[Article] Plea to cut tolls as drivers feel the pinch

Ste.phen

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhgbidcwkfkf/rss2/

Introduction:

Tolls on the M50 should be reduced for motorists struggling with cost of living increases, a Senator claimed today.

Senator Paschal Donohoe said car commuters are being hit with rising prices for fuel, groceries and mortgage repayments.

“Families who have to use the M50 two or more times a day are being hit with big bills on top of higher prices for everything else,” he said.

John R

gobsh!te politician wrote:

car commuters are being hit with rising prices for fuel, groceries and mortgage repayments.

And non-car commuters are OK because they do not eat or have houses?

What next? A demand for a reduction in the price of Preperation H because haemmhoroid sufferers are under pressure due to the global credit crunch.

serfboard

This article is so bad it's not even funny. It should be re-titled:

"Failed election candidate tries to make a name for himself"

All motorists will be issued with electronic eFlow tags which will be read by overhead cameras.

Really?? I'm sure people living in Gweedore, Belmullet, the Beara peninsula etc. will be delighted to hear that.

Victor

I would actually consider a reduction for larger HGVs and buses, but not cars.

1huge1

Reminds me of the time that guy last year was pushing to have us drive on the right side of the road.

Irish and Proud

1huge1 wrote: »

Reminds me of the time that guy last year was pushing to have us drive on the right side of the road.

Yeah, pushing for us to drive on the right is sheer lunacy. First of all, the likelihood of Britain adapting to right hand driving is quite remote at the moment, so for Ireland to adapt same would create a double hazard. Assuming that most truckers etc. access the continent via Britain, it would be a case of having to switch from right to left on entering Britain, and then vice versa on entering the continent. The chance of head on collisions due to driver error would be greatly increased. Secondly, all the signs would have to be altered at great cost, but even that would be nothing compared to road modifications:

1) All filter rights on at-grade junctions would have to be reversed - on urban dual carriageways, major reconstruction work (at most signal junctions) would be required.

2) On motorways (and HQDCs etc.), the diverge and merge ramps are far from symmetrical. The new diverge ramps tend to be long (400m+ from the gore) while their angle of deviation is fairly sharp (well for motorway speed). The diverge lanes can be quite short. On the other hand, the merge ramps can be shorter (300m- to the gore), but generally have much longer taper (chevron) sections (200m?) and fairly long merge lanes. Now, can't you imagine the cost of switching these around?

3) Some new roundabouts tend to stagger the alignment of approach roads - look at the R136 Outer Ring Road in West Dublin. The dual carriageway seems to stagger left at each roundabout. I guess the thinking is: traffic is forced to take a sharper turn on entry, but allowed to make a straighter exit. IMO, this would obviously be safer from a motorist's point of view, but would also be more efficient in that the pressure on capacity regarding the roundabout would be reduced by making the traffic enter in a more orderly manner. Also, the quick exit would pretty much keep the circulatory carriageway flowing (slower in, quicker out). Now, try switching this contraption to right hand driving! :rolleyes:

4) As cars would initially pass in opposite directions offside to offside, resulting hazards (relating to blind spots in critical danger areas) could lead to lane widths on the S2s being increased, as it would take a while for the Irish motor fleet to switch to cars with left hand steering wheels. An alternative would be a 1m+ ghost median or even a wire barrier. Again, the costs would mount, and with recession in tow, I guess this driving on the right business is a non-runner!

As for reducing a bloody €2 toll - why not reduce VRT and road tax instead!

Regards!

murphaph

1huge1 wrote: »

Reminds me of the time that guy last year was pushing to have us drive on the right side of the road.

Do we not? :pac:

bazzer06

Irish and Proud wrote: »

Yeah, pushing for us to drive on the right is sheer lunacy. First of all, the likelihood of Britain adapting to right hand driving is quite remote at the moment, so for Ireland to adapt same would create a double hazard. Assuming that most truckers etc. access the continent via Britain, it would be a case of having to switch from right to left on entering Britain, and then vice versa on entering the continent. The chance of head on collisions due to driver error would be greatly increased. Secondly, all the signs would have to be altered at great cost, but even that would be nothing compared to road modifications:

1) All filter rights on at-grade junctions would have to be reversed - on urban dual carriageways, major reconstruction work (at most signal junctions) would be required.

