Observations on Country vs City driving

kyote00

My daily commute starts in a very rural part of meath and end up in Dublin city centre. About a 80km round trip. I have driven this route most days for last 10 years.

Over the last 2-3years, I have noticed that country roads have become much more dangerous place to drive....

Every day with no exaggeration, I see

- crazily fast speeds on very narrow country roads, including overtaking multiple cars. (limit signs in 80km-100km range...)
- often oncoming cars extend over the white line by 2-3 feet -> especially going around bends.
- on narrow roads, where there is barely enough room for 2 cars, oncoming traffic tends NOT to slow down (assuming perhaps the other guy will)
- drivers with one hand on phone, at speed, round bends.

Examples:
- there is a sharp right turn bend (limit is 80km) - once a month someone 'misses' the bend and ends up in the field behind. There was an old stone wall but farmer has given up rebuilding it...(over 10years, I'd say 10-12 cars have ended up in the field).
- narrow bridge over river boyne, two cars fit but barely. The inside walls of the bridge are a multi colour collage of paint from car bumpers. Again new debris on the ground every other day...
- in the last year, there have been 3 single car deaths in this locality

It seems to be me that modern cars (with abs, ebd and traction) have allowed us to drive at much faster speeds - with the perception that we are in control .... however our risk awareness has not improved

/rant over now.

colm_mcm

I'd say loads of them only have one headlight too. That's a new thing as well

Ericdravancrow

Young lads in Audi's or Passat's....say no more.

colm_mcm

Phones up to their ears

fancy pigeon

How rural in Meath....

BrianD3

I also have done this sort of driving for many years and can't say I've noticed any more bridge hits or corner cutting etc. In recent years I don't see as many people with mobile phones up against their ears but I have developed a good sense for when someone is looking "down" (i.e. at a phone or other device) and not at the road. This is extremely common now and is scary.

The passive safety of your own car is important. No matter how good a driver you are or how well your car handle and brakes, if you are meeting people on relatively narrow roads who are not looking where they are going a crash can occur so quickly. If you are doing say 70 km/h and an oncoming car doing the same speed swerves into your path as you meet, the passive safety of your car is going to be a big factor in the outcome (whereas with higher speed impacts or crashes with HGVs, you're probably dead anyway)

dobman88

kyote00 wrote: »

Every day with no exaggeration, I see
.

Examples:
- there is a sharp right turn bend (limit is 80km) - once a month someone 'misses' the bend and ends up in the field behind. There was an old stone wall but farmer has given up rebuilding it...(over 10years, I'd say 10-12 cars have ended up in the field).
-

So once a month someone ends up in the field but in the last 10 years only 10-12 cars have actually ended up in the field.

No exaggeration :pac:

I would guess most of that post is a huge over exaggeration.

colm_mcm

Cars getting bigger may be a factor too?

CiniO

I drive daily (and plenty) on the kind of road you are describing.
Generally road about 4 to 5 metres wide with central broken line (no matter if it's straight stretch or blind bends or brow of the hills, it's always broken line).
Lanes are normally between 2m and 2.5m wide depending on which stretch of the road it is. It's 80km/h speed limit, and it's in tourist region, so very busy in summer - very quite in the winter.

In the summer lots of foreign tourists either in LHD cars or rented cars having trouble feeling the width of a vehicle, or just usuall city dwellers very seldom driving in the country side.

So with mixture of all that, what happens here in the summer is just shocking.
Road is perfectly suitable to drive at 80km/h except from some blind bends where you have to slow down a lot.
People though are driving at 20km/h in the middle of the road making it unable to overtake them.
I've seem the, driving into ditches when they see a bus or truck coming out from blind bend.
Driving well above centre line is pretty much standards, even though there's no need for it. Very often though drivers when they see oncoming car a mile away, pull to the side and stop and wait. On the other hand, if they approach blind bend, they keep driving in the middle, not thinking that there actually might be something oncoming very close.
I've seen many times people driving completely on the wrong side of the road (by mistake) including blind bends.
Generally, those are drivers who IMO just struggle to drive on that kind of road.
Unfortunately they cause and participate in many collisions due to that. I've seen some nasty ones as well as just fender benders, scratches and broken mirrors - you see that nearly daily there.

On the other side, there is a group of drivers, who see nice bendy sometimes quite road, and start driving very fast without knowing that road. This very often also ends up very badly, as failing to slow down on a blind bend and meeting a bus or truck there equals accient. Very often even invisible bumps on the road are enough to put such racers to the ditch.

In winter time though, it's a lovely road to drive, with only couple farmers driving around minding their sheep. They usually check their mirrors at all times, and while they normally crawl at 20km/h to look for sheep, they always pull in to let overtake.
Generally speaking, in the winter on straight stratches with good visibility, it's perfectly possible to be doing up to 160km/h or more in there.

Glass fused light

Dumbish observation but I link better driving country roads to the wave/salute.

People that will slow down and pull into a gap on a narrow road tend to look at you and wave more. The ones who want you to pull on to the margin after they went past a gate tend to pretend your not there.

Arcade_Tryer

Building up speed (doing about 70km/hr) on one of these roads (100km/hr limit) yesterday and a small white van comes racing around a bend with an orange sing hanging off the front bumper ("wide load" it reads on closer inspection) and sure enough there's a HGV no more than 50 or 60 meters behind and about 2 foot onto my side of the road heading straight on for me. Managed to brake in time and avoid contact but I can't say I wasn't shook. The guy in the car behind me was visibly leaning over to his passengers side!

*This is not an uncommon occurrence on this stretch of road*

Aint Eazy Being Cheezy

colm_mcm wrote: »

I'd say loads of them only have one headlight too. That's a new thing as well

I think that's more to do with how ridiculously difficult it is to change a headlight bulb in some cars. Mine needs the coolant reservoir to come out for the drivers side one.

nice_guy80

there is just too much traffic on rural roads

and it is generally heading in the direction of Dublin

Dermot Illogical

Build a wall, and get Meath to pay for it!

nice_guy80 wrote: »

there is just too much traffic on rural roads

and it is generally heading in the direction of Dublin

s14driftking

We still have ass and cart roads but the ass and carts have got a lot bigger. Most rural roads in Ireland have received little upgrades in the past 30 yrs bar occasional patching and resurfacing when needed even thou the cars have gotten a lot bigger as well as the trucks and tractors.

Glass fused light

s14driftking wrote: »

We still have ass and cart roads but the ass and carts have got a lot bigger. Most rural roads in Ireland have received little upgrades in the past 30 yrs bar occasional patching and resurfacing when needed even thou the cars have gotten a lot bigger as well as the trucks and tractors.

Agree with this but it's also the ass drivers fault for not driving in a straight line. But upgrading can cause problems too.

I was at a wedding in Cavan where one of the non-local guests had a serious accident on the way to the reception. The locals put it down to speed as a result of road widening (but there may have been a sheep involved). The stretch of road had no hedging so sight lines were great and it looked[\I] flat but meandered. Problem was the council upgraded the road (with good finish) but could not straighten it. Previously the narrowness of the road encouraged you to go slower, now you build up your speed only to hit bumpy bit with a sharp s-bend, then it's hello ditch.

Sam Kade

I blame the yummy mummies in their oversized suv's that they can barely drive never mind reverse. I'd put a ban on any woman less than 50 buying or driving an suv