Worst Stretch of National Route Road in Ireland

AugustusMaximus

Without a doubt in my mind it has to be the N70 (Ring of Kerry) between Sneem and Waterville. Just appauling.

The funny thing is that there are 100kph everywhere on it. You can barely do 60kph on a lot of the sections. The German tourists must have a great laugh seeing the signs.

On the other hand, a lot of perfectly good bypassed roads have 80kph limits. Go figure.

Oilrig

Worst stretch of primary road in the country is easily the Paulstown - Waterford stretch of the "N9".

Narrow, twisty and populated by trucks in the main.

Run_to_da_hills

Most frustrating stretch in my opinion is from the end of the M7 to Roscrea. Once you hit this stretch and get stuck behind some slow idiot who won't pull over you are in for a long haul. Another frustrating stretch is from Limerick to Foynes. (you cannot pull over on this long stretch)

Esel

AugustusMaximus wrote: »

The funny thing is that there are 100kph everywhere on it. You can barely do 60kph on a lot of the sections. The German tourists must have a great laugh seeing the signs.

They don't notice the signs, because they are on the wrong side of the road!

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

Most frustrating stretch in my opinion is from the end of the M7 to Roscrea. Once you hit this stretch and get stuck behind some slow idiot who won't pull over you are in for a long haul. Another frustrating stretch is from Limerick to Foynes. (you cannot pull over on this long stretch)

Just to clarify, by 'pull over' do you mean 'get the fuc out of my way'?

Run_to_da_hills

esel wrote: »

Just to clarify, by 'pull over' do you mean 'get the fuc out of my way'?

Precisely, there is nothing worse than being stuck in a train of cars behind some idiot who is hogging the centre of the road at 65KPH when the limit is 100KPH especially when they dont bother to pull in and let cars pass. These guys are worse than those that speed because they encourage dangerous maneuvers of those that are stuck behind them.

Esel

So, you are a 'get the fuc out of my way' kind of person! The 'get the fuc out of my way' kind of person who has never experienced anything worse than "being stuck in a train of cars behind some idiot who is hogging the centre of the road at 65KPH when the limit is 100KPH especially when they dont bother to pull in and let cars pass". Lucky you tbh.

Smart drivers on national routes do not normally find themselves at the back of long lines of traffic, or, if they do, they know to proceed. Punctuation not guaranteed. Your mileage may vary.

Run_to_da_hills

esel wrote: »

Smart drivers on national routes do not normally find themselves at the back of long lines of traffic, or, if they do, they know to proceed. Punctuation not guaranteed. Your mileage may vary.

Do you have Lithuanian plates? :eek:

Beta Ray Bill

M50

thats it and thats all...

without a shadow of a doubt it's the worst road in ireland. and you have to pay to use it... lame

a close second is road that goes from Kilbarrack firestation to Donamghede Shopping Centre. that road is like lego on christmas morning... in bits!!!!

Run_to_da_hills

grahambo wrote: »

M50

thats it and thats all...

without a shadow of a doubt it's the worst road in ireland. and you have to pay to use it... lame

a close second is road that goes from Kilbarrack firestation to Donamghede Shopping Centre. that road is like lego on christmas morning... in bits!!!!

Mate, this thread is about national routes and not about carparks.

kyote00

All roads in meath.... some examples...

1) The R161 - the main road from trim to kinnegad just as you leave trim.
resurfaced last summer and now already disintegrating...

2) R156 through rathmoylan. Resurfaced last month after laying pipes - new sections have sunken already....

3) new bit of the N3 after dunboyne.... they have spend nearly 2 years working on this and opened a new section a few weeks ago .... guess what .... its a single lane in each direction for cars and bus lane at each edge....there is loads of leveling, landscaped space at each side left unused....

4) New road from trim to navan - under construction for 1.5 yrs (at least)...loads of room but we still end up with single lane in each direction....

While I'm at it --

how many new roads do you see that dont drain properly after a shower of rain....


In general, soddy workmanship always taking the short term view while contractors milk the local councils for whatever they can get....

Slidey

The N4 between cooloney and castlebaldwin, it goes from a dual carrigeway to pure sh1te in no lenght.
Also the road from boyle to roscommon is brutal, in plaves 2 trucks struggal t pass each other

PaulKK

This is easy, worst national roads are the N77 from Kilkenny to Ballyragget and a lot of the N78 to Castlecomer (where the presidents motorcade had an accident a few weeks ago). Its rough and windy nearly all they way.

mike65

Kilkennys N routes are the worst as measured county by county.

Mike.

L1011

Another vote for N77, made worse by the fact that Google's route finder sends you down it to get to Kilkenny City from Dublin!

alanucc

Theres a bad stetch of the N21 between Macroom and Ballyvourney. Really really treacherous most of the time

Rowley Birkin QC

Road from Mitchelstown to Limerick, absolutely shocking until after Caherconlish.

