Speaking after he stood with locals and his elected colleague, Cllr. Fionnán Fitzgerald, in torrential rain at an endangered speed limit signpost outside Currow Village on Friday evening, Cllr. Charlie Farrelly said that there is a darker and more sinister side to Kerry County Council’s motives for the planned removal of the post to a point estimated to be 100 metres nearer to the village.
Three Fatal Accidents
This is on a stretch of roadway between Castleisland and Currow on which three people have been killed in recent years along with some non-fatal, serious road accidents.
The people of Currow are the latest victims in this Road Safety Authority (RSA) move to uproot well researched and placed road safety signage and place them closer to towns and villages.
“This leads to a diminishing of the responsibility of these authorities to the people of the localities in question.
Problems and Scenes
“They don’t have to lay footpaths or maintain hedges, lights or place extra signage needed in a longer run into these places by shortening the distances from the speed limit signs to the heart of the affected populations,” said Cllr. Farrelly.
“We’ve been through problems and scenes like this before in places like Cordal, Tullig just outside Castleisland and in Currans also.
“There was a public consultation process carried out by the RSA in 2019 but it passed the majority of the people of these places by with all that was happening then and since,” said Cllr. Farrelly.
2020 RSA Driver Attitude
“There was uproar when all 949 elected councillors met at a gathering of the Association of Irish Local Government shortly after that process and signatures were collected,” he said.
The RSA’s own driver attitude and behaviour study in 2020 shows there has been a significant increase in the perceived acceptability of speeding compared to previous years.
Between 2014 and 2019, approximately 24% of drivers thought it was acceptable to exceed 50 km/h speed limits by more than 10 km/h, in 2020 this rose to 34%.
Between 2014 and 2019, approximately 18% of drivers thought it was acceptable to exceed 100 km/h speed limits by more than 10 km/h, in 2020 this rose to 34%.
Sense of Foreboding
This can only add to the sense of foreboding felt by the people of Currow who are protesting at the increase in road traffic speed outside their doors if and when these signs are moved closer to the village.
Currow Rural Development Chairman Damien Boyle said that none of his committee members had been informed of this decision until a neighbour on the stretch of roadway got wind of the change last week.
Delegation in January ’22
“We met Kerry County Council as a delegation in January of 2022 and there wasn’t a word about the moving of the speed limit signs then. We stated our case and made all the serious and tragic events on this piece of road known to them.
“Now they’re planning to move these signs closer to the village and ignore the history of this part of the roadway without a word to anyone living along the affected stretch,” said Mr. Boyle.
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