Cars to be fitted with speed limiters from July 2022.

on the continent its common that cars switch to the other lane leaving cars free to merge. I know a lot of foreign people that I work with all give out about irish drivers not doing this.

Even I think its a stupid rule. I always switch to the overtaking lane to let cars merge on motorways...too many times I have been behind some muppet doing 50kph trying to merge onto a 120kph motorway and they pull out in front of a stream of cars forcing them to change lanes and being completely oblivious to what they've just done.

I think it's gas that there's uproar over electric scooters and having their speeds capped because they are so dangerous, apparently, yet limiting cars to the actual speed limits is seen as crazy woke nonsense, even though there is still mayhem on the roads all the time. Look at all the folks who died over Xmas, I would think speed was a factor in most of these accidents.

The reason it's seen as crazy is because of the statistics on the causes of accidents don't justify it. This is a ridiculous sledgehammer being brought in to tackle a cause of only 6% of accidents. A 110db klaxon going off if a drivers eyes leave the road for more than 2 seconds while the car is in motion would likely save vastly more lives, or a continuous exhaled air sensor for the driver that prevented it's use if alcohol is detected would have a vastly more profound effect.

This fact free obsession with speeding is beyond farcical when 80+% of accidents are caused by distraction. Making talking in a car forbidden and having a mechanism to monitor for and 'disable' it, would, I believe, have more of a benefit.

It's like having a statistic that 94% of all burglaries being caused by people over 183cm tall and the police only stopping and questioning suspicious looking midgets in a campaign to tackle burglaries.

"This fact free obsession with speeding is beyond farcical when 80+% of accidents are caused by distraction"

Absolutely agree. Next obligatory feature in cars should be driver facing cameras so in case of any accident you will see if they were looking at the road or their phone.

That isn't reflected in the statistics.

Deaths per 100,000 vehicles per year:

Norway - 3

UK - 5.7

Australia - 7.4

Ireland - 7.5

Canada - 8.9

US - 14.2

"Urban speed limits" implies that 98% applies to 30, 50, 60 and possibly even 80km/h limits. But that 98% figure refers to 30km/h zones only - which even DCC accuse the Gardai of not bothering to enforce. We can throw big scary numbers about all day long, but they mean next to nothing if they are so specific that bear no reflection on reality. All that happens when jumping to seemingly big impact stats is that you lose the room, and with it any genuine message you're trying to send.

This is coming very soon. I have one of those camera in my hand right now in fact.

Just when I think you can't possibly say anything more stupid than you have to date, you go and prove me wrong.

"Drivers Aged 50-65 get the Best Rates

Insurance companies believe that drivers in this age range provide little to no risk of getting into an accident. Drivers at this age tend to be cautious of other drivers on the road. They also understand traffic laws and take fewer risks while driving."

"Fact: Among drivers 75 and older, 3% are involved in all crashes, 8% in fatal crashes, the lowest among age categories. Compare these numbers to the 18% and 16% rates for 35-44 year olds, the group I assumed was the safest." https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/calm-brain/201304/are-older-drivers-safe

https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/truth-age-group-really-most-15789954

85% of all serious raod accidents in the Uk are caused by male drivers under 25.

What data are yo basing this on? The 85% of serious accidents being caused by male drivers under the age of 25? Unbelievable....

This has been explained to you previously. "Excessive speed" in RSA parlance refers to (an arbitrary judgement that) a driver was driving at a speed too fast for the conditions (a safe speed may be well below the limit), and not to exceeding the posted speed limit. The best data available to us indicates that only a minority of "excessive speed" crashes are primarily due to driving in excess of the limit - i.e. this nanny state nonsense will not do anything to prevent the vast majority of crashes and may in fact make things worse (as a driver of a car with a bang up to date similar system, they simply aren't reliable in determining the correct limit).

I know that slipway theres another one at ennis, they are absolutely lethal. It's not the speed limiters that would cause the accident its the ridiculously designed slipways

• Excessive speed was a contributory factor in 1 in 3 fatal collisions between 2008 and 2012. This may not have been the sole cause of the collision. 

What percentage did excessive speed play in the collison, or was it incidental? Did they hit a tree at 90km/h in an 80km/h zone because thy were on the phone, but hitting it at 70km/h would have killed the driver anyway? 1/3 is too simplistic a figure IMO.

• of this number 19% cited excessive speed as the sole contributory factor. 

So 6.27% of crashes were caused by "excessive speed" alone.

Of those, how many were excessive, but below the posted speed limit?

Car crashes are. But from such a proponent of (currently unreliable) technology, I'd be interested to hear the answers to the following:

• Of the 1/3rd of fatal road collisions where "excessive speed" was a contributing factor, what percentage of these were driving below the posted limit?
• Of the 6.27% of fatal road collisions where "excessive speed" whas the sole contributing factor, what percentage of these were driving below the posted limit?

The RSA are very careful in their language to state excessive speed, rather than "exceeding the posted speed limit". The two are very different.

Speed limiters are only as good as the posted limit.

As an example, I know this place off the top of my head. 30km/h is just about safe to do here. https://www.google.com/maps/@53.5183933,-8.8330604,3a,75y,89.38h,78.96t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sZRLs3X_oMZqfBkKsiB5KcA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

The posted limit is only somewhat related to the actual safe speed that an average driver can safely navigate the road. It's sometimes due to local complaints (to raise and lower the limit), noise pollution, traffic flow, expected weather conditions, and to direct drivers toward primary routes (I recall that the old N4 or N6 had it's limit lowered, where people would leave the M6 or M6 to skip the toll).

"Speeding" to most people means exceeding the posted limit. Mandatory speed limiters reinforce that thinking.

Boiling down road safety to a vague primary cause of "speeding" (ie: exceeding the limit) actually does little to help the population's understanding of why and how excessive speed, amongst other things, contributes to crashes.

You've posted the RSA headline stats which refer to "excessive speed".

I'm asking for a the link between that excessive speed, and the effectiveness of mandatory speed limiters. (which are based on the posted limit.).

Your last two posts are deflection from this question, but I believe it's an important one in determining whether speed limiters will be valuable in reducing road deaths in Ireland.

Where have I sad that there is no value in speed limiters? Pure strawmanning.

So you're happy to repeatedly post their headline stats, imply that they're applicable to this argument, but then deflect when it's pointed out that their definition of "excessive speed" is not the same as the "exceeding the posted limit".

When you say "speeding" above, do you mean:

A) driving above a safe speed for the road conditions (ie: "excessive"), or

B) driving above the posted limit?

You're using stats for A), to help justify introduction of laws related to B) only.

There is reason why their bulletins do *not* say "exceeding the posted limit was a factor in 1/3 of crashes". So I can only conclude that they're referring to A), which I actually happen to agree with for the most part.

Some of the reason I'm pointing out this difference, is that the RSA themselves seem to specifially differentiate between the two.

I don't have much issue with a reliable and safe speed limiter, my 200km one way commute is quiet motorway door to door. I turn on cruise control to 120km/h and relax.

Good spot!

These types of edge cases can and do cause problems, particularly if the tech isn't totally reliable. We can't launch blindly into this if there are obvious issues.

Will a car on cruise control hit the brakes hard? Will it ease off the throttle?

Infrastructure design is a big part of it too. We need to be looking at how our roads and cities are designed so that we make the enevitable switch to autonomous cars safer.