Accident hotspots on the M50 motorway are at the busiest and most vulnerable part of it.

That's according to transport commentator Conor Faughnan, who believes we should shift focus from roads to public transport.

He was responding to a study which found that driving on the M50 near Lucan and Liffey Valley between 4.00pm and 5.00pm is when you are most likely to be involved in a crash.

An analysis of accident statistics, published by the Irish Independent, found from January 1st to August 31st there were 1,088 incidents on the M50 - of which 399 were collisions.

Conor told Pat Kenny this is an extraordinary number.

"It's the busiest motorway in the country, and these crashes listed are occuring at the busiest part of it.

"It's well over 150,000 vehicles per day on that stretch, it's the first part of the M50 that was built and it was extended, the West-Link Bridge was doubled in capacity.

"It's just got busier and busier - the junctions have been upgraded - it's the busiest part of our road network.

"And it's desperately vulnerable, because 1,000 incidents - that's what 50 per week - it's an extraordinary number.

"But they're not all serious, they don't need to be to really disrupt the motorway.

"A simple touch of two cars together, or something very innocuous, can cause a traffic jam that delays you for an hour coming from Dalkey.

"It's a very vulnerable spot".

Solution 'isn't a road solution'

But he said any remedy would likely 'be worse than the solution', as it would involve closing the motorway.

"There's a limit to how much you can keep building. The other sort of truism is that when you build road capacity, it fills up.

"There are locations where the country still desperately needs to improve the network: Cork to Limerick springs immediately to mind.

"But ultimately the solution to this isn't a road solution.

"If you look at all those vehicles on the M50, a lot of it is commercial traffic which is fair enough.

"But a lot of the traffic doesn't want to be there.

"There are people who live in Tallaght and work on the the northside - they would love to be getting a Metro to work.

"We have to provide alternatives for large volumes of people so they don't need to take to the road.

"We still have some engineering challenges and we still have more roads to build, but I'd suggest the bigger transport priority for us now as a country is probably not the road network - it's public transport".