L road-v-Motorway in these conditions

jeffk

I have sent off an email to the M3 motorway about the state of their road compared to the old/L road tonight(Navan to Dublin)

Motorway
Hard to see road markings
Most of the outside lane covered in snow/ice
At times low grip
Lumps of snow/ice

Old/L
None of the above, maybe minimal snow coverage

As I said to them

Surely the idea of the toll is to use some of the profit to cover gritting/road maintenance?

Am I living in a dreamland expecting a tolled road to be perfect or as near as?

colm_mcm

The toll goes to the private company that spent 1 billion building it.

jeffk

colm_mcm wrote: »

The toll goes to the private company that spent 1 billion building it.

So who pays for staff/upkeep etc?

Skylinehead

jeffk wrote: »

So who pays for staff/upkeep etc?

Council for gritting, toll company for toll stuff.

jeffk

Skylinehead wrote: »

Council for gritting, toll company for toll stuff.

If the council do grit both, then why would one be worse than other?

Seen two grit trucks on normal roads and from state of motorway it wasn't touched at all, only for usage and/or tyres be fully covered in snow etc

CeilingFly

You really think they should spend their time answering that type of stupid question?

jeffk

CeilingFly wrote: »

You really think they should spend their time answering that type of stupid question?

How's it stupid?

Paid road dangerous
Free road safe

Ah sure I'll chance having a crash and pay them for the pleasure and sure they don't need to any work for the money

testicles

This post has been deleted.

CrankyHaus

Actually maintenance of the tolled section remains the responsibility of M3 Eurolink, as acknowledged on their website.

http://www.eurolink-m3.ie/winter_maintenance.html

I'm surprised you found it poorly gritted or cleared but a broad motorway expanse is exposed to far more snowfall than a narrow road with a lot of tree cover and such on either side of it.

The NRA hasn't existed for a while it's now part of TII.

ELM327

M3 not gritted this morning, covered in snow.

Hector Savage

CeilingFly wrote: »

You really think they should spend their time answering that type of stupid question?

Is this attitude shows the acceptance of Irish of getting ripped off - its a valid question, they are making obscene amounts of money on it, if the L road is clear, it should be clear too ...

CrankyHaus

Hector Savage wrote: »

Is this attitude shows the acceptance of Irish of getting ripped off - its a valid question, they are making obscene amounts of money on it, if the L road is clear, it should be clear too ...

It's also an acknowledged condition of the lucrative PPP contract the motorway operator was happy to sign up to. Yet people on here are out batting for them, bizarre.

Wildly Boaring

I managed winter maintenance on a motorway for 2 years and I can guarantee that road is salted.

This is best practice Europe wide so not just an Irish thing.

There are 2 problems

1 salt needs traffic to activate and keep the road clear. This is why lane 2 doesn't clear.
There is generally v little traffic at night on lane 1 also. So the salt melts the bottom layer and once cars and trucks break up the rest it should clear relatively easily, but only wherever driven

2 ploughs don't plough lower than 10 or 15 mm. Either the plough or the road would be seriously damaged in a km if you sat the plough on the blacktop

Your L road will have had a higher traffic count and possibly more HGVs

These PPP companies get massive fines for loosing a lane to snow. You can be sure they were fully aware before any email. Probably been working 24-7 lashing out salt and brine

Borderfox

M3 and M50 conditions very bad this morning

Alkers

jeffk wrote:

I have sent off an email to the M3 motorway about the state of their road compared to the old/L road tonight(Navan to Dublin)

What time was this at?

I'm 100% that the road was gritted, both before the snowfall and on an ongoing basis since.

jeffk

Simona1986 wrote: »

What time was this at?

I'm 100% that the road was gritted, both before the snowfall and on an ongoing basis since.

2130

Sadly no dashcam etc to take video or picture, all I can say it what I seen.

For the most part the usual suspects didn't even do the speed limit/overtake compared to usual 140+ in and out of lanes

Alun

As scanlone said, gritting/salting alone will not prevent snow from sticking to the road surface, it will however help once traffic starts driving over it, and will then turn to slush. On a road with relatively light traffic like the M3 that will take a while.

CeilingFly

scanlone wrote: »

I managed winter maintenance on a motorway for 2 years and I can guarantee that road is salted.

This is best practice Europe wide so not just an Irish thing.

There are 2 problems

1 salt needs traffic to activate and keep the road clear. This is why lane 2 doesn't clear.
There is generally v little traffic at night on lane 1 also. So the salt melts the bottom layer and once cars and trucks break up the rest it should clear relatively easily, but only wherever driven

2 ploughs don't plough lower than 10 or 15 mm. Either the plough or the road would be seriously damaged in a km if you sat the plough on the blacktop

Your L road will have had a higher traffic count and possibly more HGVs

These PPP companies get massive fines for loosing a lane to snow. You can be sure they were fully aware before any email. Probably been working 24-7 lashing out salt and brine

be careful, common sense and proper explanation may not go down well with some posters who want someone to blame for their own lack of basic driving care.

As for someone saying a road is dangerous - only driving is dangerous. Drive according to the conditions and you will be driving safely, drive like a fool just because the law allows you do xx speed and you will be driving dangerously.

jeffk

CeilingFly wrote: »

be careful, common sense and proper explanation may not go down well with some posters who want someone to blame for their own lack of basic driving care.

As for someone saying a road is dangerous - only driving is dangerous. Drive according to the conditions and you will be driving safely, drive like a fool just because the law allows you do xx speed and you will be driving dangerously.

Well that's not me as I barely done the speed limit until I think twice I had to overtake people crawling along

Maybe you mean the white van man doing 160 or so? or the Audi I passed who then ended up catching up with and passing me??

Funny how no matter what happened on a road, HAS to be a speed issue