Roads - Thurles Information

Provisional Review Of Road Fatality Data For Year 2023.

The Irish Road Safety Authority (RSA) has a statutory remit to report on fatal, serious and even minor injury collisions on our public roads.

According to the RSA, as of December 31st, 2023 last, there have been 173 fatal collisions, resulting in 184 fatalities.

The above figures represent 24 higher fatal collisions and 29 more deaths, latter an increase of 19% when compared to provisional data supplied by An Garda Síochána; when again compared to the year 2022, and the highest since 2014, when, sadly, there were recorded 192 fatalities.

Of the 2023 fatalities, 57% lost their lives in single vehicle collisions, while 7 of these fatal collisions resulted in more than one death; four collisions resulted in 2 fatalities; two collisions resulted in 3 fatalities; and one collision resulted in 4 fatalities.

Statistics show that almost half of all collisions occurred under the cover of darkness, despite lower traffic volumes on our roads; with some 50% occurring on weekends.

Sadly 16 persons lost their lives due to road accidents here in Co. Tipperary in 2023, latter an increase of 7 deaths on the previous year’s total.
Of these, often avoidable deaths, nationally; 78% were males and 22% were females.

Last December a meeting of Tipperary Joint Policing Committee was informed that there was a 37% increase in speeding offences detected in the first 11 months of 2023, with a total of 16,696 offences detected, when compared to 12,182, during the same period. in 2022.

Let’s all make it a new year’s resolution in 2024 to SLOW DOWN.

Truck Rearranges Street Furnishings In Half Upgraded Liberty Square, Thurles.

**Truck rearranges Liberty Square, Thurles, town Railing**

Sadly, the area was the scene of a pedestrian death on January 20th 2014. Since then the nearby railings, supposedly placed there to protect pedestrians, has since been replaced on three different occasions. Now for the fourth time, in possibly the past 36 hours, a large truck has again rearranged these same railings, at the junction of Liberty Square south and Slievenamon Road, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.

Yes, this is the Slievenamon Road, on the N62 route which is destined to be soon upgraded, by reducing its carriageway width, by widened/extending footpaths, by some 1.8m to 2.5m.

Any of you haulage contractors out there, with a truck missing a mudguard? Your driver failed to take it with him, having demolished railings, when failing to manoeuvre a left lane turn in Liberty Square Thurles. Co. Tipperary.

Peculiar, that with two currently resident Teachtaí Dála, both supporting the present government, no necessary funding has been acquired to provide a ring road for heavy traffic, thus relieving our medieval choked streetscapes.

EU Commission Proposals Regarding Refresher Courses For Elderly Drivers Shelved.

New proposals suggested by the European Commission that, if implemented, could result in drivers over 70 years of age having to undergo driving refresher courses, will not be implemented here in Ireland.

**Just one small section of unravelled** **roadway on Kickham Street, Thurles, Co. Tipperary ignored by local elected councillors and Thurles Municipal District officials.**

It has been confirmed that there are no plans by the Irish government to change the current age from over 75 years old to 70 years. Thus drivers under 75 years will not have to supply a medical report confirming their fitness to drive, unless they are specifically identified as someone who has a specific illness and therefore required to do so by law.

The European Commission’s proposals were centred around some motorists having to undergo regular medical tests and refresher courses in order to renew their driving licence. These proposals also suggest mandatory training for professional van drivers, as well as allowing children, as young as 16 years, to drive cars that have been fitted with a governor, thus limiting the top speed of their vehicles.

The new EU proposed directives, which are seen by some as being ageist, unfair, ineffective and harmful, will not be made mandatory for individual member states. While intended to improve road safety, same would be seen as being unjust to those drivers residing in rural areas, that have limited access to other alternative forms of public transport.

According to a European Transport Safety Council report, over 5,400 people aged over 65 years were killed on EU roads in 2021; a third of which were pedestrians.

Here in rural Co. Tipperary, an effort to provide and invest in local road improvements, would be identified as being much more beneficial to the elderly driver, than undergoing driving refresher courses, as anyone who has driven around the streets of Thurles town will most surely confirm.

Thurles Potholes Photographed At Low Tide.

Although the weather has been extremely cold here in Thurles, Co. Tipperary over the past week, it has remained extremely dry with very little rain.

We therefore took the opportunity to photograph two x 22.86 centimetre (9in) deep giant potholes or craters; call them what you will, currently available to view on the Mill Road, in Thurles, which we first highlighted on April 20th, 2023; again on October 15th, 2023 and more recently on November 24th, 2023 at high tide.

