Our national road speed limit signage does not make sense

Last October, after 50 years of blameless, accident-free, summons-free, mostly sedate driving as befits my age, I suddenly acquired a criminal record: two penalty points and an €80 fine for speeding.

I paid up and resolved to pay more attention to speed limits and cameras on the 15-mile ordeal of the coast road R336 whose gauntlet I must occasionally run to get to Galway (access to public transport is confined to a single daily bus).

Despite my extra care, within three weeks, an extra three points and €80 were added to my record. It demanded closer investigation before I would resignedly pay up again.

My research over the past months has revealed that on this fairly good regional road there is, on average, a speed change every 1.5 miles, varying from 50 to 60 to 80kph. That is, ten changes of speed. But along this stretch I also counted 89 feeder boreens, all twisting lanes with a standard speed limit of 80Kph! To drive at half that speed would be suicidal. On these picturesque byroads live the majority of the local population (I counted 52 modern dwellings on one boreen). Three of my grandchildren live on one such death trap. It does not make sense.

The R336 is a microcosm of the national road system.

In 2012 a Dept of Transport working group was charged with investigating the problem – which has existed since metrification in 2005 when a one-size-fits-all policy was adopted. It reported that the national road signage was ‘inconsistent and inappropriate’. It referred to ‘anomalies…whereby drivers encounter locations where the nature, design and layout of the road does not change but the speed limit does.’

This situation was highlighted by the Road Safety Authority in 2009 and by the Department of Transport in 2011.

But there appears to be total inaction by the local authorities. .

I wrote to nine local councilors and spoke to three; they were unanimous in their condemnation of the situation but expressed helplessness.

I learned that it would take €8 million to remedy the situation – nationally. The speed cameras are estimated to cost €65m over five years but will earn €75m over that period.

Veteran drivers like myself recognise the absolute necessity of speed limitations but the latter must appeal to our commonsense.

The only method of formal appeal is to go to court.

Presently I await my first ever summons.

Bob Quinn

Béal an Daingin

Conamara