Semafori rossi e burocrazia: perché l’Irlanda è in ritardo sulla sicurezza dei pedoni

“Gary Marshall, public relations officer of the Dublin Commuter Coalition, is blunt about what’s changed on Irish roads. “Driver behaviour has deteriorated so much over the last few years that pedestrians have to take additional care when crossing roads due to drivers choosing to break red lights at high speed and look at their phones instead of the road ahead,” he says.

Despite over €1bn being invested in active travel infrastructure, Marshall sees little evidence that the money is focused where it matters. “Besides some high-profile projects like the Clontarf to city centre (active travel scheme), we don’t see the much-needed transformation of our wider road network and public spaces to prioritise pedestrians. Patchy changes won’t lead to modal shift – only fully connected infrastructure has any real meaningful impact.”

**When Marshall’s group confronted Junior Transport Minister Sean Canney’s office with evidence that the delay to the implementation of a 30kmh speed limit would cause preventable deaths, the response from one of his staff was chilling: “That is regrettable.”**

Marshall adds: “Needless to say, we have no confidence in their approach to road safety.”

Marshall’s three overnight fixes are deliberately simple – introduce 30kmh urban limits, blanket Dublin with zebra crossings and make traffic lights default to pedestrians in busy areas. The subtext is clear – if €1bn can’t deliver these basics, the problem isn’t money, it’s priorities.”

Today on pottery road while awaiting for the red signal to change a car at the front decided to just continue on with no regard to the safety of all the other cars…. We do need more to done about these incidences and unfortunately they keep reoccurring during the school runs which is just terrifying. A government that does not put it’s people’s safety first is lacking in many ways.

The solutions really aren’t that radical, we need to slow cars down to 30kph in urban areas, build more traffic calming and raised pedestrian crossings, narrow the entrances to side streets so cars can’t swing in, and ultimately try and reduce through traffic in cities as much as possible.

We suffer a delusion in this country that we are somehow on the leading edge of many transport developments, when the research, implementation & proven results had already occuref in other European countries.

Put the new pedestrian-crossing rules into actual use. Every T-junction in an urban area should have a pedestrian crossing as standard. Roll them out across every town and make pedestrian priority the default. Ireland formally approved the signage only continental style zebra crossing in 2024. The design is simple, cheap, and fast to install. So why aren’t these crossings being deployed everywhere, especially when the cost–benefit balance is so clearly in their favour? It is very difficult to walk around urban areas in Ireland compared to many other European countries.

This is complete bullshit. Have you ever been to other countries like Italy and Greece where there zero pedestrian safety.

The article has a point but also makes a big mistake focusing on Dublin.

Ireland ranks amoung the worst for pedestrians safety in Europe.

However Dublin city consistently ranks amoung the safest cities for pedestrians in Europe with very low deaths or incidents per capita.

Rural Ireland in the countryside, small towns, villages etc are death traps and where the vast majority of these fatal incidents happen.

We need to invest more in pedestrian safety across Ireland at a national and local government level. Dublin councils are flush with cash and managing it well (always room for improvement though) but the first focus should not be the most densely populated areas, it should be rural Ireland.

Instead of as the author says blanket Dublin in Zebra crossings, us that money to put in pedestrians crossing lights and infrastructure in towns and villages with none. The village my family is from in Mayo has zero pedestrians crossings, not a single one in the whole village for example.

People would rather go hungry that not drive alone in their car here in Ireland. They are obsessed with cars. Even where public transport is good.