IRHA to blockade M4 toll

murphaph

Well, it seems Jimmy Quinn & Co. are organising a masive protest in which the truckers of Ireland are going to blockade the M4. I don't usually find myself in agreement with the IRHA but I think they may be right this time. The charges to seem excessive to me (cue posts containing facts and figures about the cost of congestion to haulage companies). I'm all for tolling new intercity road schemes but the charges seem a little high for what you're getting. For example, I thnk Eurolink (or whoever) should have built the entire M4/6 to Athlone to be able to reasonably charge €2.50 for the pleasure. As it stands, the taxpayer now has to build the bit from Kinnegad to Athlone.

Source

IRHA organising day of protest on M4

06 January 2006 11:30

The Irish Road Haulage Association has announced that it is organising a National No Payday for the newly-opened tolled stretch of the M4 motorway which by-passes Enfield and Kinnegad.

The protest is due to take place on Monday week, 16 January, starting at 7am.

Members of the association are planning to converge on the toolbooths but to refuse to pay in protest over what they say are excessive charges.
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The association says it will target the newly opened tollbooths where hauliers from all around Ireland will converge and protest by refusing to pay the toll.

Ginger83

I think they should have a protest over it. €6.20 is far too high for an articulated truck to use this bypass. I have clocked it on both it and the old section of road and would have to say it does not justify itself to pay it as only 10-12 mins can be saved on a journey.
This could be a debatable question-If the new M4 bypass was opened ten months ahead of its time, why are we to pay for the first ten months.( Did they take into consideration the figures they saved on labour, etc for that time when considering the toll charges?

corktina

i reckon it saves me at least half an hour.........

it also saves diesel on my journey......

it also allows me to do more work within tacho hours........(if I want)

€6.20? not much more than a pack of fags.....or a pint....

Ginger83

Yea, but add that 2 or maybe 4 times a day by so many trucks on top of rising fuel costs and the costs of maintaining the vehicle. Bit more than a pint then, wouldn't you say?

corktina

not if you take into account the extra payload per day that could be carried in the extra time available and deduct the saving in Diesel .........

Ginger83

I dont feel the distance is shorter on the M4 bypass. If you check it on a map it curves a bit away from the original road. The time is made up by speed, but at 100-110km/h in a truck do you not think extra fuel would be used on the trip? and I dont think there are enough hours to squeeze in an extra journey to justify the costs.

dts

Its a longer way around and you use more fuel due to the greater speed and you do only save about ten or twelve mins on the journey. There is no way that you can say that the toll is worth it. The only time I will use it now is on Friday afternoons when the old road is busy. There can be no good arguments for the new toll road. Rip off Ireland!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:(

Victor

dts wrote:

Its a longer way around and you use more fuel due to the greater speed and you do only save about ten or twelve mins on the journey.

Yes, one does use more fuel at higher speeds, but seeing as trucks aren't ment to go over 80km/h and that one can cruise on the motorway, without the stop-start of the old road, I suspect there would be a saving in fuel.

JackieChan

Its obvious that you use more fuel at higher speeds but acceleration/deceleration needed when driving through towns is surely going to cost more than a constand speed. Certainly won't save you over 6 quid though

dts

Probably no difference as its a longer route. The worst part of the old N4 is the Enfield bypass, 40mph and now an extra roundabout, why didnt the get rid of the traffic lights?

1huge1

corktina wrote:

i reckon it saves me at least half an hour.........

it also saves diesel on my journey......

it also allows me to do more work within tacho hours........(if I want)

€6.20? not much more than a pack of fags.....or a pint....

ya but when they could easily charge a lot cheaper there just robbing us (well not me in particular im from munster and we have no tolls:D though you guys get much more roads)
i totally agree with the truckers

D'Peoples Voice

JackieChan wrote:

Its obvious that you use more fuel at higher speeds but acceleration/deceleration needed when driving through towns is surely going to cost more than a constand speed. Certainly won't save you over 6 quid though

I would have thought an employer can claim back the VAT on the toll!
Surely it's a business expense, like bringing your employees out for a game of golf in the Hermitage on a friday afternoon!