2) On motorways (and HQDCs etc.), the diverge and merge ramps are far from symmetrical. The new diverge ramps tend to be long (400m+ from the gore) while their angle of deviation is fairly sharp (well for motorway speed). The diverge lanes can be quite short. On the other hand, the merge ramps can be shorter (300m- to the gore), but generally have much longer taper (chevron) sections (200m?) and fairly long merge lanes. Now, can't you imagine the cost of switching these around?

3) Some new roundabouts tend to stagger the alignment of approach roads - look at the R136 Outer Ring Road in West Dublin. The dual carriageway seems to stagger left at each roundabout. I guess the thinking is: traffic is forced to take a sharper turn on entry, but allowed to make a straighter exit. IMO, this would obviously be safer from a motorist's point of view, but would also be more efficient in that the pressure on capacity regarding the roundabout would be reduced by making the traffic enter in a more orderly manner. Also, the quick exit would pretty much keep the circulatory carriageway flowing (slower in, quicker out). Now, try switching this contraption to right hand driving! :rolleyes:

4) As cars would initially pass in opposite directions offside to offside, resulting hazards (relating to blind spots in critical danger areas) could lead to lane widths on the S2s being increased, as it would take a while for the Irish motor fleet to switch to cars with left hand steering wheels. An alternative would be a 1m+ ghost median or even a wire barrier. Again, the costs would mount, and with recession in tow, I guess this driving on the right business is a non-runner!

As for reducing a bloody €2 toll - why not reduce VRT and road tax instead!

Regards!

Not forgetting the whole land border with Norn Iron thing... I think that'd also be something of a problem!

xabi

bazzer06 wrote: »

Not forgetting the whole land border with Norn Iron thing... I think that'd also be something of a problem!

A Scalectrix style switchover would work well at the border!

Irish and Proud

bazzer06 wrote: »

Not forgetting the whole land border with Norn Iron thing... I think that'd also be something of a problem!

Quite right there mate! Was thinking the same thing!

Irish and Proud

xabi wrote: »

A Scalectrix style switchover would work well at the border!

...but would still cause major confusion - you're driving on the right when within a kilometre, you find your self on the opposite side (in the North), with little time for the motorist to adjust - what about foreign motorists who don't know the ropes (excluding GB and NI drivers). I'd say you'd be hearing about plenty of accidents in the vicinity of the border!

Regards!

D'Peoples Voice

Irish and Proud wrote: »

Yeah, pushing for us to drive on the right is sheer lunacy. First of all, the likelihood of Britain adapting to right hand driving is quite remote at the moment, so for Ireland to adapt same would create a double hazard. Assuming that most truckers etc. access the continent via Britain, it would be a case of having to switch from right to left on entering Britain, and then vice versa on entering the continent. The chance of head on collisions due to driver error would be greatly increased. Secondly, all the signs would have to be altered at great cost, but even that would be nothing compared to road modifications:

1) All filter rights on at-grade junctions would have to be reversed - on urban dual carriageways, major reconstruction work (at most signal junctions) would be required.

2) On motorways (and HQDCs etc.), the diverge and merge ramps are far from symmetrical. The new diverge ramps tend to be long (400m+ from the gore) while their angle of deviation is fairly sharp (well for motorway speed). The diverge lanes can be quite short. On the other hand, the merge ramps can be shorter (300m- to the gore), but generally have much longer taper (chevron) sections (200m?) and fairly long merge lanes. Now, can't you imagine the cost of switching these around?

