Only in Ireland Combines on a Motorway

North Cork

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjIxDXYKxXs&feature=related

Have a look at the above video, Combines on the motorway in Dogheda :D:D:D:D:D

Chris_533976

good grief

murphaph

What a bunch of morons.

corktina

no wit may not have been illegal depending on what their speed was but it surely was irreponsible in the extreme...i hope they really did get "done" as the caption suggests.

DWCommuter

Eh lads take a look at the video around the 5min 07sec mark. It appears that 3 garda vehicles are spread across the motorway holding back normal traffic. How dangerous does that look? It looks like the gardai were "escorting" the combines along the M1. Crazy.

murphaph

http://www.meathchronicle.ie/news/meatheast/articles/2009/08/12/390316-all-systems-go-for-world-record-attempt-on-saturday/

Outrageous. Amateur Garda as usual.

DWCommuter

Looks like it was "all above board" so. However, I cannot come to terms with our police force actually allowing and assisting a convoy of agricultural machinery to use a motorway. Its so "Oirish". Of course maybe Im out of touch, but can any of you see it being permitted on any other European motorway? I think its still a huge problem in Ireland in relation to motorways. We tend to treat them as ordinary roads. L-Drivers are screaming up and down them at will. Tractors cruise along them in the hard shoulder. The Gardai don't seem to understand the function of these roads either.

fh041205

I thought that record attempt was out in Meath somewhere????

Danno

In fairness, we allow the gougers to set up toll booths along our motorways, surely we can allow an odd charity event too...

Aidan1

It was on the radio - the combines were being facilitated by the Gardai to get them to and from the record attempt.

Leaving aside the good PR for all concerned, there's a very good reason why the Gardai would encourage them to use the Motorway - most of those combines are at least 3m wide; if you were to leave 170 combines to make their way home through towns and villages at the same time (max speed 25kph in almost all cases), you would pretty soon have traffic chaos throughout several counties. Channelling the machines onto the Motorway, with an escort, and getting them as far away as soon as possible, is neither 'Oirish', nor amateur, it's entirely sensible.

Ordinarily of course, farm machinery shouldn't be on motorways at all - regardless of the supposed loophole around speed.

By the way, I've seen similar scenes on the Motorway in Belgium, so it isn't just here either.

101sean

Couple of Saturdays ago I saw a large tractor and silage trailer pulled over by Garda on the M8 near Monasterevin. On the way back home that evening I saw the same tractor and trailer happily trundling down the hard shoulder!

On the same stretch I saw what must have been a culchie Bus Eireann driver driving along the hard shoulder in a coach.

Amtmann

Leaving aside the good PR for all concerned, there's a very good reason why the Gardai would encourage them to use the Motorway - most of those combines are at least 3m wide; if you were to leave 170 combines to make their way home through towns and villages at the same time (max speed 25kph in almost all cases), you would pretty soon have traffic chaos throughout several counties. Channelling the machines onto the Motorway, with an escort, and getting them as far away as soon as possible, is neither 'Oirish', nor amateur, it's entirely sensible.

It really isn't. They should have been transported on lorries to the event.

murphaph

Furet wrote: »

It really isn't. They should have been transported on lorries to the event.

Exactly. Combine harvesters are not suitable for the motorway. Low loaders should have been used and if that wasn't practical then the event want safe and shouldn't have been held. Next we'll have a charity "how many hovercraft can we get in a lake" event and the cops will be escorting them too. It's a joke. FRIDAY EVENING rush hour as well according to the Meath Chronicle piece. unreal.

jd

I'd say it cost more in disruption than it raised for charity, TBH.

Tech3

DWCommuter wrote: »

I think its still a huge problem in Ireland in relation to motorways. We tend to treat them as ordinary roads. L-Drivers are screaming up and down them at will. Tractors cruise along them in the hard shoulder. The Gardai don't seem to understand the function of these roads either.

Usually if I see a parked vehicle with no emergencies on or some tractor driving on the motorway I usually let them know they should not be there!!!

major bill

got stuck behind them fu3kwits friday night coming back from dundalk, 5 of us in the car giving each and everyone of them abuse:mad:

Aidan1

Low loaders should have been used

To get a combine of any size onto a low loader, the wheels have to come off (and you need a special low loader). The trucking resources don't exist in this state to move 170 combines at the same time, and the time taken to get the machines on board, and strapped in, would mean that the operation would most likely take several days. In short, the issue becomes one of whether to have this event or not - on that I'm agnostic, but if you're going to do it, running the combines down the motorway is by far the easiest, safest, and least disruptive way of dispersing them, and any consequent traffic congestion.

darkman2

Gardai should not be aiding people in breaking the law. These people broke the law. It's not about what is easy and quick for harvesters.

monument

darkman2 wrote: »

Gardai should not be aiding people in breaking the law. These people broke the law. It's not about what is easy and quick for harvesters.

As they were being escorted by the gardai, so....

What law exactly were they breaking?

AugustusMaximus

monument wrote: »

As they were being escorted by the gardai, so....

What law exactly were they breaking?

Do Gardai have legit powers to allow other road users to break the rules of the road ?

Rovi

Aidan1 wrote: »

To get a combine of any size onto a low loader, the wheels have to come off (and you need a special low loader).

Also, putting a (modern, good sized) combine onto a low-loader changes it from a self-propelled piece of agricultural machinery which can legally be driven on most (;)) roads, into an 'Abnormal Load', which in turn gives rise to a mind-boggling amount of form filling and bureaucracy.

monument

AugustusMaximus wrote: »

Do Gardai have legit powers to allow other road users to break the rules of the road ?

I don't know if they have written legal powers, but in practice they do. Allowing cars to use bus lanes in a bus strike comes to mind, and they can direct traffic generally (tell you to break a red light etc which otherwise would be illegal).

And to answer your original question before you edited your post: Attacks -- and even killings -- can be both illegal and legal (self defence, coming to somebody's aid etc).

veryangryman

I think rukles of the road says that any Garda instruction over-rides all road signs, traffic lights etc. So if the Garda says black is white, you say yessir

The Dark Knight

Heard about this last week on AA roadwatch... could not believe my ears.
Does anyone know why they didn't use the old N1?

Run_to_da_hills

Are you sure that this section is motorway and not a DC? The hard shoulder is very poor standard for any motorway

childoforpheus

While I agree that this incident is outrageous I want to make the point that it is not necessarily illegal. There are provisions in legislation to allow vehicles which are normally not permitted to use motorways to be permitted to use same. Article 17 of the Road Traffic (Construction, Equipment and Use of Vehicles) Regulations, 1963 allows a special permit to be made by a local authority to allow such vehicles access to motorways. I am not aware whether a permit was in existence in this case and if not should have been applied for.
Link: http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1963/en/si/0190.html#zzsi190y1963a17

Chris_533976

I think in the case of a big thing like this, Common Sense has to take precedence. Its overall safer, and more sensible, to have a rolling roadblock and take them up the motorway. Its better than having a few illegal ones using the motorway anyway and the rest of them plugging up every village with their wideness.

Sure, one combine up the motorway would be illegal, but when theres a pile of them like this, it really makes Common Sense just to let them use it, under a seemingly well organised garda escort.