A €2 million advertising campaign begins next week to alert motorists to the introduction of new metric speed limits on Irish roads.
The changeover will come into effect on January 20th, resulting in a new limit of 80 kph (50 mph) on non-national roads - a drop of 10 mph.
Motorways will have a standard speed limit of 120 kph, while a 30 kph limit will be applied to areas of pedestrian concentration.
The chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Mr John Ellis, yesterday urged motorists to be especially careful on the roads during the changeover period.
The Fianna Fáil TD said: "I would ask motorists driving older vehicles to be especially vigilant where their speedometers still record speed in miles per hour.
"There are too many deaths on Irish roads and I firmly believe that many accidents could be prevented if motorists complied with speed limits, especially on narrow country roads and well-known blackspots. These safety considerations are vitally important as the new speed limits are introduced in the coming weeks."
The Society of the Irish Motor Industry said yesterday it believed the new limits would improve driver behaviour.
"It will refocus people's minds on the speed limits again. We certainly saw when penalty points came in and were being properly enforced, people did slow down and deaths on the roads decreased," said the society's chief executive, Mr Cyril McHugh.
However, he criticised the failure of local authorities to eliminate "ridiculous" speed limits on modern roads.
The society submitted a list of 40 such speed limit signs to the Government, which were mainly located in the greater Dublin area. "I think there was one change made. I was very disappointed with the response to that," said Mr McHugh.
He added that inappropriate speed limits brought the rest of the system into disrepute. "The local authorities and the National Roads Authority have a job to do in making sure there are no unrealistically low speed limits on roads that are capable of taking a better speed."
Mr McHugh said most cars already had dual speedometers, while every new car sold this year would have a kilometre-only speedometer.
Legislation allowing for the changeover to kilometre speed limits was signed into law just last week. A website, www.gometric.ie, has been established ahead of the national advertising campaign, which will include the provision of information leaflets to households throughout the country.
The changeover itself is expected to cost up to €30 million and will involve the installation of 35,000 new signs over three days, starting on January 17th.
Metric speed limits are required under a European directive dating back to 1980.
The changeover comes at a time of increased deaths on Irish roads. Some 379 people have been killed this year - an increase of 43 deaths, or 12 per cent, over 2003.
The latest fatality came early yesterday in Dublin when a male cyclist in his 70s was struck by a truck turning left from Echlin Street on to Grand Canal Place. The accident occurred at 11.15 a.m.
Gardaí at Kevin Street have asked witnesses to contact them at (01) 666 9400.
