Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I think Mr. Rowland is absolutely correct and, on the other end of it, if we all drove to Cork at 10 miles per hour, it would take us an awful lot longer and there would probably be fewer accidents. There is a balance to be struck. If I saw everybody driving at 50 km/h in the 50 km/h zones, that would be a great achievement, because at the moment they are not. Speed limits on very few of the roads within Dublin City Council's territory are higher than 50 km/h. The speed limit on a road I used to know in Mount Merrion, Foster Avenue, used to be 60 km/h and it was reduced to 50 km/h, and I would not be sure that everyone drives at 50 km/h on it all day long. The same is true of Mount Anville Road, which has a big hill on it. These are roads I know well but I could give plenty of examples. A lot of people who drive on the Stillorgan dual carriageway at 10 o'clock on a nice, sunny Sunday morning will think they should be able to drive at more than 60 km/h. Where it is safe, perhaps at different times of the day, I would like to see something different. Maybe at 10 p.m. on a nice, dry evening, 60 km/h, 70 km/h or 80 km/h should be tolerated on a wide dual carriageway with low levels of traffic while, at the same time, other road limits could be much lower. We need buy-in because if we tell everyone they have to drive at 30 km/h and everyone ignores it, they might just as easily go to 60 km/h or 65 km/h. There is a challenge there and it is about road conditions, education and so on.

Accidents seem to be happening in rural areas, with younger people, mostly male. Is that correct? Where are accidents and fatalities happening? We spend all this money on high-visibility policing, speed cameras on the M8 and so on. We were going to our party's think-in in Horse and Jockey and there was a big speed camera making sure we all knew they were there and that was fine, but a lot of accidents seem to happen off peak, in darkness. Maybe it is mostly older cars that have not passed the national car test, NCT, or maybe they are drivers who do not have full licences. In order that we can remind everybody, who is most at risk and where are they most at risk?