The 60kph limit at the M50 roadworks

TwoShedsJackson

Sunday night I went onto the M50 at Ballinteer, headed for Ballymount. The current roadworks extend from Ballinteer to Firhouse/Tallaght as most of you probably know. The area is liberally plastered with 60kph limit signs and there's a speed camera as you get to the Tallaght exit.

I got into the left lane and drove at 60kph for pretty much the entire section, went over it to 65ish a few times on the downhills etc. During this time I was overtaken by I would say about sixty cars, some doing about 80, most at the previous 100 limit I'd say, a few going faster. Not one car came up behind and remained behind me.

I found this a surprisingly frustrating experience, sitting there, tooling along at 60, I don't have any objection to being overtaken on a motorway or anywhere else as long as it's done safely, and this being half eight on a Sunday evening everyone was easily able to get into the right lane and go past, no-one was held up, no abuse, horns, flashing lights etc.

Anyway I was wondering what people thought as in, if the powers that be are not going to enforce this reduced limit, and most people are going to blithely ignore it, surely it should just be dropped altogether?

quarryman

search search search!

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055252396

Run_to_da_hills

I totally agree with the 60KPH limit on any motorway roadworks. I was driving northbound the other day and some doddery old fool decided to follow the former etched out road markings and almost took the left side side wing off me. Luckily I was able to grab the attention of this idiot, If I the pace of traffic had being travelling much faster he could have easily caused a pile up. The NRA are covering their ass when they introduce these speed limits.

cabrwab

I was reading that thread too quarryman!

Just to warn people, they are pulling people for speeding in the 60 zone alot lately, saw a couple of people being pulled in sunday evening.

And was in a car easter sunday that was pulled by a law enforcement officer Just around the tallaght exit!
The driver was doing 95Kph no excuse just telling people when i obey the speed limit, as stupid as it is since no work appears to be going on sunday, i want no more abuse!

Another gripe though is the fact that on the new sections the speed limit has being uped to 100KMH. Is this permanent or will we be getting our 120 back?

ardmacha

The speed limit will be 100 from now on, which isn't a major problem as 120 wasn't achievable 99% of the time anyhow and capacity will be increased by the lower variation in speed.

gman2k

ardmacha wrote: »

The speed limit will be 100 from now on, which isn't a major problem as 120 wasn't achievable 99% of the time anyhow and capacity will be increased by the lower variation in speed.

It's a three/ four lane motorway for christs sake, and it's not always jammed with cars. Why can you drive on a crappy N route road at 100k max but no faster on a four lane motorway?:mad:

There is an official policy with transport people in Dublin - cars bad, speed bad. Remember they are proposing to reduce the speed limit within the city to 30kph! Bicycles will be overtaking us soon! - Oh, that's official policy also.:D

When you put stupidly low speed limits on roads everyone ignores it, and they drive at the appropriate speed, and encourages a general disregard for the rules of the road.:(

OK, no more smileys!

timemachine

I was on M50 today, travelling back home from as I do every day, and adhering to speed the limit. Maybe about 50 cars over took me, and some I think were easily doing 100km, one of them was a Driving instructor, I wondering if that driver and his company teach his students to drive like that, maybe thats why there are so many idiots on the roads

Steve

There's several threads on this at the moment so forgive me for repeating myself.

stevec wrote: »

Two problems:

1. The speed limit is made legal by a bye law (or something) and it covers the entire works so the construction co. cannot choose where the 60kph areas are.

2. I don't drive it daily (where the roadworks are), maybe once every 2 weeks. Each time I do, it's different - new lane / exit changed / new chicane on a previously straight part so until the whole thing is stable and properly signposted then the limit should stay low.


At the moment it's certainly not the safest road in the country, there have been several pile-ups in the roadworks section, most notably the recent one involving the army trucks.

Steve

gman2k wrote: »

Bicycles will be overtaking us soon!

Not so bad - any time I try to go city centre I get overtaken by pedestrians....

gman2k

stevec wrote: »

There's several threads on this at the moment so forgive me for repeating myself.

