New speed limit signs planned for rural roads

mydiscworld · 21-11-2013 1:28pm #1

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/1121/488146-speed-limits/

80km/h speed limit signs will be removed from narrow country roads and replaced by the old system of signage which will become known as the "rural speed limit".

A removal of so-called "silly speed limits" in dangerous places, a five-year audit of every speed limit in the country and a process to allow the public to appeal limits will also be introduced.

It follows an examination by an expert group.

Many roads in rural Ireland, often in bad condition, have speed limits of 80km/h.

The top speed on many newer, larger and safer dual carriageways is 60km/h.

Last year, Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar asked the Speed Limits Working Group to examine the issue.

It has made several significant recommendations, which the minister has accepted.

It means that all 80km/h signs on small rural roads and laneways will be removed and replaced by new "rural speed limit" signs.

They will have a black circle with a diagonal line, like signs used in Ireland before 2004.

However, the limit will remain 80km/h.

The new signs are intended to indicate to motorists to use their own judgement on the speed they take.

TheBandicoot · 21-11-2013 2:27pm

This seems crazy to me, but maybe I'm missing something as I live in an urban area and don't drive.

antoobrien · 21-11-2013 2:51pm

TheBandicoot wrote: »

This seems crazy to me, but maybe I'm missing something as I live in an urban area and don't drive.

80km/h limits on bothríns is the default unless the council has inspected them.

The R339* between Ballintemple & Carnmore Cross in Galway is a good example of the kind of things that need to be changed. The road was widened and resurfaced in the mid 90s and easily wide enough for 4 cars across the road.

60km/h limit

The bothríns off it are barely wide enough for a tractor but have the default 80km/h limits.

* There are plans to have the limit increased to 80km/h, Galway Co Co are waiting on a report before they change it.

hi5 · 21-11-2013 2:58pm

The white sign with the black horizontal line through never meant 'make your own mind up', it meant the national speed limit applied, which would be 100kph now.
And anyway most people didn't even understand that back then!

Colm R · 21-11-2013 2:59pm

TheBandicoot wrote: »

This seems crazy to me, but maybe I'm missing something as I live in an urban area and don't drive.

I don't think its that crazy to be honest. The solutions are:

1. Leave everything at 80km/h. For most this is fine as they would not drive at 80 if the road does not allow it, but it only takes one .....

2. Full audit of every road in the country and apply the appropriate limit to every single one of them - lots of signs and kind of admonishes drivers from making mistakes in their speed.

3. Make use of the 'dangerous driving' clause in the rules, and explicitly force drivers to make a judgement. This effectively means that while you could not technically be done for speeding between 1 and 80, you could be done for dangerous driving.

Mr Cumulonimbus · 21-11-2013 3:03pm

Similar with the stretch of the N52 running through Co. Meath. For whatever reasom an 80 kmh limit was put along its entire length by Meath co co despite many parts of it being suitable for a 100 kmh limit. Crossing into both Westmeath and Louth it becomes 100 kmh.

Red Nissan · 21-11-2013 3:06pm

It makes sense if one considers a "speed limit" to be the goal and drivers being obliged to reach that minimum speed even on dirt roads where it's unsafe even for a tank to try and reach that speed.

I would think they should make a totally new sign and totally reword their publications.

I get it, but putting it in words makes it look silly. The object I suspect is for a driver not to feel pressurised by other road users to go faster when conditions are not suitable for the vehicle or load they are carrying.

Red Nissan · 21-11-2013 3:12pm

Colm R wrote: »

2. Full audit of every road in the country and apply the appropriate limit to every single one of them - lots of signs and kind of admonishes drivers from making mistakes in their speed..

Down Drispey way we had a bohereen that made national headlines a few years back when the then new 80km/h limit signs were erected.

This bohereen, part of the national roads network was totally eroded with massive potholes stitched together. My own jeep was too fast at 10km/h.

It is now a proud paved road ~ but no fun anymore and a local garage had to lay off some staff as business nearly halted.

mydiscworld · 21-11-2013 5:01pm

Appeals process for ‘inconsistent’ and ‘silly’ speed limits

Times now running the story

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/appeals-process-for-inconsistent-and-silly-speed-limits-1.1602652

antoobrien · 21-11-2013 5:04pm

Also on the indo

AugustusMinimus · 21-11-2013 5:59pm

Seems to be a lot of confusion out there.

The new sign will not be a national speed limit sign. It will be a sign to indicate that the speed limit is 80kph. Nothing more, nothing less.

I'm guessing they think that people seem to the 80kph sign and think it is a target.

IMO, this is the greatest load of nonsense I've ever read. The cost of changing for a start is beyond believe. The new sign will do nothing but cause confusion and foreigners will actually think the sign indicates National speed limit which in most cases they'll interpret as 100kph.

