Quick Q - Illegal to overtake in a 50km zone?

MaxFlower

A friend of a friend is adamant that it it illegal to overtake in a 50km/hr zone irrespective of road markings e.g. continuous white line. I call bullsh*t on this as I have never EVER heard it before and I can't see anything on a quick check of the ROTR. So which is it?

challengemaster

It's legal to overtake if road markings allow and if you don't exceed the speed limit while overtaking...

Mikros

The same rules apply to overtaking in a 50 km/h speed limit as any other, except all at 50 km/h.

MaxFlower

Thanks, thats what I thought.

cyclopath2001

challengemaster wrote: »

It's legal to overtake if road markings allow and if you don't exceed the speed limit while overtaking...

....and if you can do so without endangering or causing inconvenience to anyone.

sentient_6

Obviously! :rolleyes:

bladebrew

i was going to ask the same question,
i have been overtaken a few times in a 50km/h zone on a residential road with a few schools on it, and loads of housing estates while i was doing around an indicated 55km/h,
i assumed it was illegal due to it being a built up area but apparently not!
the cars that overtook me were definetly speeding though, so they were breaking at least 1 law

this is the boreenmana road for anyone that may know it, just outside cork city,

L1011

The ROTR isn't what to check (as its sometimes wrong and often a bit fuzzy), but there's nothing in the actual law either.

Once they're still under the limit and meeting the other requirements to overtake its 100% legal

kielmanator

bladebrew wrote: »

i was going to ask the same question,
i have been overtaken a few times in a 50km/h zone on a residential road with a few schools on it, and loads of housing estates while i was doing around an indicated 55km/h,
i assumed it was illegal due to it being a built up area but apparently not!
the cars that overtook me were definetly speeding though, so they were breaking at least 1 law

this is the boreenmana road for anyone that may know it, just outside cork city,

know it all too well;)

Matt Simis

MaxFlower wrote: »

irrespective of road markings e.g. continuous white line. I call bullsh*t on this as I have never EVER heard it before

What does he think the road markings are for then?
Also stop posting in Black, unreadable on non-default themes.

IrishZeus

Is it not ok to be over the limit when overtaking?

Surely if overtaking someone doing 40kmh - it would be safer to do so as quickly as possibe rather than trying to do so at 50kmh? Obviously you slow back down to 50kmh after overtaking...

And to avoid the high horsers, yes I know you're not supposed to pass the speed limit - but would the guards realistically pull you for a faster, but safer, overtake?

Del2005

IrishZeus wrote: »

Is it not ok to be over the limit when overtaking?

Surely if overtaking someone doing 40kmh - it would be safer to do so as quickly as possibe rather than trying to do so at 50kmh? Obviously you slow back down to 50kmh after overtaking...

And to avoid the high horsers, yes I know you're not supposed to pass the speed limit - but would the guards realistically pull you for a faster, but safer, overtake?

I'd say it all depends on the road.

Going past someone doing 40km/h at 55km/h on a quite suburban/rural road would be OK.

Doing the same outside a school or in a housing estate and you should be shot, but unfortunately you'd only get 2 points and €80 fine.

IrishZeus

Del2005 wrote: »

I'd say it all depends on the road.

Going past someone doing 40km/h at 55km/h on a quite suburban/rural road would be OK.

Doing the same outside a school or in a housing estate and you should be shot, but unfortunately you'd only get 2 points and €80 fine.

Completely agree, would never speed in a school area or other urban "risk" area. Just asking the question to get a general guage of peoples feelings on it. I personally cross the speed limit when overtaking as I deem it to be the safest thing to do.

L1011

IrishZeus wrote: »

And to avoid the high horsers, yes I know you're not supposed to pass the speed limit - but would the guards realistically pull you for a faster, but safer, overtake?

They can and do (sometimes).

cyclopath2001

IrishZeus wrote: »

but would the guards realistically pull you for a faster, but safer, overtake?

If you're ready concerned about safety, then you don't overtake in a situation where you might have to exceed the posted safety limit.

2 stroke

If 50 is the maximum speed allowed, for traffic driving on the proper side of the road, why do some drivers think it should legal to drive faster than that on the wrong side of the road.

2 stroke

IrishZeus wrote: »

And to avoid the high horsers, yes I know you're not supposed to pass the speed limit - but would the guards realistically pull you for a faster, but safer, overtake?

Yes, and they have a few names for it like dangerous driving, dangerous overtaking, careless driving & driving without due care and attention.

unkel

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

If you're ready concerned about safety, then you don't overtake in a situation where you might have to exceed the posted safety limit.

You serious?

Say someone is driving along at 60km/h on a national road with a speed limit of 100km/h. The best (safest) way to overtake that car is to do it as quickly as possible. Most vehicles wouldn't be able to do it quickly enough to exceed the speed limit while overtaking and I would encourage people driving slow cars to think twice about overtaking, but for all you out there with more powerful cars, please overtake as quickly as you can, even if that technically means that you are speeding!

D_murph

Its only illegal if you get caught :pac:.

Victor

unkel wrote: »

You serious?

