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2010-02-10 Letter to Dr. Bill Tormey (FG)
Below is a copy of an open email send on 9 February 2010 by Dr. Mike McKillen Chairman of Cyclist.ie: Ireland's National Cyclist Lobby Group to Cllr Bill Tormey (FG) who sits on Dublin City Council.
Dear Dr. Tormey,
I am concerned that you, as a practising medical consultant, are leading the charge among councillors for a revocation of the recently enacted 30 km/h special speed limit applied to a relatively compact zone in the City centre. I cannot understand why someone with your knowledge about trauma arising from road traffic collisions could be so opposed to a simple measure like this, which after all is being applied to a relatively small zone. One would almost think that you believed that cars had been banned from the city!
You must be aware surely of the reasonable body of evidence in the research literature for why a modest reduction in posted and observed speed limits leads inexorably to a marked reduction in the severity of outcomes (killed/seriously injured - ksi) for pedestrians and cyclists involved in road traffic collisions (RTCs) with motorised vehicles? This group of course contains the most vulnerable of all road users. For cyclists it is even more pressing because they are a component of traffic and thus mix with motorised vehicles for their entire journeys about the city. [Pedestrians are not traffic.]
I am wondering if you are aware of the very recent paper by Grundy et al. (2009) published in the British Medical Journal [Vol. 339, 1-6] where they show that in the period 1986-2006 those areas in London which introduced 20 mph (~33 km/h) speed limits saw a 40% approx. reduction in RTC casualties?
Many of the London boroughs have had 20 mph speed limit zones for years and we know that London has increased its percentage of commuting journeys undertaken by bike. Dublin has to follow suit. It is government policy to aim for 20% of commuting journeys to be made by bike. Vehicular speed reduction is part of a suite of measures (HGV permits, etc) that are called into play.
As you know the Garda forensically investigates every RTC where there is a ksi and as part of that process the vehicle(s) engine-management system is interrogated by laptop to determine the impact velocity, etc. Police forces all over the EU have been conducting these studies for years and so we know, on average, what impact velocity is likely to produce a fatality. The Swedish National Road Administration (Vagverket) released its data a few years ago and this revealed that at 50 km/h a saloon car impacting with a cyclist or pedestrian will likely result in a 80% fatality rate whereas at 30 km/h this reduces to approx. 10%.
The question is do you reject these facts about RTCs?
In one of your interviews you stated that the city centre zone to which the 30 km/h limit now applies has a low incidence of RTCs. This is just not true and so in evidence I attach a GIS plot of RTCs (1996-2007) for the centre city area (source: Road Safety Authority). The new 30 km/h zone is defined within the yellow boundary. You will observe that there have been many RTCs in this zone over that period. Just last September I was present when the Dublin Cycling Campaign unveiled a 'Ghostbike' (http://www.ghostbikes.org/dublin) at the site on Wellington Quay where a 51 year old experienced cyclists was killed by impact with an HGV. Perhaps you might like to explain your opposition to this limit to his widow and children?
You stated this evening on the Matt Coper programme on TodayFM at about 18:15 hrs that HGVs had been eliminated from the Quays. Now this is also just not true. HGVs are allowed along the Quays under permit during the prohibited period and in fact the greatest user of the permit system is Diageo whose 5-axle trucks ply their way up and down the Quays from the Guinness yard to the Port multiple times daily. You will also be aware that Dublin Bus uses the Quays as a bus terminus for many of its services so cyclists find the Quays a very intimidating place to be.
I am taking your opposition to the 30 km/h limit so seriously that I am copying this message to your party spokesperson on transport and to a number of professionals working in the road safety/transport fields.
Again as a medical consultant you will know that this society faces a childhood obesity/overweight epidemic with latent morbidity costs for an already overburdened health system. We have got to encourage school-going children to go back to cycling to school and for socialising around their neighbourhoods so as to curtail their sedentary lifestyles. At present their parents are unwilling to have them out and about on bikes because they fear for their safety. This 30 km/h speed limit, if properly observed and enforced, will help to bring about this change.
What you are proposing to do about the limit is unacceptable and so I would call on you to retract your motion. I intend to issue a press release setting out these health and medical facts.
Yours sincerely,
Dr. Mike McKillen
Chairman of Cyclist.ie
Attached:
RSA Collision Map 1996-2007
- The Yellow line is the boundary of the 30 km/h Zone
- Blue dots are minor collisions
- Green dots are serious collisions
- Red dots are fatal collisions
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