Call to drop speed limit after US tourist’s death
Unaccompanied learner is jailed
A JUDGE has called on a council to reduce the speed limit at a heritage site following a fatal crash.
A US tourist who had arrived in Ireland just a few hours earlier died in the incident.
Judge Keenan Johnson recommended the limit on a narrow road where visitors park at the Rock of Dunamase in Co Laois be reduced from 80 to 30kph.
He heard gardai consider the existing speed limit is inappropriate at the early Christian fortress located between Portlaoise and Stradbally, Co Laois.
Judge Johnson made his comments as he sentenced an unaccompanied learner driver to 15 months in jail.
He also disqualified Jamie Kearns from driving for 15 years after his conviction for causing the fatal collision which killed US tourist, Laura Jones, 59. Kearns, 20, of Portlaoise, Co Laois, pleaded guilty at Portlaoise Circuit Criminal Court to a charge of dangerous driving causing the death of Ms Jones from Colorado on October 7, 2022.
The unemployed construction labourer also pleaded guilty to a separate charge of dangerous driving causing serious harm to the victim’s husband, Doug Jones, during the same incident.
The court heard evidence that the American couple had arrived earlier that morning in Dublin together with their younger daughter, Erin and her husband, Jacob, for the start of a holiday in the south-west. They
HORROR LOSS had decided to break the journey by visiting the Rock of Dunamase.
As they parked their hired vehicle in a car park near the tourist attraction, they heard a car driving fast before seeing it coming towards them at high speed. The
court heard that a Ford Fiesta driven by Kearns knocked the victim and her husband over a wall. Ms Jones was pronounced dead at the scene.
Her husband sustained serious leg injuries and required surgery.
At a sentencing hearing yesterday, Judge Johnson noted Kearns had been driving very fast and had ignored several requests from three friends who were passengers in the vehicle to slow down.
In a victim impact statement read out on his behalf, Mr Jones said his family had suffered “overwhelming emotional and physical pain” as a result of what he described as “a careless, reckless, selfish and stupid act”.
Imposing a sentence of two years and three months, Judge Johnson
suspended the final 12 months.