Flukey

Corktina, the road is great and there are savings in some ways, but don't you think it would be even better if they reduced that €6.20 toll by €6.20? The €2.50 toll for others should be reduced by €2.50 too. As for the M50 toll bridge, that is a joke. Remember they found a bomb near the toll booths on it? It may have been destined for criminals, but the best thing they could have done with it would have been to detonate it right there and blow away those toll booths for once and for all. There is more than enough tax taken from the Irish motorists to cover all of those costs. I am not even a driver so am not affected, but I still think it is crazy. Whether it is the East Link, the West Link, the Boyne Bridge, the M50, the M4 or whatever, they should all reduce their tolls by 100%. Then you would be getting at least some value for your taxation!

the_syco

€6.20 * both ways (to and from work) would be €12.40, and multiply that by 5 days, and its €62. Then multiply that by 50 weeks, and you get about €3100 a year. and the goverment expects the people to pay this?

The toll booths on the bridge over the Strawberry Beds works, as its cheap, and people will prefer to use it, rather than go a very long way around.

The M4 does little but bypass the towns. And at €6.20, many people will just keep going through the towns.

Take Leixlip for example. Before the bypass was built, the traffic was very bad, all day, every day. Now, though, its only really bad at peak times, and beside's that, its quite. This is due to the traffic going along the bypass, using it as it should be used.

The M4 won't see heavy traffic, if people have to pay about €3100 a year to use it.

corktina

the_syco wrote:

€6.20 * both ways (to and from work) would be €12.40, and multiply that by 5 days, and its €62. Then multiply that by 50 weeks, and you get about €3100 a year. and the goverment expects the people to pay this?

The toll booths on the bridge over the Strawberry Beds works, as its cheap, and people will prefer to use it, rather than go a very long way around.

The M4 does little but bypass the towns. And at €6.20, many people will just keep going through the towns.

Take Leixlip for example. Before the bypass was built, the traffic was very bad, all day, every day. Now, though, its only really bad at peak times, and beside's that, its quite. This is due to the traffic going along the bypass, using it as it should be used.

The M4 won't see heavy traffic, if people have to pay about €3100 a year to use it.

to and from work? in an artic? the cost is tax dedutable fro a business,the VAT is reclaimable...not THAT huge an expense I think

oh, on extra journeys....no not enough time saved for an extra journey, but gives the flexibility to program longer runs within tacho limits...

D'Peoples Voice

corktina wrote:

oh, on extra journeys....no not enough time saved for an extra journey, but gives the flexibility to program longer runs within tacho limits...

Could be hearsay, but a hacker told me, as far as he knows most members of the gardai can not read a tachometer!
Look Cortina, we live in a country where people want the Government to pay for everything (road tolls, water charges, refuse collection, motor tax) and still keep out tax take to one of the lowest in the EU.
We want to burn the candle at both ends, what's the harm in that?

BrianD

Ginger83 wrote:

Yea, but add that 2 or maybe 4 times a day by so many trucks on top of rising fuel costs and the costs of maintaining the vehicle. Bit more than a pint then, wouldn't you say?

Could a driver legally do four journeys a day from Dublin-Galway??

BrianD

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

I would have thought an employer can claim back the VAT on the toll!
Surely it's a business expense, like bringing your employees out for a game of golf in the Hermitage on a friday afternoon!

Except you can't claim the game of golf as a business expense for VAT purposes!

Victor

the_syco wrote:

€6.20

Thats for a truck, not a car.

BrianD wrote:

Except you can't claim the game of golf as a business expense for VAT purposes!