The whole document is a load of nonsense. Says a lot that the RSA welcomes everything in the document. God only knows what it cost to do this "Audit" and prepare this document.

ardmacha · 21-11-2013 7:41pm

It will be a sign to indicate that the speed limit is 80kph. Nothing more, nothing less.

Hopefully this will indicate that this has a limit of 80kmh, but that is a default not a decision that this is the exact number. This is different from motorways etc which are built to certain standard.

IMO, this is the greatest load of nonsense I've ever read. The cost of changing for a start is beyond believe. The new sign will do nothing but cause confusion and foreigners will actually think the sign indicates National speed limit which in most cases they'll interpret as 100kph.

No rush with the change. The 80 signs are not wrong. There may be confusion at the border, but why should foreigners think it means 100kph?

21-11-2013 9:51pm

I just had a quick look around and the proposed sign looks to be the same type as used to designate unlimited Autobahns.
Makes sense if you think about it, go as fast as you feel safe to go, as opposed as to seeing an 80kmh sign and thinking that it's a target speed.

murphaph · 21-11-2013 10:47pm

I think this is nonsensical.

Hotblack Desiato · 22-11-2013 12:12am

If a driver really is thick enough to think that a figure on a sign means it's safe to go that fast regardless of conditions, weather or traffic, the best thing they could do is hand in their licence and never drive again.

Stupid waste of money taking down the old diagonal stripe signs, replacing them with 80km/h, then taking those down and putting something very similar to the old signs back. The 80km/h signs were a bad decision, but not really worth spending money to reverse.

Some people seem to think that any road with a bad bend, or whatever, shouldn't have a limit of X km/h - it's totally impractical to have a limit change for every bump, bend and junction in a road, unenforceable anyway, and in the end the only thing that will make a driver safe on the road is good judgement, not obeyance of a figure on a sign.

Some of the roads which got 80km/h signs were totally unsuitable for that speed, but some of them were easily suitable for 100km/h (and, once upon a time were, shock horror, unlimited) and got an arbitrary reduction for no good reason at all. Then there's the former national routes which were replaced by motorways, the road stayed the same but the limit dropped for no apparent reason other than to punish people unwilling to pay tolls.

vicwatson · 22-11-2013 12:13am

This country wastes more money on road signs... it's unbelievable

Leonard Hofstadter · 22-11-2013 12:47am

vicwatson wrote: »

This country wastes more money on road signs... it's unbelievable

While at the same time hiking up the cost of prescriptions for people on medical cards... talk about having the priorities all wrong like:rolleyes:!

TheBoffin · 22-11-2013 2:15am

The white sign with the black horizontal line through never meant 'make your own mind up', it meant the national speed limit applied, which would be 100kph now.
And anyway most people didn't even understand that back then!

I couldn't agree more, The sign as shown on this page will just confuse people coming across the border and those coming from europe.

Once again, another non-sensical move, the least they could have done was change the sign to something that is intuitive and doesn't already exist.

Hotblack Desiato · 22-11-2013 2:26am

hi5 wrote: »

The white sign with the black horizontal line through never meant 'make your own mind up'

It did though, before national speed limits were imposed, and still does in the Isle of Man and on German autobahns. We are far too anal about speed, yet tolerant of incompetence.

touts · 22-11-2013 8:08am

So from what I can make out in response to public outrage that many speed limits were not correctly set and therefore people were unfairly getting penalty points Varadkar and his officials have come up with a new system. They have decided to replace the "80kph" signs where that limit was clearly too high with a vague sign that they now define as meaning "Slower than 80kph how much slower we don't know but just slower" but everyone else thinks still has the old meaning of "Drive carefully up to a limit of 100kph".

And in the meantime the revenue generating spots where the speed limit is too low and which people were really pissed off about have been addressed by possibly looking at maybe setting up a committee under the department or the RSA where you might be able to lodge an appeal against the decision of the local authority to reject your original appeal about a limit you feed stongly enough about.

And Varadkar is considered the bright one in cabinet?

old_aussie · 22-11-2013 8:20am

TheBandicoot wrote: »

This seems crazy to me, but maybe I'm missing something as I live in an urban area and don't drive.

The "new" signs will have everyone in rural areas doing the legal speed limit.

antoobrien · 22-11-2013 11:29am

TheBoffin wrote: »

Once again, another non-sensical move, the least they could have done was change the sign to something that is intuitive and doesn't already exist.

What's the bigger nonsense, the fact that this side road has an 80km/h limit

where the main road it's an offshoot of has a 60km/h limit

or this section a couple of miles away - clearly of a lower standard - having an 80km/h limit.

This is about removing some of the absurdities that we have with speed limits in this county, which have the effect of undermining the credibility of the speed limit system.

For anyone who has objections regarding the possibility of this potentially allowing more speeding, Conor Faughnan was on the The Last Word yesterday evening (probably worth listening back to, Anton Savage had the contrarian view that many here seem to hold) and stated that one can still be done for both dangerous and/or careless driving if the speed is inappropriate on a road (in this case too fast).

