Cork Drivers

Dominoid

We have now cycled from Co. Kildare (N7) to Bray on the N11 down to Wexford, Waterford on the N25 without any problems with car drivers just the 1 or 2 idiots screaming out of their boy racers. Then we arrived in Cork! Cork is no cycle friendly city, roads are bad and confusing, traffic is bad and the drivers are bad or just does not care even truck drivers passing the cyclist at high speed and not even trying to move over to the right side of the lane!

Cork cyclist, I don't know how you put up with it.

crashoveroid

Dominoid wrote: »

We have now cycled from Co. Kildare (N7) to Bray on the N11 down to Wexford, Waterford on the N25 without any problems with car drivers just the 1 or 2 idiots screaming out of their boy racers. Then we arrived in Cork! Cork is no cycle friendly city, roads are bad and confusing, traffic is bad and the drivers are bad or just does not care even truck drivers passing the cyclist at high speed and not even trying to move over to the right side of the lane!

Cork cyclist, I don't know how you put up with it.

If you dont know any better you cant give out Cork is a world all on its own once you get used to it cycling here is easy

peterako

crashoveroid wrote: »

..... Cork is a world all on its own ......

Never a truer word spoken

Peter (Married to A Cork Woman...so I KNOW )

crashoveroid

peterako wrote: »

Never a truer word spoken

Peter (Married to A Cork Woman...so I KNOW )

Im here 11 Years now so yeah its seems to be but i think you have to be from the outside looking in The rebels would never notice it

Funkyzeit

I'm down here a few years and I have to say Cork people are the most balanced people I've met. They have chips on both their shoulders....

jdt101

crashoveroid wrote: »

Im here 11 Years now so yeah its seems to be but i think you have to be from the outside looking in The rebels would never notice it

And that's coming from a Kerry man.....

DJsail

Funkyzeit wrote: »

They have chips on both their shoulders....

If you consider the rock of gibraltar to be a chip then yeah!:rolleyes: Nah only messin but the foreign office should issue travel advice to outsiders as its like nowhere on earth which strangely makes it good?

crashoveroid

jdt101 wrote: »

And that's coming from a Kerry man.....

and proud of it Go on the kingdom

Didnt you marry a Kerry women ???

peterako

When I used to travel abroad a lot for work I remember meeting some work colleagues in Dublin Airport.

They were flying from Cork to Dublin....

Guess what.....they had to pass through Passport control in Dublin Airport upon their arrival in Dublin

Ah! The good old days......

Stark

Dominoid wrote: »

We have now cycled from Co. Kildare (N7) to Bray on the N11 down to Wexford, Waterford on the N25 without any problems with car drivers just the 1 or 2 idiots screaming out of their boy racers. Then we arrived in Cork! Cork is no cycle friendly city, roads are bad and confusing, traffic is bad and the drivers are bad or just does not care even truck drivers passing the cyclist at high speed and not even trying to move over to the right side of the lane!

Cork cyclist, I don't know how you put up with it.

I never cycled regularly until I came to Dublin. While Dublin drivers are generally okay once you conform to their strict set of "conditions" (cycling like a Christmas tree with an eggshell on top), many drivers in Cork don't respect a cyclist's right to be on the road at any place or at any time. I know many people who gave up cycling as they were constantly being beeped and yelled at and forced off the road. It's a pity as despite narrow twisty hilly roads, the city is small enough that you can get from one side of the city to the other side in no time at all by bicycle. I certainly would have found it preferable to the hour long walk I had to and from college every day, or the sometimes 90 minute wait for a bus on the days I was moronic enough to take it.

That said, I have noticed more people braving the streets of late and this might help improve things as drivers become used to sharing the road. I saw 3 cyclists on nice road bikes in the space of 10 minutes while going for a walk in my home suburb the other weekend despite never seeing a cyclist previously in the twenty-odd years I lived there. Of course they were also being beeped out of it by every car who passed them :rolleyes:

blorg

peterako wrote: »

Guess what.....they had to pass through Passport control in Dublin Airport upon their arrival in Dublin

This is Dublin Airport's fault as they don't separate passengers arriving into domestic and international. I never have to show my passport arriving in the UK but always do on the way back... IIRC passport control will accept your boarding card in lieu of a passport but I need the latter anyway due to airline regulations...

As an aside more on topic I have cycled in Cork often enough and wouldn't have thought they were worse than anywhere else in the country (this is of course not to say they are good.)