I'm not sure if there is VAT on golf. And people will try to claim "staff entertainemnt", but I supect not all staff will be entertained. The Revenue get iffy if you try to claim more than €200/year/person.

stag39

Ginger83 wrote:

but at 100-110km/h in a truck do you not think extra fuel would be used on the trip?

is it not the law that trucks have a lower speed limit imposed on them...something like 55 mph?

D'Peoples Voice

So what is the true cost of the toll to a haulier?
Is it €6.20 gross or net?

Of course, it's remotely possible, that there are hauliers who, lets say, may understate their earnings, so that claiming back expenses against their tax bill is not ideal in their eyes.
A bit like when taxi drivers were offered 100% capital allowance of their vehicle against tax. Some taxi drivers in particular were not very happy! Well to be fair receipt issuing MACHINES are not in every taxi, so it's difficult for them to be 100% about their earnings I guess:D

corktina

BrianD wrote:

Could a driver legally do four journeys a day from Dublin-Galway??

i think he meant 2 or 4 times thru the barrier not return trips........

the_syco

Victor wrote:

That for atruck, not a car.

Right there, Ted. Whats it for a car?

Ginger83

Yes all trucks are legally required to be governed to 80km/h but as I am sure you have all seen many are not? How many of you out there have been passed by a truck especially an articulated lorry exceeding 80km/h. I have even seen some of the smaller rigids doing up to 120km/h

and corktina I cannot see whatsoever how the flexibility of saving 10-12 minutes could allow drivers to program longer journeys, at a trucks maximum speed this would only allow a gain of about 8-10 miles without stopping

the_syco

Just thought of something funny:

These roads bypassing villages are mainly built to get heavy traffic (eg: trucks) off the main streets, thus making the villages more safe for the locals.

And then a levy that makes it cheaper to go thru the village (thus making the bypass worthless), and they expect the trucks to use the bypass?

Stuid.

dr zoidberg

the_syco wrote:

Just thought of something funny:

These roads bypassing villages are mainly built to get heavy traffic (eg: trucks) off the main streets, thus making the villages more safe for the locals.

And then a levy that makes it cheaper to go thru the village (thus making the bypass worthless), and they expect the trucks to use the bypass?

Stuid.

It's ridiculous. Bypasses shouldn't be tolled at all, only the long stretches of motorway.

I don't understand why every single new road has to be PPP and tolled. We've never had more money than we do now - why can't the government just put up the cash to build our roads as an investment in our economy rather than forcing tolls on us? The economic benefits of proper infrastructure would eventually outweigh the cost. I guess the tolls are too great a money-earner for the government.

D'Peoples Voice

dr zoidberg wrote:

It's ridiculous. Bypasses shouldn't be tolled at all, only the long stretches of motorway.

So if they don't toll the open road, they have to toll the entry to Enfield, Kinegad et al, completely kill the town's shops? It would solve our dispersed population problem in no time to be fair.

dr zoidberg wrote:

I don't understand why every single new road has to be PPP and tolled.

We have 4 - 5 toll roads and yet people start talking about tolls everywhere!
It's goes back to EU handouts, the East, Cork, Limerick & Galway no longer qualifies for handous, so in many cases the government pays some and the tolls pay the remainder. In the west & midlands where the handouts still apply, roads aren't tolled. Take for example the Cavan bypass, Edgeworthstown bypass, Castleblaney bypass, Monaghan bypass, Carrickmacross by pass to name but a few either built in the last 2-3 years or in construction.

dr zoidberg wrote:

We've never had more money than we do now - why can't the government just put up the cash to build our roads as an investment in our economy rather than forcing tolls on us? The economic benefits of proper infrastructure would eventually outweigh the cost.

Couldn't agree more, but as I've said over and over and over and over again, if you look at the government's budget figures, Social Welfare, Education and Health account for over 3/4 of the budget. For example Health gets €12-€14 billion, transport gets €2 billion less staff wages. that's why we have tolls.
they could borrow, but they could end up like Gordon Brown, being chasticed by Europe for running a budget deficit when the economy is growing at a healthy pace on it's own. Never mind that the UK aren't even in the Euro area.

dr zoidberg wrote:

I guess the tolls are too great a money-earner for the government.

