Dublin City Council is being urged to impose a 30km/h (19mph) speed limit on juggernaut trucks using the city's streets after the port tunnel opens later this year.
In a detailed submission to the council on its draft management strategy for heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), the Dublin Cycling Campaign said this was necessary to avoid a mounting toll of death and injury among cyclists.
"The number of cyclists' deaths on the streets of Dublin over the past few years that involved HGVs should have given those in authority the spur to bring in more drastic road safety measures even as an interim measure", it said.
Between 2000-2005, 17 cyclists have been killed on Dublin's streets, of whom 10 have been killed in collisions with HGVs. " 'Serial killers' would not be too emotive a term to use to describe the actions of HGVs and their drivers," according to the cyclists' group.
The submission, compiled by Dr Mike McKillen of Trinity College, blamed the high death toll on the EU's exemption of HGVs "from all sorts of design safety features that have been forced on car manufacturers over the decades to make cars less lethal".
City councillors and officials determining policy on traffic management should "get on your bikes" to learn the reality of the HGV hazard at first hand, he said.
