Excessive speed on Leitrim roads a big issue

Cllr Felim Gurn said that he was told that a motorist travelled through Lurganboy village at 150km/h at a recent meeting where he brought up the issue of speed through towns and villages throughout the county. 

Speaking at the latest Leitrim Joint Policing Committee meeting, he said speeding is an issue affecting many towns and villages in the district and suggested introducing 30km/h speed limits. 

Inspector Carla Curry responded that the Leitrim Roads Policing unit conduct speed checks as do the frontline Gardaí and said she could "highlight these areas and bring it to their attention and can have a meeting with the council's roads section to see if there is something we can do."

Cllr Enda McGloin, who chaired the meeting, welcomed this response and said a "meeting with the main engineers in the council that we address road safety issues with; meeting with yourselves would be very productive where councillors have mentioned roads where there is excessive speed."

Martin Kenny TD noted that the Road Traffic Bill 2024, which will lower default speed limits, has been passed by the Dail and Seanad and has been sent to the President to be signed. 

Speed limits will still be set by a process that includes councillors approving the changes, but the default limits will be lowered, including on national secondary roads, from 100km/h to 80km/h; on local rural roads, from 80km/h to 60 km/h; and on roads in urban areas from 50km/h to 30km/h.

Deputy Kenny said that while the speed limit in a particular location "may be quite appropriate, but the problem is that people are not keeping it and if you lower it, they're still not going to keep it unless there is some deterrent and they are afraid they are going to be caught."

He added, "Really that's about having enough Gardaí in places to monitor the roads and make sure we have enforcement of the laws in place."

Joseph Gilhooly, interim Chief Executive of Leitrim County Council, said that council would be "fully available to engage with An Garda Síochána to identify what the key priority areas are from an infrastructural point of view."

He noted, "We also have the Road Safety Committee that continues to operate between the organisations looking at road safety issues."

Cllr Gurn said that when the speed limits are changed he'd like to see "ramps and strips in some of the villages because it will slow down the cars."

Cllr Brendan Barry supported the motion and said speeding is an issue that comes up time and time again and said that he felt the main deterrent is enforcement and he would like to see the money spent that is spent on speed vans go instead towards having more Gardaí on the road.

He welcomed the announcement that all uniformed gardaí will be required to do 30 minutes of roads policing under new rules announced by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris. 

He said there are no excuses for speeding especially near schools and areas children could be playing or walking. 

Cllr McGloin suggested that the once every quarter the relevant people within the local authority and the Gardaí would meet to discuss speed on certain roads based on the municipal meetings.