Say someone is driving along at 60km/h on a national road with a speed limit of 100km/h. The best (safest) way to overtake that car is to do it as quickly as possible. Most vehicles wouldn't be able to do it quickly enough to exceed the speed limit while overtaking and I would encourage people driving slow cars to think twice about overtaking, but for all you out there with more powerful cars, please overtake as quickly as you can, even if that technically means that you are speeding!

So you plan to overtake someone who is doing 60km/h by doing at least 101km/h? That in itself is dangerous, even on a one way road, e.g. if the other user engages in a sudden manouver or there is an unexpected obstacle like an animal crossing the road.

Marlow

Victor wrote: »

So you plan to overtake someone who is doing 60km/h by doing at least 101km/h? That in itself is dangerous, even on a one way road, e.g. if the other user engages in a sudden manouver or there is an unexpected obstacle like an animal crossing the road.

That's why you always have to anticipate what's going on in front of the person that you're behind. It's part of normal daily day driving. And you have to take into account all possibilities for coping with such behavior. The same as you need to know, what's going on behind you.

This is driving basics !! What's your point ?

Also, it's never planning to go faster than the limit. It is finishing your overtaking as fast as possible. As safe as it could be.

/M

Absurdum

Victor wrote: »

So you plan to overtake someone who is doing 60km/h by doing at least 101km/h? That in itself is dangerous, even on a one way road, e.g. if the other user engages in a sudden manouver or there is an unexpected obstacle like an animal crossing the road.

but doing it at 99 km/h doesn't have those risks, right?

Victor

Absurdum wrote: »

but doing it at 99 km/h doesn't have those risks, right?

I never said that. Travelling more that 25% faster or slower than surrounding traffic is considered a high risk behaviour.

Absurdum

Victor wrote: »

Travelling more that 25% faster or slower than surrounding traffic is considered a high risk behaviour.

says who?

passing a lorry doing 90 km/h on a motorway is suddenly "high risk behaviour"?

Marlow

Victor wrote: »

I never said that. Travelling more that 25% faster or slower than surrounding traffic is considered a high risk behaviour.

Who says, that traffic in front of the car travelling 60 km/h is also doing 60 km/h ?

Get reasonable. If somebody travels at 60 km/h in a 100 km/h zone, he has to expect to be overtaken and has to drive accordingly.

/M

Victor

Marlow wrote: »

Who says, that traffic in front of the car travelling 60 km/h is also doing 60 km/h ?

If the vehicles 'in front' of the vehicle doing 60km/h is doing more than 60km/h, then surely there is a gap?

Get reasonable. If somebody travels at 60 km/h in a 100 km/h zone, he has to expect to be overtaken

That is likely, but one has to think of the reasons why someone would be doing substantially less than the speed limit - road conditions, inability (whether a novice driver or not), mechanical difficulties , etc. - all of which could result in errattic behaviour.

and has to drive accordingly.

'Expect the unexpected'. While they should drive accordingly, they might not.

Absurdum wrote: »

says who?

NRA published stuff on it a few years ago. Are you honestly saying that if general traffic is doing 100km/h on a road, you would consider it safe to be doing less than 75km/h or more than 125km/h? you might study "The 85th percentile" here: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/speedlimits.html

passing a lorry doing 90 km/h on a motorway is suddenly "high risk behaviour"?

Your post is ambigious. It would be useful if you clarified it.
(a) If you mean the lorry is doing 90km/h, then it is already breaking the law. However, given the size of a lorry and the fact that lorry drivers tend to be more professional, they are less likely to (and indeed less capable of) make a sudden manouvre.
(b) If you mean the person doing the overtaking is doing 90km/h, then thats likely to be within 25% of what the truck is doing.

Marlow

Victor wrote: »

If the vehicles 'in front' of the vehicle doing 60km/h is doing more than 60km/h, then surely there is a gap?

Naturally. Otherwise there would be no purpose of overtaking.

Victor wrote: »

That is likely, but one has to think of the reasons why someone would be doing substantially less than the speed limit - road conditions, inability (whether a novice driver or not), mechanical difficulties , etc. - all of which could result in errattic behaviour.

People driving 60 km/h in a 100 km/h is an every day occurence, where I live. And this is on national roads with wide hard shoulders. These people also don't ever look in their mirror.

Overtaking them is the safest thing to do, because there might be somebody coming from behind and doing even more foolish stuff. Best to be far away, when that happens.

/M

sleepysniper

Overtaking is best performed with the boot planted firmly to the floor.:D

Never mind all this PC "oh you shouldn't be overtaking if it causes you to break the speed limit" BS.

Overtaking should be completed as quickly as possible, (Which is obvious if you think about it, which the RSA rarely does:rolleyes:), so you spend less time on the wrong side of the road.

People who crawl along main roads are incompetent drivers and are more of a danger to everyone else than those keeping up with the flow of traffic IMO

Lando Griffin

Victor wrote: »

'Expect the unexpected'. While they should drive accordingly, they might not.