3) Some new roundabouts tend to stagger the alignment of approach roads - look at the R136 Outer Ring Road in West Dublin. The dual carriageway seems to stagger left at each roundabout. I guess the thinking is: traffic is forced to take a sharper turn on entry, but allowed to make a straighter exit. IMO, this would obviously be safer from a motorist's point of view, but would also be more efficient in that the pressure on capacity regarding the roundabout would be reduced by making the traffic enter in a more orderly manner. Also, the quick exit would pretty much keep the circulatory carriageway flowing (slower in, quicker out). Now, try switching this contraption to right hand driving! :rolleyes:

4) As cars would initially pass in opposite directions offside to offside, resulting hazards (relating to blind spots in critical danger areas) could lead to lane widths on the S2s being increased, as it would take a while for the Irish motor fleet to switch to cars with left hand steering wheels. An alternative would be a 1m+ ghost median or even a wire barrier. Again, the costs would mount, and with recession in tow, I guess this driving on the right business is a non-runner!

As for reducing a bloody €2 toll - why not reduce VRT and road tax instead!

Regards!

You're just being short-sighted to be honest!
If Sweden could do it, then so could we.

As for the border with Northern Ireland, the amount of our GDP/GNP contributed by exports to Northern Ireland are over-exaggerated, we could close the border completely at all points and not shave off more than 0.5% of our GDP/GNP (or alternatively on MAJOR roads we could have flyovers to automatically switch from one side of the road to another).

Just think of how more attractive we would be as a destination for tourists from the euro area - far more significant to our GDP/GNP than Northern Ireland.
Also and more importantly think of how much cheaper it would be to import cars from the continent both from an initial purchase point of view and cheaper car insurance (at the minute you get penalised for having a left-hand drive car).
There is another precedent for such a change

On 12 March 1938 Hitler invaded Austria, and the next day proclaimed Anschluss, the absorption of Austria into Germany. He ordered that the traffic should change from the left to the right side of the road, overnight. The change threw the driving public into turmoil, because motorists were unable to see most road signs. In Vienna it proved impossible to change the trams overnight, so while all other traffic took to the right hand side of the road, the trams continued to run on the left for several weeks.

http://www.i18nguy.com/driver-side.html

L1011

How is it over-exaggerated? Have you seen the quantity of traffic heading across the N1/A1 every day?

I don't think the side of the road we drive on dissuades tourists in the slightest - its never prevented me going to the Continent.

And Sweden changed over in an era when there were mostly single carraigeway roads with standard crossroads - not duallers, motorways, complicated control of access on WS2s, etc, all of which would have to be reversed (and in many cases, re-engineered).

OK, despite the subject having nothing to do with the thread titie :pac:

The later any change is made the harder it becones, simply because the number of complex junctions increase as well as the number of vehicles on the roads etc

All UK motorways were originally constructed with symmetrical junctions , right up till the 1980's I believe, then successive UK governments decided that any change over was too costly to be of any benefit, shortly after Japan had come to the same conclusion.

If it were ever to happen, it would need to be done at the same time as the UK, otherwise the confusion would be even worse. IMHO it will never happen.


Burma changed sides in the 1970's I think, but most cars are secondhand from Japan & Malasia - so most drivers are on the wrong side of the vehicles, a stupid change over for political reasons (Britain drives on the left - they wanted to be different).

serfboard

Deleted User wrote: »

Burma changed sides in the 1970's I think, but most cars are secondhand from Japan & Malasia - so most drivers are on the wrong side of the vehicles, a stupid change over for political reasons (Britain drives on the left - they wanted to be different).

If that's the case, I'm surprised Mugabe hasn't done the same thing

serfboard

serfboard wrote: »

If that's the case, I'm surprised Mugabe hasn't done the same thing

He would 'ave, if he could 'ave. But he was too incompetant to do so.

mikemac

Bikes should go free just like they do on the Eastlink.

Removing gloves and unzipping pockets for change isn't easy and you will usually have someone in a car beeping at you to hurry up. Would they prefer you leave the gloves behind so they can pay the toll 5-10 seconds earlier? :mad:

With barrier free tolling, smart tags for other lanes, that's not really relevent. Better just to cut fuel duty a bit to help all motorists.

spockety

micmclo wrote: »

Bikes should go free just like they do on the Eastlink.

Removing gloves and unzipping pockets for change isn't easy and you will usually have someone in a car beeping at you to hurry up. Would they prefer you leave the gloves behind so they can pay the toll 5-10 seconds earlier? :mad:

Bikes will be free on the M50 (except Port Tunnel) once the toll booths are removed.