Donegal County Council has undertaken a speed limit review of all public roads in towns, villages and settlements with an existing speed limit of 60km/h or lower. These speed limits have been assessed in accordance with the Department of Transport guidelines and proposed changes recommended. The proposed changes include 43 Urban Speed Limit Zones (USLZs) with 30 km/h speed limits.

We commend Donegal County Council on an early non-statutory consultation on urban speed limits and we welcome the USLZs. However, we note that there are many housing clusters outside the proposed USLZs. The boundaries of the proposed zones may need to be reconsidered. We also note that there are sections of roads with 60 km/h speed limits within the USLZ which we would not expect to see. The USLZs also have frequent changes between 50 km/h and 60 km/h which may cause confusion and reduce compliance with the speed limits.

We have asked Donegal County Council to conoolidate the previous bye-laws int ao single document for clarity and to avoid ambiguity. We also asked that all locations, determined from all sources,are considered as to whether they should have a lower speed limit. And care should be taken to include locations that wouldn’t normally be considered urban, but may have large numbers of people present from time to time, e.g. holiday locations, rural schools, sports grounds, churches and graveyards, etc.

Our full submission is attached.