Have a look at the following two photos. You can click on each photo to see an enlarged version.

N4 dual carriageway	A rural road in Co. Dublin

The first photo shows the N4 dual carriageway (Lucan by-pass) in Dublin. The second is a regional road in the Dublin mountains near Bohernabreena. Both roads have a speed limit of 80kmh. The N4 is a safe dual carriageway with three lanes in each direction. In 2004 there were no people killed on the N4 inside build up areas*. There was one serious injury collision and 27 minor injury collisions. Despite these relatively safe statistics the N4 is a road where there are regular Gardaí speed traps. One of the few static Gatso speed cameras in the country is also located on this road.

The rural road in the second picture doesn't have enough room for two cars to pass safely. There is no section on this road where 80kmh is a safe speed to drive. The road is frequently used by walkers and farm vehicles and there is no footpath. As well as this there are many entrances to houses and farms along the road. Amazingly this speed limit is 80kmh, the same speed limit as the N4.

This is one of the reasons people are annoyed at the current Government and Gardaí policy on road safety and speeding. There are so many inappropriate speed limits on our roads. Roads with relatively few accidents and low speed limits are targeted by the Gardaí with speed traps, purely a money making exercise. On the other hand there are many dangerous roads with inappropriately high speed limits such as the one above. These are the types of roads on which people are killed in this country yet are ignored by the Gardaí.

You can view a video taken driving along the rural road above which demonstrates how dangerous this road is and how an 80kmh speed limit is entirely inappropriate:

*figures from National Roads Authority's "Road Collision Facts 2004" report