The Government is to consider a plan to reduce road speeds across the country in the wake of several deaths on Irish roads.
It comes after a senior Garda said reducing speed limits on some rural roads should be looked at as a way to tackle rising crash death rates.
Assistant Commissioner for Roads Policing Paula Hilman said increased Garda enforcement would not on its own reduce fatalities, as she stressed the need for more education on road safety.
As of Thursday morning, there had been 125 fatalities on Irish roads so far this year, an increase of 24 compared with the same period in 2022 and 39 more than the same period in 2019.
Around a third of the fatalities in 2023 were among young people under the age of 25.
There have been more than 600 “serious” road collisions so far this year, meaning people had suffered life-changing injuries.
Eleven people have died on the roads in the six days from last Friday.
Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan has said that “one of the key responses” to address the increase in road fatalities was to look at speeding.
Road redesign
He told RTÉ Radio One that this was part of the programme for government commitment to “review and reduce speed limits, where appropriate, to address both road safety issues and carbon emissions, and ensure greater compliance”.
He said that he and junior minister Jack Chambers are planning to bring a memo on the topic to Government shortly, as “every kilometre of speed we can reduce reduces the risk of it being a fatality or (of) serious injury”.
He added: “I think that’s one mechanism that we can do quickly. We’ve been working on it for some time now.
“So that’s one key measure, that we can help reduce the amount of injuries.”
He said that another way would be to redesign Irish roads to make them safer, as there has been an increase in the number of deaths among pedestrian and motorcyclists.
Assistant Commissioner Hilman described this week as “one of the most tragic weeks on the roads for a very long time”.
The senior officer stressed that investigations into the recent fatalities were ongoing and her comments on road safety were made in general terms, not in relation to the collisions over the last week.
She said speed was a factor in the overall rising death rates in Ireland.
“It’s not people just over the speed limit,” Ms Hilman told RTÉ Radio One’s Today With Claire Byrne show.
“If we look at the August bank holiday weekend, I was looking back on that, and we detected over 1,700 people speeding during that one bank holiday weekend, but one person was doing more than 200km an hour, you know so it’s not ‘Oh, I was just over’.”
Asked if gardaí supported reducing speed limits on rural roads, Ms Hilman said: “Ultimately the decision will be for government and then we will, as the national policing service, we will enforce whatever is decided, but yes, I do think that it has warranted looking at.”
Ms Hilman’s comments came after another senior Garda urged passengers who do not feel safe to tell drivers to slow down, and warned drivers not to use their phones while driving.
“Using the road is probably the most dangerous thing you will do on any given day,” Superintendent Liam Geraghty said.
When asked what had caused the increase in road deaths this year, Mr Geraghty said there had been an increase in the number of collisions where there had been multiple fatalities.
“I haven’t seen full level research into why that is happening at the moment. But certainly our levels of drink and drug-driving seem to be increasing.”
Mr Geraghty said that as of Wednesday, An Garda Síochána had carried out 27,000 checkpoints so far this year, and detected 5,100 people driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, with a further 105,000 people detected breaking the speed limit.
More than 12,500 people have been issued with fixed charge penalty notices for using phones, but Mr Geraghty said a bigger problem was “distracted driving”.
He said that phones automatically connecting with a car, people watching videos while driving, and drivers being distracted by other things, such as by passengers in the car, are also a concern.
Mr Geraghty added: “The basic message will be to people to slow down.
“That does not mean don’t break the speed limit. It means slow down and drive at an appropriate speed to the weather, the vehicle, the road and traffic conditions that you find yourself in at any particular time.”
He said 29 of the total number of people who had died on the roads this year were passengers.
Mr Geraghty said: “People who have no say in what has actually happened in relation to road traffic collisions – but they do have a say.
“If you’re the passenger in a vehicle, you have a say … you can speak up, you can ask the driver to slow down if you’re not feeling safe, you can ask them to drive a little bit more carefully.
“Drivers also need to take responsibility; it’s not just themselves, it’s the other people in their vehicle.”
He added: “It’s not a right to hold a driver’s licence, it’s a privilege.”
