Motorway speedlimit?

carryboy

speed limits are fine.:cool: it only makes us a bit uncomfortable because we can't try the speed our cars offer..:D

darkflower

speed limits are fine. it only makes us a bit uncomfortable because we can't try the speed our cars offer..

right!fast car we buy yet there's no use of the speed it offers!

Zynks

A large share of Irish drivers don't have a clue about how to drive in motorways, can't handle a few drops of rain and are rather ignorant when someone draws attention to the fact that they are causing difficulties to other drivers (clogging fast lanes, stopping on yellow boxes, driving erratically while speaking on the phone, etc).

So, first issue to be addressed is driver education, and I think a campaign in the media is way overdue - and I am not referring to speed. Also, people caught making mistakes that are obvious lack of understanding of the rules of the road should be sent to compulsory driving lessons and re-examination. This would save far more lives than speed checking.

Second issue, national roads (except for recent motorways) here have to be some of the worst in Europe, and the road marking/signs are a total disaster. As an example, the south of Spain has secondary roads quite similar (designed by cows heading to the market maybe) to many Irish national roads, but they have excellent signs. It feels like driving in a rally, but with the best navigator in the world. If it says slow down, there is a real reason. If it says don't pass, you would be crazy if you did. I tested some of their roads following all the signs and driving right on the speed limit for each segment, and I got an amazing sense that I couldn't get there much faster, nor safer.

Action 2: Send road engineers, especially the ones responsible for markings and signs for a "crash" course in countries where they know how to do it. Then, redesign the whole setup on Irish national roads considering the real limitations and risks of each segment of the roads.

With a decent standard of driving, speed is not the main killer, but just accidents*. There is no point in saying that Germany has a lower ratio of accidents and deaths when the big thing is that they KNOW how to drive. Can we say the same about Irish drivers?

* Note that my interpretation of accident is "something which happens unexpectedly and unintentionally", but incompetence by the driver or road engineers doesn't fall into that category. That would be negligence.

Seth Brundle

stevenk wrote:

i was driving into mullingar the other day(it was the weekend of hifi, loads of traffic) in a line of traffic doing 80 in the right hand lane, and maybe 65-70 on the left, the guards were stopped there and i think if they had tried to stop anyone, they would have cause a pile up.

for the motorway having a speedlimit of 120, in the dry you can go faster safely, but in the wet maybe not.
are there any other countries with wet and dry speed limits?

Are you mixing miles and kilometres as your 1st paragraph suggests mph.
If the second paragraph is referring to 120mph then this is absurd. I have driven at this speed (and higher) on the continent. It is actually quite difficult as it requires huge amounts of concentration and a car that is in excellent condition.

corktina wrote:

doesnt matter what you are driving, if you have an emergency, say,a blowout, the result will be the same and the faster you are travelling, the more dangerous it will be...

With newer technologies such as run-flat tyres (RFTs), this is not an issue. A MINI was driven by Top Gear around a track with properly inflated RFTs and then punctured RFTs and the lap time wasn't that much different, nor was the cars handling.
However, with VRT etc. it may be some time before it becomes widespread here !:(

darkflower wrote:

right!fast car we buy yet there's no use of the speed it offers!

I drive my car on track a number of times a year. So having a car capable of high speeds is something I want.

impr0v

murphaph wrote:

I believe the Mullingar Bypass (not the low standard dualled section just east of it!) is built to motoray spec

It was built to 'high quality dual carriageway' specification which in many cases is motorway in all but name. Two of the significant reasons why it isn't motorway spec. have already been pointed out, namely the at-grade accesses to the petrol station and restaurant and also an at-grade access to the old N4 just west of the Roadhouse (formerly the Downs Inn) which is within the confines of the original Mullingar Bypass Scheme. There are others, such as the lack of emergency communications and the fact that the first bend on the bypass, heading westbound, is not up to motorway geometric standards, i.e. the curve radius is insufficiently large for a design speed of 120 kph.

You are essentially right however in saying that technically it is capable of sustaining a higher speed than 100 kph.

corktina

my car is 33 years old and proven capable of 135mph (paced by a M3 was that u kbannon? on the track and not driven by me). However good our roads become, there is no way I am driving it at anything like that speed NOT because of it's age or mechancal condition, but because of the ability (or lack of it) of other Iirsh drivers....400,000 of whom are unqualified and should not be on the road unaccompanied....

