{"id":627541,"date":"2026-04-24T09:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/627541\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T09:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T09:02:10","slug":"deeply-unsafe-cycling-in-ireland-now-routinely-dangerous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/627541\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Deeply unsafe’: Cycling in Ireland now ‘routinely dangerous’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cyclists in Ireland find their daily commute has become \u201croutinely dangerous\u201d, an extensive new survey has found.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The research, carried out by Cycling Ireland, asked 2,191 people from across the 32 counties about their experience of travelling around by bike.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Newstalk Breakfast<\/a>, the organisation’s President, Ciaran Cannon, said the results made for difficult reading.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIt shows something very simple, something very worrying, that cycling on Irish roads has become what you might describe as routinely dangerous,\u201d he explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people are telling us that clearly and consistently.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cOver half of our cyclists are experiencing, for example, close passing every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, close passing is not rare – it’s become routine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cycle A cycle lanes in Fairview. Picture by: Sam Boal\/Rollingnews.ie.<\/p>\n

51% of respondents reported a serious near miss within the past 12 months, although only 11% reported what had happened to them to An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na or the PSNI.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most believe that the roads are becoming more and more dangerous every year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we’re seeing is people are changing their behaviour,\u201d Mr Cannon continued.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are feeling deeply unsafe; they’re altering their routes, they’re avoiding certain streets or roads completely and more really worrying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re reducing their cycling, their time on the bike due to these safety concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it’s not just about people being inconvenienced.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" Cyclist on Nassau Street in Dublin. Picture by: Sam Boal\/Rollingnews.ie<\/p>\n

Mr Cannon noted that 96% of respondents also have a driving licence, meaning they also understand the perspective of car users.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to dangerous overtaking or close passing, these are cyclists who have been on their bikes for years,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, the greatest cohort, the largest cohort in this survey are cyclists aged 40 to 55.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, they’ve been doing this for a very, very long time and their experience now, compared to 20 years ago, is vastly different.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThose close passes are becoming routine.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Mr Cannon, the only solution is for the Government to increase the number of Garda\u00ed rostered on road policing duties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2009, we had over 1,000 Garda\u00ed assigned uniquely to roads policing in Ireland – we’ve just 640 now,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c If we are serious about addressing a problem that sees somebody dying every 48 hours, we have to resource our Garda\u00ed adequately.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently, they don’t have the resources, they don’t have the vehicles, they don’t have the people to adequately enforce our existing road safety legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n

So far this year, two cyclists have been killed on Irish roads.<\/p>\n

Main image: A cyclist and a car. Picture by: Alamy.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cyclists in Ireland find their daily commute has become \u201croutinely dangerous\u201d, an extensive new survey has found.\u00a0 The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":["post-627541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}