MrDerp · 22-11-2013 11:41am

ninja900 wrote: »

If a driver really is thick enough to think that a figure on a sign means it's safe to go that fast regardless of conditions, weather or traffic, the best thing they could do is hand in their licence and never drive again.

Sorry, but that's not fair comment. I grew up in the city, I've always lived in cities, and I learned to drive in cities.

I was dropping a lad home one day, somewhere rural. Just as we're leaving a built up (with housing estates) area I see a sign for 80km/h and start to build up my speed. He goes "whoah whoah ignore that sign", and not 200m further on we come around a corner and are immediately faced with one of those old bridges where cars can't pass abreast.

As a city driver, when I'm leaving town I'm building up my speed as per the signs, from 50 to 60, from 60 to 80, and up to motorway speed.

I fully agree with taking down these signs, they're dangerous precisely because they work against the habits of any driver who doesn't live up a bothrín themselves.

Instead of seeing "80km/h zone ahead" when driving an unfamiliar road, I'll either continue at my previous lower speed, or see a black diagonal line which from now on I'll read as "Danger, narrow-laned lunar buggy track ahead"

mackerski · 22-11-2013 12:29pm

mydiscworld wrote: »

http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/1121/488146-speed-limits/

So in other words, they've realised that abolishing that sign may not have been all that wise. It's deemed better (and I agree) to have a sign meaning "default limit applies" but not mentioning any numbers than a sign that some (stupid) people expect to name a safe or appropriate speed.

In summary:

Abolition of that sign when we switched to km: pointless

Complaining that there are 80 limits on roads where you can't do 80: stupid, back to driving school to learn what a speed limit is

Reintroduction of the NSL sign in the hope of unconfusing stupid people: pointless

TheBoffin · 22-11-2013 12:43pm

What's the bigger nonsense, the fact that this side road has an 80km/h limit

Nobody is arguing with speeds being changed. The point is use a new sign for it, stop using slightly altered versions of signs that are used in the EU which indicate National Speed Limit Applies (100kph for road & 120kph for motorway)

22-11-2013 8:17pm

It means "no limit" when used on the German autobahn, which really means go as fast as it is safe to do.

Here I expect it will have the same meaning, except that the road conditions will set a hard limit on your speed!

In reality it should make the roads safer as it puts the responsibility of choosing your maximum speed back on the driver, rather than seeing an 80kmh* sign and believing that that speed has been checked and deemed safe to travel along that road.

*the positioning of some signs is unbelievably bad!

mackerski · 22-11-2013 8:28pm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

t puts the responsibility of choosing your maximum speed back on the driver, rather than seeing an 80kmh* sign and believing that that speed has been checked and deemed safe to travel along that road.

That responsibility has never been lifted from the driver. Anybody who thinks it has should turn in his licence.

Aineoil · 22-11-2013 8:47pm

I live in rural Ireland on a national primary route. I know that was my choice when we bought our house in 1997. Then, there wasn't that much traffic on the road, and life seemed less frenetic and traffic travelled at a slower speed (just my opinion).

Fast forward to 2013, I can't pull out of my driveway at 7:50 in the morning, not due to the volume of traffic, it's due to the speed that cars are driven at.

So my husband, god love him, every morning has to stand at the gate and tell me when it's safe to pull out of the driveway.

Luckily I trust him!

It seems to me that the present speed limits are arbitrary, so I welcome a review. You can drive faster past my house than on some stretches of motorways in Ireland.

Aineoil · 22-11-2013 8:49pm

Deleted User wrote: »

*the positioning of some signs is unbelievably bad!

I agree totally.

22-11-2013 9:11pm

mackerski wrote: »

That responsibility has never been lifted from the driver. Anybody who thinks it has should turn in his licence.

True, it wasn't, but at the same time it has been proven that an inappropriate speed limit causes more crashes than no limit at all!

There was one particular stretch of road in the UK that was unlimited (or more correctly a NSL of 60mph) the average speed along that road was about 35mph. Then the local council decided to set a limit of 40mph and the crash rate increased by about 50%.

Sheldons Brain · 22-11-2013 9:35pm

I was dropping a lad home one day, somewhere rural. Just as we're leaving a built up (with housing estates) area I see a sign for 80km/h and start to build up my speed. He goes "whoah whoah ignore that sign", and not 200m further on we come around a corner and are immediately faced with one of those old bridges where cars can't pass abreast.

You are just a bad driver. It is not the business of the government to tell you what speed is safe to travel, other than legal maxima, you are supposed to read the road in front of you.

This attitude of "the speed limit is x, I am entitled to do this regardless" stinks.

What they need are continental style end of built up area signs

New speed limit signs planned for rural roads

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