MSporty

N9 heading south after Ballyhale, is quite a dangerous road. Some overtaking oppurtunities followed by long winding narrow stretches. Perfect recipe for disaster. Plenty of crashes on this route. Just aswell the new motorway is being constructed.

VeVeX

Drove down to Millstreet recently from Dublin. The N72 & N73 are an absolute disgrace.

There should seriously be alot more emphasis put on the contribution that poor road conditions play in accidents.

E92

Mallow - just before Croom is an absolute disgrace for a road that is supposed to be connecting the second and third biggest cities in the Republic.
The Fermoy Mitchelstown road isn't any great shakes either, what with all the accidents that happen on it.

I wouldn't be gone on Macroom - Ballyvourney(in fairness it's pothole free but my God are there twists and turns on it) either. Ballyvourney-Tralee is for the most part a good road though it could do with being a Dual Carriageway as could all of the Cork-Tralee roads.

Could someone explain to me why given that our Dual Carriageways and Motorways have a design speed of 100 mph or 160 km/h that we are only allowed to travel at only 100 and 120 km/h respectively?

Zonda999

alanucc wrote: »

Theres a bad stetch of the N21 between Macroom and Ballyvourney. Really really treacherous most of the time

Totally agree.Those 6 miles or so between the mons bar and ballyvourney is absolutely treacherous.Would'nt recommend it on a friday evening anyway, thats for sure.The roads surface along some of that route is terrible as well.At least in recent times theyve put that yellowy gritt stuff on the worst turns

N81 is pretty crap

lots of crap roads, been on most mentioned in the thread so far and I agree completely with ye!

Stephen

100% agreement on the N9 between Paulstown and Waterford. I drive the aforementioned N77 every day as well, its not half as terrible as the Waterford end of the N9!

_Kaiser_

kyote00 wrote: »

All roads in meath.... some examples...

+1 on all roads in Meath.. more examples:

- The Navan to Athboy Road. Sunken in places so what to they do. Put up signs rather than fix it!

- Most roads in Navan itself

- Kells to Athboy. Kells itself. The recently resurfaced bit is already potholed in places.

- Coming into Trim from Navan. Can barely see the roadmarkings (where they even exist) and the road surface itself between where the road drops from 60 to 50 km/h is atrocious.

PanhardPL

bigkev49 wrote: »

Road from Mitchelstown to Limerick, absolutely shocking until after Caherconlish.

That section of road is still only an R route with an 80kph limit all the way and for the last 15 years plus Limerick County Council have been trying to get it upgraded to a National road, but the Dept. have refused to budge.

dingding

slideways wrote: »

The N4 between cooloney and castlebaldwin, it goes from a dual carrigeway to pure sh1te in no lenght.
Also the road from boyle to roscommon is brutal, in plaves 2 trucks struggal t pass each other

And the road from Sligo to Blacklion via Manorhanilton. :eek:

AugustusMaximus

I'm guessing from the replies that not many have had the pleasure to drive that particular section of the N70.

Its basically like the Macroom to Ballyvourney section where it is very twisty except the road surface is also appauling.

Seth Brundle

M50. The surface of the new sections is an absolute disgrace!

Scottie99

Heading to Castlebar, turning left from the main high street in Longford travel down the road for 300yards. Its very very bad! If you did the speed limit you would receive a detached retina::rolleyes:

VH

N9 thru Kilkenny is an absolute disgrace, tho it is bad from the just before Castledermot. No other national primary city-to-city route is as bad. Kilkenny Co Co should be ashamed of themselves and should get a funding cut to reflect the money they're not spending on roads. It's understandable why the NRA picked the M9 to be the first completed (tho it's not likely it'll be first now) city-to-city national primary.

peasant

The one road that takes the biscuit though is the N59, without a doubt.

Sligo to Ballina is just dangerous, Galway to Clifden as well, but the bit between Clifden and Westport is hardly a cow path, never mind a National road ...very scenic though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N59_road



100 km/h anyone ?

AugustusMaximus

peasant wrote: »

The one road that takes the biscuit though is the N59, without a doubt.

Sligo to Ballina is just dangerous, Galway to Clifden as well, but the bit between Clifen and Westport is hardly a cow path, never mind a National road ...very scenic though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N59_road

That's the sort of nominations I want. I can't understand how National Primary routes being mentioned can be that bad.

Damien360

PaulKK wrote: »

This is easy, worst national roads are the N77 from Kilkenny to Ballyragget and a lot of the N78 to Castlecomer (where the presidents motorcade had an accident a few weeks ago). Its rough and windy nearly all they way.

+1

I travel 30000 miles per year and this road more than any other really annoys me. It is dangerous and populated by tractors. Some lethal junctions on it to add to the fun !

RiverWilde

Some of the roads in this country are bloody appalling as illustrated above. What drives me daft though is the attitude summed up nicely by a comedian a few years ago (his name escapes me) - Accident Blackspot - Watch Yerself!

Don't fix the bloody road ... don't restrict the amount of traffic or lower the speed limit on it ... just put up a sign!