You cant go around expecting the unexpected all the time, what rubbish.
Thats probably these people are driving so slow all the time, thinking Oh God what happens if a deer runs out in front, or Oh I hope that truck dosent jackknife and get us all kilt. These same people who go around "Expcting the unexpected" are probably the first to press the acellerator instead of the brake "unexpectally"

LFCFan

I fear that the all to familiar sight of 60/80 km/h drivers in 100km/h national primary routes roads is partly down to the scaremongering of the man made global warming brigade, making people change their driving behaviour to save fuel and save the planet. I've no problem with this if that's what they want to do but at least have the decency to pull in the the hard shoulder and let the rest of us drive normally.

Absurdum

Victor wrote: »

NRA published stuff on it a few years ago. Are you honestly saying that if general traffic is doing 100km/h on a road, you would consider it safe to be doing less than 75km/h or more than 125km/h? you might study "The 85th percentile" here: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/speedlimits.html

What I would consider to be "safe" in the above scenario depends on many factors, speed being just one of them. The opening line of the link is interesting:

Contrary to some ill informed opinions we welcome properly set speed limits, and welcome speed limit enforcement when speed limits are exceeded in a way that causes danger.

"in a way that causes danger" to me would contradict a lot of speed enforcement in Ireland!

Your post is ambigious. It would be useful if you clarified it.
(a) If you mean the lorry is doing 90km/h, then it is already breaking the law. However, given the size of a lorry and the fact that lorry drivers tend to be more professional, they are less likely to (and indeed less capable of) make a sudden manouvre.
(b) If you mean the person doing the overtaking is doing 90km/h, then thats likely to be within 25% of what the truck is doing.

I meant (a), the fact that the lorry is breaking the law isn't relevant because (i)I'm not the one driving it and (ii) I didn't mention a country, it was just a quick example of an everyday scenario.

Now explain how a car doing 120 km/h passing a lorry which is being driven at 80 km/h or 90 km/h on a motorway is "high risk behaviour".

LFCFan

I think this whole 'speed kills' mantra being spewed out by everyone just get's peoples backs up. Speed does not kill. Inappropriate speed and other factors kill. It's a mixture of events that lead to accidents. What is speed anyway? It's going fast. You can go fast legally on our roads. 120KM/h would be considered fast which is speed. I really think they need to quit going on about Speed all the time and try and tackle all the issues that cause accidents. Poor roads, bad bends, drink driving, drug driving, tired driving, dangerous driving, lack of education, mechanical failures, suicides etc etc. There are many factors that lead to accidents and inappropriate speed is only one of them!

CiniO

Victor wrote: »

NRA published stuff on it a few years ago. Are you honestly saying that if general traffic is doing 100km/h on a road, you would consider it safe to be doing less than 75km/h or more than 125km/h? you might study "The 85th percentile" here: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/speedlimits.html

Yeah right.
Surely all those motorways in Germany must be deadly, as there are trucks at 90km/h, most cars at about 120 - 140km/h, and few lad doing 200km/h and more.
And somehow it works. Must be the miracle, as according to 85 percentile theory they should all be dead by now.

panama

Off topic perhaps but it seems a growing trend in this country that the average driver doesn't bother their arse indicating when overtaking.

Time and time again no matter the road whether motorway or national primary/secondary,
cars just wantonly overtaking without any kind of notice to drivers behind or oncoming or indeed that of the vehicle they're passing.
Highly dangerous and careless, just smacks of ignorance really.

sdanseo

Victor wrote: »

I never said that. Travelling more that 25% faster or slower than surrounding traffic is considered a high risk behaviour.

On S2 I'd agree, if the car in front is travelling at a reasonable speed. But if they're toddling along at 60km/h I'm going to put my foot to the floor to get past them - after making sure that there are no other vehicles and forming the opinion that the driver in front is not driving erraticaly - just dangerously slowly.

On any road with an overtaking lane however, overtaking at just about any speed is not high risk. Once the person doesn't pull out in front of you, you're safe as houses. And in fairness overtaking slowly in a two-lane scenario is probably more of a risk than doing it quickly as it gives people less chance to fail to see you in their blind spot - of course if you're going twice their speed, then if you hit them it'll be carnage, but that's a much less likely scenario if you get the manoeuvre over and done with as quickly as is safe to do so. Not to mention the fact that you can't slow motorways to a crawl based on a tiny, tiny probability. Some risks are inherent in driving at speed and that's unavoidable. I don't favour over-regulation - how many billion journeys are done every year in this country and only 250 fatal accidents? I'd call that VERY safe.

unkel

Victor wrote: »

Travelling more that 25% faster or slower than surrounding traffic is considered a high risk behaviour.

There is some truth in what you are saying. High differentials in speed of vehicles going in the same direction on a motorway carries more risk than if everybody was doing the same speed

As others pointed out though, it works fine and safe on German motorways. That's because drivers are competent and there is virtually no chance any slow vehicle would move into the overtaking lane into the path of a vehicle doing 200km/h or more

Over here, I'm wary of other drivers as the level of competence of drivers is so so low. I do and have driven at 200km/h on Irish motorways, but never when there was any other traffic...