A Continental Tyres traffic speeding survey along Dublin’s city centre quays, found that less than 10% of motorists were obeying the 30km/h speed limit that was introduced by Dublin City Council last year.

Carried out with the help of Tele-Traffic, a leading supplier of laser speed gun technology, the Continental Tyres survey found that just 9 vehicles out of 100 surveyed, were travelling at 30km/h or less. The highest speed recorded in the survey (which covered all vehicle types) was a van travelling at 58km/h, nearly twice the permitted speed.

Continental Tyres suggests that the high number of speeding vehicles could be down to the fact that drivers might not have known they were driving in a 30km/h speed limit area, because there are no signs anywhere to inform them. While lauding the safety motivation behind the introduction of the 30km/h limit, Continental Tyres feels that the lack of any speed limit signage is an issue that needs to be addressed.

Paddy Murphy, GM of Continental Tyres Ireland commented, “A key safety implication of the high rate of non-observance is where speeding drivers find themselves suddenly behind a car that is observing the limit, the speeding driver is then required to hit the brakes and very often, drivers seriously over-stimate the stopping ability of their car.  For example, at 50km/h, an average car on good tyres in good weather conditions will take almost 24 metres (6 car lengths) to stop.  And if the road is wet, or perhaps if tyres are worn or damaged, the stopping distance would be a whole lot longer”.