Seth Brundle

corktina wrote:

mpaced by a M3 was that u kbannon?

I wish!

Capt'n Midnight

JesusWasGay wrote:

Do you think there should be no speed limit on Irish motorways?

We mgiht have to look into the future a bit when there are longer motorways.

Because you need a longer gap between cars when you travel faster a speed of 40mph is optimal for traffic volume, When traffic is light far too many drivers hog the overtaking lane or travel at 40mph in the inside lane forcing frequent overtaking, to allow some one travelling at very high speed to do so safely.

In France there are variable speed limits on Motorways, dpending on conditions like rain. ( eg: the limit should be 40mph during rush hour ) http://www.met.ie/climate/rainfall.asp

How Often Does it Rain?
The general impression is that it rains quite a lot of the time in Ireland but in fact two out of three hourly observations will not report any measurable rainfall. The average number of wet days (days with more than 1mm of rain) ranges from about 150 days a year along the east and south-east coasts, to about 225 days a year in parts of the west.

so if we follow the French system then you half the time you use a lower speed limit.

On the M50 one christmas morning it was frosty, 24 accidents, the point here being the later drivers presumably saw at least one previous accident and didn't slow down. Just unreal if you think about it.

Most Irish drivers consider themselves to be above average drivers. Now consider the quality of driving visible to them as the use Irish roads !

Far too many Irish drivers are not capable of using our existing motorways at present to even consider it. When our motorways are cleared of L-drivers, people doing 40mph on clear sections, stuff with trailers going way over 50mph, large numbers who change lane without indicating then you can begin to consider it. People hogging the overtaking lane etc.
I've driven on UK motorways and the M50 scares me far more.

If it can be shown that Irish motorists are using motorways correctly then I still would not let someone who passed an Irish test full speed.
So if we were to go no limit like on SOME German motorways then we use similar systems.
- only cars allowed to go fast, no vans , no commercial vehicles even if based on a car
- only drivers who have done a full driving test over several days including a night driving session , and where failing a test three times means you have to visit a physichatrist before you are allowed to sit one again.

And then there is the question of wear and tear and increased carbon emissions.

How long does it take to slow down when you are doing 150mph ?
If someone doing 50mph is overtaking a tractor one mile ahead are you safe ?
( the person doing 50 will pull out because you are too far away for them to judge your speed, if they even bother )

Bottom line almost all accidents are caused by driver error, and the faster you go the less chance you have of compensating.

Stark

If someone was to come along one day and bomb the length of the M50 killing everyone, we could easily improve the average standard of driving in the country I reckon

Was driving behind someone at speed in the overtaking lane the other day when he jammed on the brakes and came to a complete stop before slipping back between cars in the slow lane. Thank god I was keeping a reasonably safe distance with noone behind me. Though I think in future I'll be leaving even more of a gap, I don't think my heart could take that again.

Lennoxschips

Do you want the government to signpost different speeds for millions of different sections along the same road.

well, yes, that's the government's job

they do it in most western countries i've been in

Bill Andrex

Roads have speed limits on them for engineering reasons, motorways in general have design speed of 120Km (hence the speed limit), speeds may be lowered in the case of sharp bends etc or when the sight distance is less than optimal over crests etc.

Each road will have an upper design speed limit too and more often than not our road fatality statistics show those people who were killed for excessive speed and exceeding these limits.

Seth Brundle

Bill Andrex wrote:

Roads have speed limits on them for engineering reasons, motorways in general have design speed of 120Km (hence the speed limit), speeds may be lowered in the case of sharp bends etc or when the sight distance is less than optimal over crests etc.

Each road will have an upper design speed limit too and more often than not our road fatality statistics show those people who were killed for excessive speed and exceeding these limits.

Thats a very misleading generalisation.
Explain the speed limit on the N32 for example. This is engineered to take higher speeds. It has a lower speed so that it holds more traffic.
You are not factoring in roads that are replaced by motorway (such as the old N4). Purely because they were downgraded to an R road they have an 80km/hr limit. Prior to their downgrading they would have been entitled to up to 100km/hr.
What about some of our back roads where driving at 30, 40 or 50km/hr is not safe yet they have a limit of 80km/hr?
Speed limits are also in place for other factors, not just engineeering. The location and proximity to schools, etc. are factored in.
If speed limits were engineering based, then speed limits would be reduced at dangerous bends. Instead we have a lazy approach of displaying an old orange sign in the hope that the driver monitors all the signage at the side of our roads.

