COMMENT
By Ger Colleran
They reckon that a third of all road crash deaths is caused by speeding, which is a truly appalling statistic seeing as how speed is entirely within our own control.
Now, in fairness, the vast majority of us manage to get from A to B without exceeding the speed limit, but none of us can, hand on heart, swear that we haven’t on occasions gone all Speedy Gonzales. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so utterly tragic.
This week speed limits are set to tighten, with most reasonable people saying: it’s about bloody time.
Here in Kerry, considering the amount of national secondary and local roads we have, the reduction in the speed limits will be particularly important. The limit on national secondary routes will go from 100kmph to 80kmph, which should make absolutely no difference since only kamikaze pilots and the completely deranged would ever have attempted to drive at 100kmph on such notoriously perilous cow tracks in the first place.
On local roads the speed limit drops from 80kmph to 60kmph and, again, for most reasonably careful drivers this won’t present a challenge.
Sadly, however, not all of our drivers are reasonable. Some are, in fact, batsh** crazy.
And that’s where garda enforcement of these now speed limits becomes so crucial.
Drivers who insist on putting their own lives – and perhaps more importantly – the lives of others at risk, must be caught and prosecuted. There’s too much of this recklessness going on, and most of it goes undetected.
That’s not the fault of rank-and-file gardaí. And while there is no doubt that Garda Brass, above there in their fancy HQ offices in the Phoenix Park, could do a lot more to assign an increased number of gardaí to traffic duties, it’s clear that we simply don’t have enough gardaí. That’s been proven, over and over again, and is beyond all reasonable doubt.
Gardaí in Kerry, and in all other parts of the country, need to get out, show their faces and speed radar machines like as if they really mean business. Drivers caught booting it need to be pulled into line. Because lives depend on it.
The speed limit in urban areas, town centres, housing estates and city centres, will be cut from 50kmph to 30kmph. This is a significant and long overdue tightening and, for most, will take some getting used to. But it needs to be done.
We simply cannot continue, as a society, to turn the blind eye to the rising flood of tears, year after year, that is produced by the trauma caused by deaths and injuries on our roads.
Last year, 174 people lost their lives in road crashes throughout Ireland. Seven of those avoidable deaths occurred here in Kerry.
The whole thing is unspeakably sad. All of these lost lives represent the most terrible tragedy for individual families, and their friends, who will have to endure life-long grief and pain as a result. The proverbial empty chair at all family occasions.
These new speed limits are a good thing. They are being introduced to save lives and reduce the awful physical and psychological injuries that inevitably flow from road crashes.
It’s up to us all to comply fully with these limits and, in default, it’s up to the gardaí to hold us to account.
We should play our part – and it’s vital that the gardaí play theirs.