Galway City Council was in slow lane with incorrect speed signage

Bradley Bytes – a sort of political column with Dara Bradley

At long last, sense has prevailed at City Hall. It was a slow process, but finally – after over a decade – incorrect speed limit signs displayed on some city roads will be corrected.

That it took a campaign by concerned citizens, and in particular bike enthusiast Kevin Jennings, for Galway City Council to rectify its own mistakes, is disgraceful but hardly surprising.

That Jennings had to highlight the issue in this newspaper and other media and had to badger local and national politicians before management at City Hall agreed to take action on a serious matter of road safety, is also a disgrace but not surprising either.

Jennings regularly cycles with his children on one of the roads in Knocknacarra where an incorrect speed limit sign had been displayed for up to 12 years. He discovered that several roads within the city boundary which have designated speed limits of 50km/h, had speed signs on them suggesting they were in 80km/h zones.

Among the roads with incorrect 80km/h signs were: Upper Cappagh Road, Upper Ballymoneen Road, Rahoon Road, Letteragh Road, Rosshill Road, Dublin Road and Oranmore Coast Road.

The signs were dangerous and gave false assurances to motorists that they could legally drive at 80km/h in 50km/h zones.

As well as endangering all road users, who would have been responsible in the event of a collision on one of those roads, if the motorist was driving above 50 but below 80? Would it have been the driver or the local authority? The legal profession would have had a field day.

What we think happened is this. Rather than change the signs to reflect the actual speed limit, the City Council attempted to change the speed limit to reflect the signage that was in place. Councillors rejected the 80km/h in proposed new bylaws in a vote last November and then the executive blamed elected members for the incorrect signs. It would be funny were it not so serious.

Jennings was a dogged campaigner – a trait of Galway Cycling Campaign members – and kept the pressure up for the signs to be corrected.

A victory of sorts arrived this month when Chief Executive Brendan McGrath confirmed “an audit of the existing signage has now been completed and a number of anomalies have been identified”.

The Council, he said, “commenced the process, in September, of modifying the speed limit signage at a number of locations in the city to bring the signage in line with the current Special Speed Limit Bylaws, 2009”.

That they did so kicking and screaming is the great mystery surrounding this sorry affair.

This is a shortened preview version of Bradley Bytes. To read more, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.