COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, April 11, 2016

MOTION NO.15

MOTION: Councillor P. Foley

That a list of schools be compiled where amber flashing lights, at school opening and closing times, might be appropriate.  I have been told of a couple of near misses in the last few weeks and I would like to see a pilot project of one school per LEA be identified and fitted with these lights before the school year next September. If the pilot proves successful a more comprehensive rollout could be started. 

REPORT:

Currently we have several locations with flashing amber school signs on the approaches to schools and have a number of locations awaiting installation. We are carrying out ongoing reviews of our road safety infrastructure and these are an option that we consider during these reviews.

Flashing amber signs are only installed by the council at locations with specific issues such as road layout or reduced advance warning and they are not appropriate/required at many locations.

There is a large cost to the purchase, installation and maintenance of these signs so locations are very selective.

A pilot project is unnecessary as we are already supporting the use of these signs where appropriate. Furthermore a pilot scheme would be of no benefit without an established baseline to compare results to and it is unclear what we would measure as part of a pilot project.

With regards to the near misses that have been reported to you we would appreciate any available details on these to ascertain if there is any common traits in them that we could investigate.