The 100kmh speed limit signs are now up in the sections where the road works are finished. These same areas were 120kmh zones prior to the road being widened from two lanes to four in some places.

There is absolutely no sense in this, but points at the usual fallacy that speed is the root of all evil.
Excessive speed yes, but 120kmh on a well surfaced, well lit 4 lane motorway is not dangerous. 100kmh on many of the n-route roads is excessive, never mind 80kmh allowed on minor back roads.

Steve

gman2k wrote: »

The 100kmh speed limit signs are now up in the sections where the road works are finished. These same areas were 120kmh zones prior to the road being widened from two lanes to four in some places.

There is absolutely no sense in this, but points at the usual fallacy that speed is the root of all evil.
Excessive speed yes, but 120kmh on a well surfaced, well lit 4 lane motorway is not dangerous. 100kmh on many of the n-route roads is excessive, never mind 80kmh allowed on minor back roads.

You're preaching to the choir there. agree 100%

cabrwab

Ok noticed one last night, the end of the tallaght bypass which is 60Kph/80kph i think, this road is a dual carraigeway. it end onto a tight road barely fitting a bus and a car together the N81 to blessington i think turns into a 100KPH road WTF?!

The M50 was 120kph now 100kph which is more crazy. ok you barely get to use it, but it is a motorway, so why can't we do motorway speeds?

Trying to stick as close to the posted speed on that road is impossible!

craichoe

gman2k wrote: »

It's a three/ four lane motorway for christs sake, and it's not always jammed with cars. Why can you drive on a crappy N route road at 100k max but no faster on a four lane motorway?:mad:

There is an official policy with transport people in Dublin - cars bad, speed bad. Remember they are proposing to reduce the speed limit within the city to 30kph! Bicycles will be overtaking us soon! - Oh, that's official policy also.:D

When you put stupidly low speed limits on roads everyone ignores it, and they drive at the appropriate speed, and encourages a general disregard for the rules of the road.:(

OK, no more smileys!

Ah well, its only going to get worse !!
Be prepared for a Congestion charge too !

More and more cars on the road, Dublin is way too congested as it is, they should up the prices to drive into the city and get people to use public transport.

Otherwise it will end up like the A2+A4 to Amsterdam, a f*eckin car park

Omcd

My guess about 100k instead of 120k on the M50 is that the lanes are now narrower than they were and the fact that theres up to 4 of them means theres more hazards to consider when changing lanes, like other traffic coming into the lane you're heading for from the one the other side of it. Ye, Ye, I know, we're all great drivers and we all should be able to cope with this etc etc, but unfortunately the reality is somewhat different.

That aside, IMO its a total farce that speedlimits on roads are now primarily dictated by the class of road instead of the condition of the road. There are many examples. Old N7 south of Monastervin, probably wider than one side of the M50 and straight line visibility for miles in places, but now 80k because theres a motorway built beside and so its not a primary N route anymore. Contrast that with the N52 and N51 routes between Delvin Kells and Navan, for the most part narrow backroads with many severe bends, not fit more than 60 or 80ks, but the limit is 100k because its an N route. A much better road, the R162 from Navan to Kingscourt intersects, its limit is 80k, because its an R road. That road out through Jobstown, why why did the limit get increased recently (south bound only) from 60k to 100k ?? - its a narrow road through a built up area (oh yes I know why - its an N route !) - the reform of the speedlimits was supposed to get rid of these anomilies, but its just increased them no end.

The inforcement of 60k on the M50 is patchy, saw recently a traffic corps car mixing happily with no bothers in a traffic flow doing 80-90k in 60k section.

Steve

craichoe wrote: »

More and more cars on the road, Dublin is way too congested as it is, they should up the prices to drive into the city and get people to use public transport.

Eh - they need to actually provide decent public transport first instead of the sorry ass excuse that is there now.

If they did, I'd galdly use it.

Omcd

The 100k sign on the N81 throu Jobstown now replaced with a 60k sign - looks like someone put the 100k sign up by accident....