— Politicians and the public question why standard 60km/h signs were not used.
A survey conducted by an established polling company, Ipsos B&A, for the Road Safety Authority (RSA) found that the vast majority of motorists did not recognise the ‘Rural Speed Limit Sign’ before it was rolled out far more widely.
The sign includes a black circle with a white background with diagonal lines across the middle. Internationally, it usually means ‘end of all restrictions’ and, related to speed, generally means that the limit is now the highest rural speed limit or, in the case of some parts of the German autobahn network, that no limit applies.
The Department of Transport provided councils with millions of euro to change speed limit signs as the default limit for minor rural local roads changed from 80km/h to 60km/h. The Rural Speed Limit sign is being used on more minor roads such as boreens, while 60km/h signs are being used on some larger rural local roads. Most rural main roads, mainly made up of regional and national roads, will be unchanged.
As IrishCycle.com reported recently, the RSA is running an awareness campaign on the new 60km/h meaning for the signs.
The ‘Rural Speed Limit Sign’ was previously only used at the start of small minor roads just off 100km/h roads because the placement of 80km/h signs at these roads — often boreens with grass down the middle of them — was a source of embarrassment.
Previously, regional roads shared the speed limit of their minor side roads, so no speed limit signs were needed between these roads. But now, side roads on thousands of extra kilometres of regional roads have a speed limit change.
When asked about the use of the sign for a previous article, the Department of Transport explained the original justification for the sign, but did not answer why it did not just include the 60km/h signs as the only option for councils to use.
Just ahead of the rollout of the new signs, the Ipsos B&A survey found that “Only 37% of motorists recognize the rural speed limit sign; and only 32% appreciate the sign represents a speed limit. On prompting, the vast majority of motorists think it represents a limit of 50km or lower”
44% of respondents said they didn’t know what the sign meant, while the remainder were wrong about what it meant, including 16% who thought it related to clearways, 6% who viewed it as meaning no entry and 3% who said it meant ‘wrong way’.
Ipsos B&A said that their research comprised a nationally representative online survey of 1,263 motorists aged over 17, with the number of respondents controlled to balance for gender, age, region and area.
Of the respondents, only 6% said they were on a learner permit, and 3% said they had licences issued in another country, with 90% having full Irish driver licences.
A spokesperson for the Department of Transport said: “The ‘Rural Speed Limit Sign’ was initially introduced in the ‘Guidelines for Setting and Managing Speed Limits in Ireland (March 2015 Edition)’, as an alternative speed limit sign on specific single lane rural roads.”
“The widespread deployment of the 80km/h speed limit sign on regional and local roads gave rise to many roads that are extremely narrow tracks (mainly Local Tertiary Roads), displaying a speed limit of 80km/h where, in a vast number of cases, it is not possible to drive safely at that speed. The purpose of the Rural Speed Limit Sign was therefore to provide an alternative to the 80km/h sign, for the purpose of not displaying a number or visual ‘target’ on these roads,” the spokesperson said.
The Department said: “From 7th February 2025, the ‘Rural Speed Limit Sign’ is an alternative speed limit sign to the 60km/hr speed limit sign i.e. the new default speed limit sign on rural local roads.”
The Department said that its advice to local authorities is that the ‘Rural Speed Limit Sign’ should be used in conjunction with the supplementary plate, P 080 ‘ Go Mall – SLOW’ and it should only be used on Local Tertiary Roads and Local Secondary Roads, the majority of these are narrow Local Tertiary Roads or boreens.
It added: “Certain narrow minor Local Secondary Roads may also be considered ‘boreens’, if of a similar characteristic to a Local Tertiary Road where enforcement of the default speed limit of 60km/h is not likely to be problematic.”
