30k speed limits for all urban areas on the way

The problem isn't a problem.

There is no widespread public support for a default urban limit of 30 km/h. The public consultation for the Dublin City proposals for same demonstrated that and even the normally cloud dwelling officials in Dublin City Council decided to waste no further energy on it and consign it to the bin.

There was no widespread public support for the workplace smoking ban, but very few people would want to go back on that now.

What problem would this solve?

Why would you drive at 30kph in top gear???

Lugging is bad for your engine. Drive in the correct gear for your speed

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/videos/a30431/lugging-bad-for-engine/

That's a poorly designed experiment. A single vehicle driving slower than the speed limit would likely dis improve traffic flow as it causes a bottleneck. If all cars drive at about 30kph that bottleneck isn't created and flow can potentially improve at junctions.

Every second you spend stationary at a junction means you have to drive much faster to make up that time later on. Reducing the time spent stationary could easily offset the slower top speed which the car is only achieving a small part of the time in urban areas

Lol. Those murderous cyclists must be stopped!

You really like telling other people what to do, don’t you, It’s my car I’ll drive it as I like. And I’ll guarantee you I could drive circles around you in whatever eco friendly crate you inhabit.

Drive behind the car at 30mph if the car is getting farther away, they're speeding. At least that's how I would have done it

Don’t think I can’t do it 👿 😂

More Dublin fanciful Dublin rules for non Dubliners to endure.

London buses actually have a device fitted that prevents bus drivers from exceeding the speed limit so say in a 30km zone sensors will read that and bus won't do more than 30km/ph.

https://londonroadsafetycouncil.org.uk/londons-buses-to-be-fitted-with-speed-limiting-technology/

It takes 5 minutes to update so if you go from a 30 zone to 50 zone bus will stay at 30km/ph for the next 5 mins even if the driver absolutely floors it. Only a matter of time before the NTA get this on DB/GAI buses likely on the new electric buses and no doubt won't amend running times to consider this. More grief for bus drivers I expect.

Why you don't drive recklessly or run out in front of traffic don't ya think. Shouldn't be punishing the many for the crimes of a few.

This has nothing to do with safety. In Ireland there are over 300,000,000 vehicle-kilometres between fatalities. https://etsc.eu/14th-annual-road-safety-performance-index-pin-report/

No-one is endangered strictly by "cars driving at 50km/h" as there is ALWAYS another cause. Either the driver of the car is doing something to create danger (like disobeying a traffic or directional control, failing to yield when required, failing to keep in lane etc) or another road user is doing something to create danger. And I am not aware of any area of life other than motoring where we punish (or propose to punish) the entire group as a collective (2.8 million in the case of drivers in Ireland) for the actions of a tiny minority, some of whom aren't even in the group (in the case of accidents caused by pedestrians/cyclists).

Is there another area of life where so many individuals have the power to cause injury, serious bodily harm and death through a moment's inattention?

97% of drivers speed according to RSA figures. 67% admit to using a mobile phone. You can't call law-breaking drivers a 'tiny minority'.

Ah yes, there are similar amounts of airline pilots, sports shooters and drivers in the world. What an odd comparison.

Those fields are heavily regulated because there are so few of them. I can't imagine every Irish driver requiring a co-driver being a popular move, but if that's what you're suggesting...

So much to unpack here. First: "making our roads safe" is fine provided that the measures are reasonable and proportionate, which broad 30kph limits are not. I'm not sure how expecting rules to make sense makes me a "self entitled" "selfish muppet" driver with a victim complex or whatever other cheap insults you can think of.

As to the climate crisis, forcing everyone to crawl everywhere is going to cause more climate-killing carbon emissions in the short term, because driving at stupidly low speeds for no reason uses more fuel than driving at reasonable speeds. The climate argument is of limited value anyway since the government is going to ban cars with engines in the near future, and anyone who still drives will have to have a car that does not emit CO2. Even if the climate argument were relevant, the fact is that the Western world will not be a significant source in the future. Even now, China emits more CO2 than the United States, Western Europe and Japan combined, and their emissions are only going up as are those of India. Even if forcing motorists to crawl had a positive effect (it won't) it would make no difference in the broader picture.

If you have a problem with the modal share of students commuting to school, I would direct you to look at countries where education is properly planned such that any student who is too far from their designated school to walk is guaranteed a place on a school bus. Ireland's education system is, if I'm being generous, somewhat piecemeal, I did touch on this on other threads. A lot of times families have to find some random school that "has a place" for a child and then they have to make their own travel plans - this is not common in places where education is planned properly.

As to using fatalities as a metric, yes they're useful. Firstly because they are quantifiable and objective, rather than the airy-fairy "perception of safety" type claims in your post. Second, cyclist jihadis here have used fatalities as a metric, one of them hijacked every thread about cyclists behaviour with "but muh motorists kill 2 or 3 people every week" as if it were some kind of collaborative effort between all of Ireland's 2.8 million motorists. So yes, fatalities are a relevant metric because anti-motorist activists have invoked them explicitly.

As to my issue: it's very simple. I want speed limits to be reasonable and not unduly low or lowered without good reason. 30kph limits may be justified in some places, e.g. timed limits for schools around bell time, fixed 30kph limits on town centre main streets, residential estates, side streets. Elsewhere, not so much.

As I understand current rules, the default speed limit is 50kph in any kind of built up area and if there is to be something different, that has to be justified. IMO that seems fair: if you want everyone to crawl on some road, there has to be a reason. The change that is being suggested is that every road in any kind of built up area (even arterial roads far away from urban cores) would have its limit reduced to 30kph because that would be the new default limit. I don't foresee that many exceptions being given (as that would defeat the entire purpose) so yes, I would hold the view that the majority of roads "would not get a fair decision."

The irony of this poster moaning about "self entitled motorists" when he has openly (and proudly) admitted elsewhere on this site this week that he cycles on the bus lane of a major urban dual carriageway, blocking the progress of buses carrying 50+ people despite what appears in the video he posted to be a perfectly serviceable cycle lane alongside! Of course he's "entitled" to do this......

20 mph = 32.2 km/h

These pernicious limits will not be permitted to expand the money making racket that are many arbitrary and groundless speed limits in Ireland.

The current situation of a 50 km/h urban default limit, with exceptions both upwards and downwards under bye-law is absolutely satisfactory.

Our road accident statistics simply do not demand a generalised and radical lowering of the default urban limit.

How many lives are lost on commute routes at commute times? Given fatalities in a year are only 131 (2021) for the entire country, your few minutes extra commute time on hundreds of thousands of people probably will achieve absolutely nothing, except reduce a lot of peoples useful lifespans when you add up these delays over a working life.