I'm from cork and cycle virtually every day, to and from college and around town on my hybrid or for training spins and racing on my road bike. I've found 99% of drivers are grand and very very rarely get beeped at or anything. Much prefer cycling here to Dublin due to the lack of crazy/pointless/unsafe cycling lanes that seem so common in dub.

Boosterseat

I'm new to cycling and having come from Cork city am now living in the shticks. Decided to revisit old haunts a couple of weeks ago and have a spin around the city centre. Nothing much has changed since leaving home and college, same narrow streets, potholes, etc but have to say had no problems with drivers. I too have noticed many more cyclists out and about...maybe drivers are coping on to the fact that there are more than them on the road, or is this just wishful thinking.

Dominoid

The traffic management in Cork is not great so it might not be all the drivers fault, I cannot remeber seeing yellow boxes at traffic lights, cars were all trying to make it across the traffic lights completely blocking the road.

And God bless the cyclist of Macroom! and everybody driving through the town and everybody living there!

Cycled from Killarney to Ennis today, what a HILL just a few miles on the Limerick road.

Stark

Dominoid wrote: »

The traffic management in Cork is not great so it might not be all the drivers fault, I cannot remeber seeing yellow boxes at traffic lights, cars were all trying to make it across the traffic lights completely blocking the road.

Any driver worth their salt should know that you leave space for cars coming the other direction to get through once the lights go red, regardless of whether there's a yellow box there or not.

Bogger77

Stark wrote: »

Any driver worth their salt should know that you leave space for cars coming the other direction to get through once the lights go red, regardless of whether there's a yellow box there or not.

Not in Cork.

It's
Green, GO,
Amber, GO
Red, Go anyhows

and as for lane keeping, Cork has worst drivers in Ireland, imho

DePurpereWolf

Bogger77 wrote: »

Not in Cork.

It's
Green, GO,
Amber, GO
Red, Go anyhows

This is true, I can spot at least 3 drivers that run a red light every time I go to work. Which is only 20 minute drive. The rules in Cork are like this:

Green, Go.
Amber, Go.
Red, at least 5 more cars can cross the intersection without a problem.

I don't think Cork drivers are particularly bad, but it's lawless country here. For the many many many traffic violations I see per day, I've never ever seen the police do something about it.

My wife has been bumped 3 times in 1 year of cycling. Minor things, but still.

To the OP, I think it depends where you go (and when) in Cork city. There are roads that I avoid like the plague and the spaghetti of one-way roads in the old centre is just crap on a stick. Douglas road, the area around city hall, Leitrim street, south city link road, wilton road, are all to be avoided. Definitely at 6PM when cars are like flies trying to get out of a spider web

Nova_era

I live in Cork and personally it's a nightmare to cycle in. My first action after hopping on a bike usually requires heading straight up a hill, which really does'nt suit me as far as getting warmed up and into my stride goes. I tend to avoid both the city and Douglas areas, as in the former there are simply too many cars, and the roads of the latter are just too narrow for both a bike and a car. The roads down here leave a lot to be desired, certainly not a good world to be in when you're on an uber fragile racer. There are a lot of nice rural secondary roads to cycle on, but as I'd imagine is the case in other parts of the country, riding on these at any speed is a case of taking your life into your hands. I can't remember how many times I've had some boy racer (or any car in fact) suddenly pop round the corner as if there could'nt possible be anyone else on the road, let alone a cyclist. In Waterford, Wicklow, or even Dublin, I've found that drivers respect cyclists as someone who is equally entitled to use the road. In Cork, this is definetly not the case.

DePurpereWolf

jdt101 wrote: »

And that's coming from a Kerry man.....

Isn't a Kerry man just a Cork man without shoes?

crashoveroid

DePurpereWolf wrote: »

Isn't a Kerry man just a Cork man without shoes?

Well aint you original.

As most of the places people avoid i have no problem in cycling in Douglas or on the link never any problem

Boosterseat

Out recently between Riverstick and Belgooly on the way to Kinsale, held up a line of traffic on the road and this despite me waving the driver behind me on when i saw the road was clear. He waited until you could fit 4 buses through and then passed, now that's respect. Maybe he was foreign though?

crashoveroid

Boosterseat wrote: »

Out recently between Riverstick and Belgooly on the way to Kinsale, held up a line of traffic on the road and this despite me waving the driver behind me on when i saw the road was clear. He waited until you could fit 4 buses through and then passed, now that's respect. Maybe he was foreign though?

Yeah you will have that problem around ther alot of rented cars by people that dont know how to drive in ireland and are used to good roads but alot of the guys i train with wont go near that road.