Yes, and they do what with it, that's correct spend 3/4 of it on Social Welfare, Education and Health!

dam099

Ginger83 wrote:

Yes all trucks are legally required to be governed to 80km/h but as I am sure you have all seen many are not? How many of you out there have been passed by a truck especially an articulated lorry exceeding 80km/h. I have even seen some of the smaller rigids doing up to 120km/h

I don't see why we should factor in truck drivers breaking the law into the calculations, if they have a higher cost because they break the speed limit, thats their tough luck.

corktina

Ginger83 wrote:

Yes all trucks are legally required to be governed to 80km/h but as I am sure you have all seen many are not? How many of you out there have been passed by a truck especially an articulated lorry exceeding 80km/h. I have even seen some of the smaller rigids doing up to 120km/h

and corktina I cannot see whatsoever how the flexibility of saving 10-12 minutes could allow drivers to program longer journeys, at a trucks maximum speed this would only allow a gain of about 8-10 miles without stopping

i find it saves me 30 mins.
You wont get extra trips on each journey, but you will be able to schedule longer trips within tacho limits. I expect this will be of some importance to some of the larger operators (couriers for instance...)
for example, on my thursday run , pre-M4 toll section I could JUST about make it leaglly into Dublin for my overnight stop......if i suffered any delays, I was over my hours and obliged to stop for a 45 minute break...(which I did reliiously of course:D ) That 30 minutes saved makes a whole lot of difference to my journey.......

spacetweek

dr zoidberg wrote:

It's ridiculous. Bypasses shouldn't be tolled at all, only the long stretches of motorway.

The M4 is a long stretch of motorway.

Ginger83

Well guys the protest this morning seemed to be a success, maybe the toll will be reduced during the discussions to save us all the trouble of disrupting the traffic again

I was not taking into consideration a truck's speed breaking the law, I was onlt stating in my opinion that the M4 is a long stretch of road and at a trucks max speed allowed by Irish laws the time figures dont justify the toll charges,I cannot reduce the excessive speed some may drive at any more than you can mate

dts

So how was it a success?
Have the tolls been reduced or abolished?
I think not. If something was to be done about the M4 toll it had to have been before it was built. There is no point complaining now as its too late. As it stands people are paying the toll so eurolink are making money and for the rest of us that wont pay the toll we are stuck on the old N4.
Look to the future and stop new roads being built as toll roads!!!!!!!

corktina

i think it was a flop wasnt it...60 trucks, some of whom would be innocent passers by.....

I can't see what the problem is...if truckers don't want to use the toll road, then don't...You can have free passage on the old N4 and get through quicker because of the proportion of trafficwhich elects to use the toll road...You cant have your cake and eat it chaps....

1huge1

corktina wrote:

i think it was a flop wasnt it...60 trucks, some of whom would be innocent passers by.....

I can't see what the problem is...if truckers don't want to use the toll road, then don't...You can have free passage on the old N4 and get through quicker because of the proportion of trafficwhich elects to use the toll road...You cant have your cake and eat it chaps....

if people thought like that there would be tolls everywere
can you really justify them being ripped of (and they are being ripped of) and your saying ah sure they can go the old road
well they should have to

corktina

whats the difference? you can watch old films on RTE for no extra charge or you can pay extra for sky movies if you wish ...............

1huge1

corktina wrote:

whats the difference? you can watch old films on RTE for no extra charge or you can pay extra for sky movies if you wish ...............

well its easy for us to say this in munster

jwt

corktina wrote:

I can't see what the problem is...if truckers don't want to use the toll road, then don't...You can have free passage on the old N4 and get through quicker because of the proportion of trafficwhich elects to use the toll road...You cant have your cake and eat it chaps....