One of my favourite stretches of road is in Kerry ... on the Cork/Kerry border. I don't remember where exactly it is but it's fairly wide and runs downhill quite rapidly ... then without warning the road does a sharp 90 degree turn left over a humpback bridge ... no warning no nothing ... just a last minute sign! I nearly ran into the bloody sign! :mad:

Why do we pay road tax again?

Riv

ianobrien

alanucc wrote: »

Theres a bad stetch of the N21 between Macroom and Ballyvourney. Really really treacherous most of the time

Ah, Since they resurfaced it, it's a dream to drive, nice and twisty. You really have to drive it, and I love it (although I hate it to be stuck behind somebody going at 60kph on the road as most cars can take the corners at 80 to 100kph easy!)

Altreab

peasant wrote: »

The one road that takes the biscuit though is the N59, without a doubt.

Sligo to Ballina is just dangerous, Galway to Clifden as well, but the bit between Clifden and Westport is hardly a cow path, never mind a National road ...very scenic though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N59_road



100 km/h anyone ?

You just bet me to it!!!
I know this road well and it is without doubt the worst piece of road in county Galway at least. The reason been?
Lack of any sort of serious spending on it for the last 10+ years.
the Galway to Clifden to Westport route has had about €1.5 Million a year spent on it for about 10 years up until about the last 3 years when it was increased to €2.5 Million. Sounds like a lot of money? That piece of "road" is 143 Km long, so an average of 21K per Km. However most of the money has been spent on CPOs and in one spot close to Clifden where over a million was spent on a short bit of road which is still unfinished.
Another spot where money has been put into the ground is Outside Oughterard where there is a bit of road where it has been dug up and filled with foundation stone. This runs beside the actual road but is about 2 metres lower than the actual road. It cost the council about 2 million to do this bit!!


Along the road there are crash barriers that have been crashed into but never repaired. They have been damaged for over a year now.

Any work that has been done was done by the county council. But the road is supposed to be a national road which is under the control of the NRA. They havent spent a cent on it in years.

From an accident point of view it is rated as red from Galway to Clifden and Orange the rest of the way under the Garda classification

/Rant mode OFF

PaulKK

ianobrien wrote: »

Ah, Since they resurfaced it, it's a dream to drive, nice and twisty. You really have to drive it, and I love it (although I hate it to be stuck behind somebody going at 60kph on the road as most cars can take the corners at 80 to 100kph easy!)

I agree, its sweet since it was resurfaced... you just need a ferrari or something to really enjoy it now, its a real drivers road!

invincibleirish

2 get a special mention.

the N20, as already mentioned. between Mallow & Croom is a disgrace of a road, its probably a good thing it takes 14k vehicles a day (inc. all those HGVs) as its so twisty in parts, my favourite part has to be the section that is always covered in silt or something from a roadside quarry?

The N71 deserves 3 mentions

Firstly the worst Dual Carriageway i have ever driven (all 3km of it) after the Viaduct.

Before Bandon there is the section with a fast lane, now if you are in this fast lane, twisting through but happen to get stuck between a HGV on either side of you get scared! lots of accidents here.

after Bandon and on down to Castletownbere its pretty poor. some parts have been touched up but those that havent are narrow & twisty. still a great drive though.

Our man in Havana

N67. That is all. 100km/h you must be joking! Clare County Council for shame, for shame! :mad:

patrickc

Oilrig wrote: »

Worst stretch of primary road in the country is easily the Paulstown - Waterford stretch of the "N9".

Narrow, twisty and populated by trucks in the main.

i dont think thats too bad myself...

VH wrote: »

N9 thru Kilkenny is an absolute disgrace, tho it is bad from the just before Castledermot. No other national primary city-to-city route is as bad. Kilkenny Co Co should be ashamed of themselves and should get a funding cut to reflect the money they're not spending on roads. It's understandable why the NRA picked the M9 to be the first completed (tho it's not likely it'll be first now) city-to-city national primary.

why before castledermot? theres some great stretches there for overtaking too..

the n70/71 is the worst IMO by far, drove from tralee to cork today via bantry and that road is just pathetic

peasant

I can even understand, that there may not be enough money/resources to do up all those outlying bits of N roads all over the country ...Rome wasn't built in a day and all that....
What I absolutely can't understand though is that when all that money was poured out to erect new speed limit signs on the km/h changeover that nobody bothered their arse to actually get out there and look at those roads and maybe buy a few select 80 or even 60 kmh signs instead of all 100's.

Instead 100 km/h signs were peppered all over the roads, especially near junctions, before sharp bends and at accident black spots, showing to everybody who travels these roads the exact degree by which the authorities have FAILED to understand how road safety works.

patrickc

peasant wrote: »

Instead 100 km/h signs were peppered all over the roads, especially near junctions, before sharp bends and at accident black spots, showing to everybody who travels these roads the exact degree by which the authorities have FAILED to understand how road safety works.

coming into alot of towns on N roads they have the 100kph sign up and a few hundred metres away the 60kph/50kph depending on town/village sign is up, what's the point in that ?