Road deaths increased by 23% from 2022 to 2023.
Many Irish roads are set to have lowered speed limits, by 20km/h in some areas, due to the increase of road deaths in 2023. According to An Garda Siochana, as of September 5th, there have been 127 killed, and 117 collisions, in comparison to the 103 killed in 2022, and the 98 collisions.
In conversation with Morning Ireland, Minister of State at the Department of Transport Jack Chambers explained the proposed changes, in an effort to reduce road deaths.
The proposed changes are as such:
- Speed limits will be lowered from 100 km/h to 80 km/h on national secondary roads
- Speed limits will be lowered from 80km/h to 60km/h on rural roads
- In towns, cities and built up areas, the limit will be 30km/h
- Roads on the outskirts or arterial routes around urban areas will have a limit of 50km/h.
Motorway speed limits of 120km/h and national road speed limits of 100km/h are likely to stay as they are.
The change in speed limits are unlikely to come in until the second half of 2024, due to the scale of implementing legislation like this on almost 100,000 kilometres of road.
Header image via Getty
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