A major issue in Clonard, on the N4, is that even though the volumes of traffic have reduced through the village, the number of trucks hasn't changed much. But the speed of the trucks going through has increased as there aren't many holdups in the village now.


At night walking on the footpath i have seen pedestrians being blown off balance by artics whipping through at 50 mph plus!!!!!


Even after lunch when the National School, which is on the main road, is emptying of kids between toddler age and 12, trucks are still blasting into the 50kph limit before the school using the hill to reduce momentum.

I tried to get our 4 year old into a car seat through the offside door (younger child was strapped into a car seat attached to the nearside seat) and gave it a miss when a I saw an artic lock his back wheels attempting to avoid a mother and toddler trying to get into a car.


I understand that sometime in the next few months the speed limit outside schools is to drop drastically, and that the speed limits in clonard will be extended signifantly. Hopefully that will reduce the speed through the village and shift the economic balance back towards using the motorway.

If you sit back and look at the logic its bananas. We have a 4 lane road with a concrete central barrier, crash barriers, good road surface and great sight lines going through fields with cows in them. But a village with a national School, kids, a shop etc has traffic passing within millimetres and not a conrete or steel crash barrier to be seen.

It really does make me wonder if we've got our priorities straight.

we'll see what happens.


John

corktina

jwt wrote:

A major issue in Clonard, on the N4, is that even though the volumes of traffic have reduced through the village, the number of trucks hasn't changed much. But the speed of the trucks going through has increased as there aren't many holdups in the village now.


At night walking on the footpath i have seen pedestrians being blown off balance by artics whipping through at 50 mph plus!!!!!


Even after lunch when the National School, which is on the main road, is emptying of kids between toddler age and 12, trucks are still blasting into the 50kph limit before the school using the hill to reduce momentum.

I tried to get our 4 year old into a car seat through the offside door (younger child was strapped into a car seat attached to the nearside seat) and gave it a miss when a I saw an artic lock his back wheels attempting to avoid a mother and toddler trying to get into a car.


I understand that sometime in the next few months the speed limit outside schools is to drop drastically, and that the speed limits in clonard will be extended signifantly. Hopefully that will reduce the speed through the village and shift the economic balance back towards using the motorway.

If you sit back and look at the logic its bananas. We have a 4 lane road with a concrete central barrier, crash barriers, good road surface and great sight lines going through fields with cows in them. But a village with a national School, kids, a shop etc has traffic passing within millimetres and not a conrete or steel crash barrier to be seen.

It really does make me wonder if we've got our priorities straight.

we'll see what happens.


John

You are quite right of course that lower volumes could equal higher speeds. This isnt an arguement to reduce or remove the tolls of course. if this is a problem, the Gards should be notified and approriate action taken by the CC such as traffic calmimg measures.

As I understand it, private capital was used to part-finance the new road and it would not have been available without the prospect of a return on it.As dts said earlier, the thing to do is to stop more toll roads being built and ensure that new roads are built with NRA funds for the good of us all.

dts

Just to let you know, there are a few people here where I work that have been done for speeding on the new road. The guards were hid on a bridge so they didnt know untill the letter came through the post.
Now thats going to encourage people to pay the toll?

D'Peoples Voice

dts wrote:

Just to let you know, there are a few people here where I work that have been done for speeding on the new road. The guards were hid on a bridge so they didnt know untill the letter came through the post.
Now thats going to encourage people to pay the toll?

It depends, there are some who don't like to have to share a road with drivers who think they are a F1 driver!
I know I feel more comfortable knowing that there are not cars driving at 150km/h on the road. Thankfully the gardai enforce the speedlimit recommended by the National Safety Council, so I feel safer! No point in introducing laws(speed limits) if you're not going to police them as Fine Gael would say.

