Few have used process set up to allow appeals to speed limits, figures show

In 2019, the stretch of Griffith Avenue between Ballymun Road and Ballygall Road East was a four-lane carriageway with a 60kph speed limit. 

By 2023, cycle lanes had been put in on either side, narrowing the space available for motor vehicles to two lanes. But the speed limit was still 60kph.

So Feljin Jose filed an appeal challenging it.

The speed limit is a “remnant”, and not appropriate with the new road layout, and going past a school entrance, and a sports club, says Jose, who was later elected a Green Party councillor on Dublin City Council.

The Minister for Transport, then the Green Party’s Eamon Ryan, in 2021 had launched a speed limit appeals process. 

From the start of 2022 to the end of June this year, there have been 332 appeals lodged with councils nationwide, according to a Department of Transport spokesperson. 

Most have been unsuccessful – including Jose’s.

A year after he lodged the appeal, he got a letter saying a panel had “determined that this speed limit has been set in accordance with the Guidelines for Setting and Managing Speed Limits”.

But some speed-limit appeals – 34, nationwide, since the process was set up, according to the Department of Transport spokesperson – have been successful. 

In Dublin city, there’s been a push by council managers and some road-safety activists – like those in the Love 30 campaign – to reduce the default speed limit from 50kph to 30kph. 

If a driver hits a pedestrian with a car at 50 km/h there’s about a 30 percent chance the pedestrian will die. At 30km/h, the risk of a fatality is reduced six-fold: dropping to 5 percent, according to a report for the Road Safety Authority (RSA).

The previous government, over the summer, abandoned the last government’s plan to reduce urban speed limits nationwide to 30kph by default. So the activists and council managers are back to their previous path – a long, slow slog of reducing speed limits bit by bit.

The appeals process

When the Department of Transport announced the new appeals process, a press release said there were two main aims. 

“The Speed Limits Appeals Procedure is intended to facilitate a legitimate query a member of the public or interested party may have regarding a particular speed limit,” it said. 

“It is also intended to speed up the process of reviewing speed limit queries raised between full Local Authority speed limit reviews which are normally carried out every five years.”

But there are limitations to the process.

Only special speed limits can be appealed. These are common, though, says Labour Party Councillor John Walsh, a member of Fingal County Council. 

And they’re likely to become even more so, since the government backed away from introducing a national default 30kph speed limit in “urban core” areas, and instead told local authorities to carry out their own reviews.

So, one of Dublin city’s 50kph default speed limits isn’t open for appeal – but the 60kph limit on Griffith Avenue was. 

Also, appeals “cannot be made during the Periodic Review Period of a Speed Limit Review, when statutory public consultation is underway”, according to the spokesperson for the Department of Transport.

The appeals process itself has two stages: first appeal to the local authority, then if that isn’t successful, it’s possible to appeal to a national panel.

Of the 332 appeals to local authorities since the start of 2022, the vast majority were dealt with at that level, according to figures from the Department of Transport spokesperson.

“Then if someone disagrees, they can escalate to a national panel,” says Walsh, the Labour councillor. “But there's a €125 fee to escalate the appeal, which is refundable if the panel rules in their favor.”

Only 10 appeals have gone to the national panel, according to the figures from the department. So far, two of these have been successful, and seven unsuccessful, they show.

Mairéad Forsythe, of the Love 30 campaign, said she knows of at least two people who’ve appealed speed limits via this process. 

One is a supporter who wrote to the campaign, Forsythe says. He got the speed changed on his residential street in Navan to 30kph. 

“He was very pleased,” she says. He told her he submitted the appeal form on 1 July and got a favourable response on 20 July.

“And he said it's purely a technical one – against the guidelines for setting the speed limits,” she read. “And he said, it's important that one studies the guidelines – and cites them in support of the request for review.”

The other applicant she said she heard from was disappointed – a man in Cork whose appeal was rejected at both the local and national levels.

Tony Murphy, an independent councillor in Fingal, said the revamped appeals process itself is positive – at least compared to what existed before.

“The change in the appeal process is absolutely brilliant,” he said. In the older system, “it was very onerous… where most people didn’t bother because it wasn’t an easy procedure.”

Why so few appeals?

Why have there only been a few hundred appeals over the past three and a half years? 

“Very few people know about it,” said Jose, the Green Party councillor. 

Yes, says Forsyth, of Love 30, the process “wasn’t advertised well” and “isn’t easy to find”.

Also, some who know about it see more traditional routes as better.

For Labour’s John Walsh, if everything functioned as it should, residents wouldn’t need to appeal at all.

People living on a road, he said, should be able to raise concerns with councillors directly, who can then propose adjustments during legal speed-limit reviews – without forcing them through a more cumbersome appeals system.

But he still thinks people should have the right to appeal as another option to be heard.

Ciarán Ferrie, an architect and cycling advocate, said he thought it was better for changes to come from the local authorities.

“I mean, the fact that individuals can do it is also good, but I think that's a very slow way of getting the changes needed,” Ferrie said. 

And technically challenging, he said. “The onus would be on the person appealing to demonstrate that the existing scheme limit is not in accordance with the guidelines.” 

“Which would probably require a certain amount of expertise as well or understanding of the guidelines,” he said.

In general, Ferrie said he doesn’t think the appeals process is a particularly effective way of lowering speed limits.

Is an appeal a solution?

Forsythe said Love 30 hasn’t used the appeals mechanism themselves because they already participate in formal speed-limit reviews. 

She said it might be like an “abuse”of the system to file dozens of appeals after decisions were made. “We would have done a lot of them if we got started,” she said.

Forsythe said Dublin City Council and Tipperary County Council have spoken openly about their plans following the government’s decision not to lower urban speed limits to 30kph by default.

While Dublin is continuing with its long-running plan to expand 30kph zones, she said. Tipperary, she mentioned, seems more reluctant to lower its speed limits.

“We fear there are more Tipperarys than Dublins,” she said.

Still, Forsythe said Love 30 isn’t planning to turn to the appeals system.

“I don't think the appeals procedure is intended for a group like us to inundate it,” she said. 

If they did, it would be more like a protest – “If you won't give it to us by the legislative means, we'll do it by the back door.”

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.