**One crater on Mill Road, Thurles, unattended since before April 20th, 2023.**

Today, again we photographed same, at low tide, in an effort to warn the public of the dangers when travelling on the Mill Road, with the craters existing just 600 meters (0.373mls) from the residence of one local Councillor.

**Second crater on Mill Road, Thurles, unattended since before April 20th, 2023.**

Since April last, yet another local town Councillor has been calling to local residents on this same Mill Road, canvassing for road frontage to enable the installation of a footpath and has failed to notice this piece of roadway sliding into the Drish river.

Today, we contacted Tipperary Co. Council Webform to report this issue. Same have replied as follows:

Dear Sir,
Thank you for your e-mail regarding ” Road or path defects “
I have forwarded your e-mail to the Thurles District Office for their attention and direct reply to you. Should you wish to follow up on this case, please contact Customer Service Desk quoting reference number T-233557-V8T6.
Regards,
Customer Service Desk, Tipperary County Council.

The Mill Road, over the past two years, as our readers will attest, has become the preferred route for increased car and heavy duty vehicles, same anxious to avoid Thurles town centre, because of major traffic delays caused by the recent upgrading of half of the Liberty Square town centre area.

**Evidence of vehicle tyre tracks on our half updated, expanded, footpaths on Liberty Square**, **Thurles**, **as vehicles attempt to find a non-existent parking or set down space.**

Picture above indicates that some of our Thurles traffic have already begun to avoid our lack of town centre parking spaces and now park on our overextended footpaths. It is this lack of set down spaces, which has driven most of our town centre traders, out of the Thurles town centre.

Last few remaining traders will certainly move out of Thurles town centre, if the Munster Hotel car park, situated on the junction of Cathedral Street and Kickham Street closes. The car park is used extensively and daily by local school buses, business consumers and those attending nearby Church services in the Cathedral. Closure is threatened in February next, in a dispute over failure to agree on a future rent, between the owner of Thurles towns greatest eyesore, (the Munster Hotel), and Tipperary County Council.

EPA Publishes National Criteria Allowing For Safe Reuse Of Site-won Asphalt.

EPA Publishes National Criteria that allow for the safe reuse of site-won asphalt (road planings) as by-product.

The generation of construction and demolition waste needs to vastly reduce: the sector is responsible for over 50 per cent of all of Ireland’s waste.
The EPA new national by-product criteria supports the prevention construction waste and instead allows its reuse, as a lower-carbon alternative to virgin materials.
National by-product criteria will provide the construction sector with an efficient regulatory process to reuse road planings in the production of consistent and quality road surface products.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has today published National By-Product Criteria for Site-Won Asphalt (road planings) from road developments.

**Kickham Street, Thurles, Co. Tipperary at 3:15 pm today**.

These criteria allow for the classification of road planings as a by-product, meaning it is not waste. The by-product can subsequently be used or placed on the market in the same way as virgin material. These criteria support waste prevention and facilitate the reuse of materials in new construction projects, in line with the circular economy.

There is a strong demand for secondary construction products in Ireland to support development of new infrastructure with a low carbon footprint. The criteria allow used asphalt to be remanufactured into new bituminous products for road building.

Commenting on the criteria, Mr David Flynn, Director of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Sustainability, said: “The publication of national by-product criteria for site-won asphalt is an important step for the ‘greening’ of Ireland’s construction industry.
The criteria will support waste prevention and circular economy ambitions, by tackling the generation of construction waste, the largest waste stream in the country, while encouraging the reuse of materials.
This is the type of progress needed if Ireland is to move in a meaningful way from the linear to the circular economy.”

The criteria provide a simple way to assess materials for re-use, and will support green procurement ambitions for road development projects.

Mr Warren Phelan, Programme Manager of the EPA’s Circular Economy Programme noted: “The publication of the national criteria show the EPA’s commitment to streamlining the regulation to support secondary products. The shift away from the assessment of case-by-case applications to national criteria, which is available to all producers, offers more regulatory certainty to the stakeholders involved. These criteria will introduce a level playing field for industry and introduce a single set of rules that are easy to implement.”

The EPA calls on relevant stakeholders in the construction sector to adopt and implement the new criteria.

Further information on the national by-product criteria and other initiatives of the circular economy programme are available on the EPA website, HERE.