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The Road Traffic Bill 2024 has now been signed into law by President Higgins.
As outlined below by the RSA, given the sharp and tragic increase in the number of road deaths for the first quarter of 2024, the Government has proposed this bill to address road safety which continues to be a problem. This is in line with their Vision Zero campaign that has a target of reducing road deaths by 50% by 2030, in line with the broader EU goal of moving as close as possible to zero deaths by 2050.
The bill has 3 key areas of amendment to the Road Traffic Act 2010, including penalty point changes, default speed limit changes and mandatory drug testing.
The key changes the bill will bring in are:
- Changes to the Penalty Point Regime
- Currently if a person commits multiple penalty point offences, they only receive one set of penalty points. The bill will amend this, and the person will receive two sets of penalty points. In the case where they have committed 3 or more fixed charges, they will receive penalty points for the largest two.
- Changes to the Default Speed Limits
To note – these will become the default limits, however the local council are, as before, empowered to vary the limits in their areas.
- National Roads:
- National Secondary Roads Reduced from 100 km/h to 80 km/h
- National Primary Roads remain at 100km/h
- Regional Roads (except for built up areas) remain at 80km/h
- Local Roads: Reduced from 80 km/h to 60 km/h
- Urban Areas: Reduced from 50 km/h to 30 km/h
- Changes to the Mandatory Drug testing
- The Bill will update the section of the Road Traffic Act 2010 related to mandatory alcohol testing. Drug testing will now be considered mandatory for the same occasions where alcohol testing is mandatory. Previously drug testing was optional.
For more detailed information on the Road Traffic Bill view here.