Since the recent introduction of penalty points for speeding, many people have for the first time actually started to take notice of the speed limits. This has focussed attention on the totally inconsistent nature of such limits, in which some perfectly good carriageways have 40 or even 30 MPH limits, whereas tiny rural roads less than 3 m wide have limits of 60 MPH. Because of this, the main focus of the DOT report before the Minister will try to address this. Since this will involve widespread change of signs, the report also recommends (and the Minister seems to support this) that the new signs be in km/h rather than MPH. I have been in regular contact with the DTO, and when the report is before the Minister I intend to apply under the FOI for a copy of it, and I will give a summary to this list when I get it. So far, it seems the main points will be: * increase the motorway limit from 70 MPH to 120 km/h * decrease the 'default' 60 MPH speed limit to 80 km/h, which will apply mainly to small single carriageway rural roads. * limits near schools to be set to 30 km/h or possibly 40 km/h. * adjust other limits up or down on a case-by-case basis. The above are *not* authoritative, although the Minister did refer to them. Most of the focus has been on the limits themselves, rather than the units to be used. There has been remarkably little said either for or against conversion to metric, with the prevailing view seeming to be that if we are going to change all the signs, then it makes sense to take the opportunity to modernize the units too. These signs (no pun intended) are quite good. Whereas the DOT was reluctant to embark on an expensive project to change speed signs for the sole purpose of metrication, it is quite happy for metric signs to be used if there is another reason to undertake the task. The pressure to reform the inconsistencies in the limits is providing this impetus, and therefore I am quite optimistic that this won't be yet another deadline that will be studiously ignored. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom Wade | EMail: tee dot wade at eurokom dot ie 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 !"