As regards trucks driving at high speed past the school in clonard, it's reminds of a similar scenario of a school on the N5 in Roscommon, if i remember correctly, solution is setting reduced speed limits, or god forbid ramps if absolutely necessary!
The county councils have been given these powers for so long now, it's shocking how slow they are to move. But when someone is killed .....

1huge1

hey D'Peoples Voice i know this is beside the point but im curious your sig do you mean that the western corrider is way to expensive or not needed?
just curious of your opinion
as for me though i suppose its better to have it in the long run even though it dosnt serve me at all

D'Peoples Voice

1huge1 wrote:

hey D'Peoples Voice i know this is beside the point but im curious your sig do you mean that the western corrider is way to expensive or not needed?
just curious of your opinion
as for me though i suppose its better to have it in the long run even though it dosnt serve me at all

Opposition parties told us how the gov were squandering money on the luas, how it ended up 3 times the original cost. But if spending €750m on a project to carry 20m passengers approx is squandering our money, then what is spending half that amount to carry only 1.6m? Work that out? Yet the opposition parties support this!!!!!!:eek:
Put it like this, the government could have financed the rest of the cost of the new M4 themselves, with no toll, using the funds that will be spent on the Western Rail corridor! Which will carry more people? Which will benefit the west more?
It seems Irish people are oblivious to this contradiction when it comes to our taxes:mad:

corktina

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

Opposition parties told us how the gov were squandering money on the luas, how it ended up 3 times the original cost. But if spending €750m on a project to carry 20m passengers approx is squandering our money, then what is spending half that amount to carry only 1.6m? Work that out? Yet the opposition parties support this!!!!!!:eek:
Put it like this, the government could have financed the rest of the cost of the new M4 themselves, with no toll, using the funds that will be spent on the Western Rail corridor! Which will carry more people? Which will benefit the west more?
It seems Irish people are oblivious to this contradiction when it comes to our taxes:mad:

how much? £365 million for the WRC? wow! I didnt realise that was the cost, I am no longer in favour of the WRC............

Capt'n Midnight

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

But if spending €750m on a project to carry 20m passengers approx is squandering our money, then what is spending half that amount to carry only 1.6m?

Yet Dublin Bus only gets €60 for 150m passengers.

NRA would have a lot more money to spend if they could get people in Dublin to use public transport instead of the M50. Out of curiousity how much would it have cost to lay rail instead of motorway ?

1huge1

corktina wrote:

how much? £365 million for the WRC? wow! I didnt realise that was the cost, I am no longer in favour of the WRC............

its euros not pounds
anyway i think they could do better things with the money
how about some better services for cork,limerick and galway

corktina

1huge1 wrote:

its euros not pounds
anyway i think they could do better things with the money
how about some better services for cork,limerick and galway

slip of the finger / mental frailty...yes I knew it was euro, comment still stands......how many buses would that pay for?....

D'Peoples Voice

1huge1 wrote:

its euros not pounds
anyway i think they could do better things with the money
how about some better services for cork,limerick and galway

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for public transport over roads:) ,
but I just can't see why we are devoting money to a public transport project where there is insufficient demand and will not remove many cars from our roads:mad: , when there are so many other public transport projects crying out for money, and which would do a better job of removing rush hour traffic from our roads, for example have you ever heard of people giving up on waiting for buses to pass and not stopping because they are too full! Where else would you get a situation where a service can't keep with demand but doesn't expand:(
If people wish for the money to be spent on roads,
look at the N5 road, no bypass of Longford town, and single lane most of the route, and the castlebar road to Galway city isn't fantastic either.
I'd never deprive any project from being built, I just question it's priority!

Flukey

the_syco wrote:

The toll booths on the bridge over the Strawberry Beds works, as its cheap, and people will prefer to use it, rather than go a very long way around.

It works does it? You have got to be kidding. Have you ever seen the queues at rush hour approaching it? Get rid of the tolls and that bridge would work.