Ham'nd'egger

kbannon wrote:

Thats a very misleading generalisation.
Explain the speed limit on the N32 for example. This is engineered to take higher speeds. It has a lower speed so that it holds more traffic.
You are not factoring in roads that are replaced by motorway (such as the old N4). Purely because they were downgraded to an R road they have an 80km/hr limit. Prior to their downgrading they would have been entitled to up to 100km/hr.
What about some of our back roads where driving at 30, 40 or 50km/hr is not safe yet they have a limit of 80km/hr?
Speed limits are also in place for other factors, not just engineeering. The location and proximity to schools, etc. are factored in.
If speed limits were engineering based, then speed limits would be reduced at dangerous bends. Instead we have a lazy approach of displaying an old orange sign in the hope that the driver monitors all the signage at the side of our roads.

No, it's not misleading, it's engineering practice to have set limits on roads based on road sight, slope, curves etc etc. Certainly there is roads that have limits that are too high but in this case, why not bring it to the attention of the Road Saftey officer in your local council or the Raod Safety Authority. There is many places in Ireland that have additional limits set on roads to allow for bad curves, though these tend to be set after accidents take place.

The N 32 is a road in an built up area with several itinerant camps and a bus lane on both sides, this may be why it has a 60kmh limit attached to it. That said, there is still crashes on it so perhaps it needs to be brought down to 50Kmh

Calina

Hamndegger wrote:

The N 32 is a road in an built up area with several itinerant camps and a bus lane on both sides, this may be why it has a 60kmh limit attached to it. That said, there is still crashes on it so perhaps it needs to be brought down to 50Kmh

I drive the N32 on a regular basis. Very, very few people adhere to the 60kmh speed limit. Perhaps if they did, the accident rate would fall. But if they don't stick to the 60kph limit, I can't see them sticking to a 50kph limit without a load of enforcement, and that would cause whinging along the lines of "they should be out policing blah blah blah because the N32 is a straight road and all the accidents happen in backroads down the country". Apparently.

Seth Brundle

I meant that it was misleading to state that "Roads have speed limits on them for engineering reasons" alone - I should have been clearer.
Your reasoning for the N32's limits of ininerants doesn't quite stand when you consider many roads that have an 80km limit despite having close proximity housing along them, or even (illegal?) itinerant camps!
The bus lane shouldn't even be there so I won't accept that reason.

Ham'nd'egger

kbannon wrote:

I meant that it was misleading to state that "Roads have speed limits on them for engineering reasons" alone - I should have been clearer.
Your reasoning for the N32's limits of ininerants doesn't quite stand when you consider many roads that have an 80km limit despite having close proximity housing along them, or even (illegal?) itinerant camps!
The bus lane shouldn't even be there so I won't accept that reason.

KB, it is more the fact that the road is in a "built up area" that dictates the limit on it. I agree, many roads over Ireland have houses on them but not slpa bang in Urbania. I can't think of few roads in built up Dublin that have higher speed limits, Tallaght bypass from Tymon Roundabout to Jobstown, N3 at the racecourse and N 11 from Cournelscourt to M 11, and that's it.

And as a by though, the halting sites on the road are legal sites.

Solair

I would just like to bring up the point that the Gardai are doing some really crazy things on motorways. I don't think they're getting adequate training about how to pull cars over etc.

On at least two occasions I have had to swirve because a garda car was stopped in a lane without flashing lights at the end of an "on ramp" / slip way.
i.e. you go onto the slipway accellerating and do not expect to see some eegit doing a tax / insurance inspection just as you hit 60+ mph on a corner.

Likewise, I've seen a few unmarked garda cars recently going at huge speed with sirons and no flashing lights. This in my opinion is potentially leathal.

Victor

Presence of known risks (schools, houses, junctions) are part of the engineering assessment.

kbannon wrote:

If speed limits were engineering based, then speed limits would be reduced at dangerous bends. Instead we have a lazy approach of displaying an old orange sign in the hope that the driver monitors all the signage at the side of our roads.

Speed limits are not appropriate to individual bends (they might be to a series of bends). That yellow sign with the curvy arrow means "Bend ahead. Slow the f*** down."