Speed Limits

SeaSide

The Local Authority decides what speed limits are set for an area. Is there a process formal or otherwise that the LA has to go through or is it a arbitary?

Is there a formal letter that goes to the gardai to tell them that a certain section has a certain speed limit or is it just the speed limit sign that goes up?
(I ask this as there was a village that I used to commute through regularly and when they put up new 30mph signs going into the village it took them three weeks to remember to put up the no speed limit sign in the opposite direction so was I breaking the law when going over 30 for the twenty miles to the next town?)

How do the clowns who participate in on road rallying and other brain doner activity not get caught for speeding? Are the limits set aside and how is this done. ( my bias is based on the fact that you can fight in a boxing ring but its not considered polite to fight on the street. in the same way its alright to speed on a race track but there is something wrong if this is allowed on the public road )

jbkenn

SeaSide wrote:

How do the clowns who participate in on road rallying and other brain doner activity not get caught for speeding? Are the limits set aside and how is this done. ( my bias is based on the fact that you can fight in a boxing ring but its not considered polite to fight on the street. in the same way its alright to speed on a race track but there is something wrong if this is allowed on the public road )

By means of a Road Closing Order, Rallying takes place on a "Public Road" which has been "Closed" to the public for a specified time duration, to facilitate the Rally. Road Closing Orders are obtained from the local authority, provided the local residents do not object.


jbkenn

Yoda

A sort of related question: what will the new metric speed-limit signs look like? Will they have the text "km" on them?

Victor

SeaSide wrote:

The Local Authority decides what speed limits are set for an area. Is there a process formal or otherwise that the LA has to go through or is it a arbitary?

By default all "legal" urban areas (cities, boroughs, towns) are 30mph, motorways are 70mph and everything else is 60mph. 30mph can be increased to 40mph via a council motion following Garda consultation (there are specific procedures). Likewise 60mph & 70mph can be reduced to 40mph and 50mph.

The new proposals revise the limits (default 50kmh (urban), 80kmh (rural), 100kmh (natioanl routes) and 120kmh (motorways)) with specific roads to be specificly adjusted.

embraer170

I find 100 km/h for national routes on the fast side considering Switzerland and France, which both have arguable better national primaryroads have limits of 80 and 90 km/h respectively.

Yoda

And considering the deaths.

Allow people to drive 100 kph and they will drive 110. Allow them 90 and they wll drive 100.

BrianD

Some speed limits are influenced by "planning issues". For example, in most areas you can no longer create a new private entrance on a N route to a private dwelling. However, within a 30 MPH zone you can. Therefore you will find that in some towns and villages the 30 zone extends some distance beyond what seems the current "city limits". This obviously facilitates landowners within the 30 zone.

Victor

BrianD wrote:

Some speed limits are influenced by "planning issues". For example, in most areas you can no longer create a new private entrance on a N route to a private dwelling. However, within a 30 MPH zone you can. Therefore you will find that in some towns and villages the 30 zone extends some distance beyond what seems the current "city limits". This obviously facilitates landowners within the 30 zone.

No. Thats down to the legal town boundary extending beyond the built up area. Not great, but that is the law.

mackerski

embraer170 wrote:

I find 100 km/h for national routes on the fast side considering Switzerland and France, which both have arguable better national primaryroads have limits of 80 and 90 km/h respectively.

That's not the full story in those countries. Both countries also mark roads up from the conservative default - just as we can mark bad stretches of National Road down to, say, 80km/h.

France typically applies a 110km/h limit on dual-carriageways with grade-separated interchanges (here? Not a bloody hope...). I've seen high quality single-carriageways in Switzerland marked up to 100km/h.

Germany has a default limit of 100km/h, but frequently marks it down where merited. As everyone knows, they do not have an Autobahn limit. What fewer people realise is that dual-carriageways and roads with two or more marked lanes per direction are also, by default, derestricted, though non-divided roads are usually marked down as are many simple dual-carriageways. That said, I've been on a single-carriageway four-laner with good visibility that had been marked down to a very bearable 120km/h. I'll bet you that road has a low accident rate too.

In answer to someone else's question, the new signs will carry the text "km/h". Other countries use or have used the simple text "km", but maybe some local sign manufacturer lobbied successfully...

Dermot

Yoda

Predictably myopic of them. "Km" would be language-independent in Ireland. "Km/h" is English (50km per hour) as Irish would be "km/u" (50km san uair).

jd

Victor wrote:

No. Thats down to the legal town boundary extending beyond the built up area. Not great, but that is the law.

Victor, in Ireland it is usually the other way around, ie the built up area extends beyound the town boundary. (The county council doesn't want to lose revenue from rates to the borough/town council, so even though the town has grown, its boundary hasn't)

Victor

jd wrote:

Victor, in Ireland it is usually the other way around, ie the built up area extends beyound the town boundary. (The county council doesn't want to lose revenue from rates to the borough/town council, so even though the town has grown, its boundary hasn't)

Quite true, but it is usally when its where the legal boundary is outside the built-up area that you have the whinging.