Can't walk on country roads anymore

Easten

idk what has changed but the country roads have gotten mental with traffic. I know people have to use roads but christ the speed some people are doing on these back roads is insane. I used always do a bit of cycling in the spring and Summer but I wouldn't dream of going for a cycle now. Walking on the roads is not safe anymore either, cars don't slow down into blind bends they just drive on as if the road is empty.

It's at the point now where a few potholes is the only thing that will slow them down. I used to walk the same roads by me to School, now days a parent would need to be done for neglect if they let there kids out on the roads around me as they are not safe.

Tileman

Yea same around here. There is a bend near our place and some one is going to get killed of these days with the speed cars take the bend.

thomas anderson.

Yep same round by me. Even with the 50kph signs and signage people just don't give a ****.

Quitelife

Most rural areas have no guards or have only a token presence. The few guards that are around seem afraid to challenge those driving recklessly . Huge amount of drug driving going on too with fellows and girls driving very aggressively . More of the general breakdown of law and order in rural ireland.

Reggie.

Doing alot of driving on the N52 with slurry the last week and the driving is horrendous. Everyone is in a major panic

older by the day

I had an uncle who was living at the side of the road with his dogs. There was a young fellow who used to go to work at six every morning. He used to fly up the road. The uncle found one of his dogs dead one morn. The next night he went out with the crow bar and shovel. They were some of the finest pot holes in Ireland. Richie kavanagh could have made songs about them. Wasn't long slowing the boyos. Ignorant prichs flying up beyond the gable of a dwelling house

Easten

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118554948#Comment_118554948

Yeah there's a major breakdown of the rules of the road and general care on the rural roads. No Guards, no policing of any form. The amount of unInsured tractors in the roads is unreal, with some young buck at the wheel. Guards don't come out to road accidents anymore either. I don't believe anyone would get away with speeding around a town, city or Village but it must be new Irish thing that country roads are ok to act the bollix and drive recklessly.

In the countryside now it's a sad state that Cars and Trucks own the roads and no other users have access.

elperello

I have noticed when driving on country roads that an increasing number of drivers are coming around blind bends over the centre of the road.

Instead of keeping close in to their own side as used to be normal they have the front o/s wheel cocked over the centre and you have to take evasive action to avoid a collision.

Inevitably they are going to meet someone as stupid as themselves some day.

I'm not sure why this has become a problem, maybe they don't want to scratch their cars on the ditch or something.

farawaygrass

its the same around here and it’s driving be insane 🤬 I bring the kids out for a cycle only on early Sunday mornings to get out before the traffic starts. The amount of drivers that won’t even take their foot of the accelerator just in case.

there was a couple out with horses the last day and a sand lorry drove right up behind them, braked hard, and overtook as quick as he could. Now horses took no notice, but how was he to know that. Surely anticipate the unexpected.

picking up the kids to at school and cars, and tractors too for that matter bombing past.

if someone runs out in front of them, or a car nudges out and they can’t stop, sure they mightn’t be at fault but Jesus why would ya want that on your conscience.

same at a kids soccer match last weekend, walking across the road with the youngest, a car pulled out about 50 yards away, driving towards us. She accelerated hard all the way up to us and them had to break. Wtf. She was a mother of a kid at soccer too.

I could go on and on. It really boils my blood. I used to cycle to school on the same roads for a mile at 8 years old. The front wall of the school used to be lined with bikes. Not one anymore.

everyone driving like they are on the motorway.

and as for tractor indicators, no one seems to take notice of them. You’d want one eye full time on the mirror

The pace of living is a lot more pressurised these times, there’s a lot of expectation out there to catch up with tons of stuff in our ever increasingly virtually-connected world, and it’s literally driving people into a faster pace of execution regarding everything that’s undertaken, including driving. People are going around overwrought and wound-up and it’s showing in their driving. There’s that insane pressure to catch-up with everything. As well as drug-driving of course. Cars these days have much better braking systems and handling, and that influences people to bring their vehicles to the limits. Speed limits on narrow country roads tend to be an ambitious 80kph, which is way too fast on many stretches and encourages people to drive right up to the limit.

Jim Simmental

The dwelling house is c. 200M from the yard on a narrow country road (single lane) but you couldn’t walk this short distance with cars flying by at 100 120 KPH - you really are putting your life at risk

all changed in about the last 6/7 years - it’s didn’t seem to be as bad in the recession years

Jakey Rolling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118555371#Comment_118555371

Our local roads are narrow enough that one or both cars have to pull in to the ditch to pass when they meet. I've noticed since PCP became a thing that many more people are being precious about not scratching their paintwork - they need to maintain the trade in value for their next PCP deal. More and more often I'm having stand-offs with drivers who won't budge an inch towards the ditch, expecting me to pull in to the briars to let them pass.

magicbastarder

a chap my brother worked with years ago came in to work hours late, he'd piled his car through a hedge and into a field on a bad bend on a country road near him, on his way to work on a frosty morning.

another colleague lent him a car (the second chap's mother in law had died and her car was sitting in his driveway, he'd been meaning to get around to selling it), which was very generous of him.

a few days later, the first chap piled this car through the gap he'd made in the hedge with his own car several days earlier.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118555418#Comment_118555418

whether it's much of a factor or not, modern cars do insulate you more in terms of noise, vibration etc., so you can go faster without the same sensation of speed you'd have had maybe 20 or 30 years ago.

i cycle a lot on country roads, and while the vast majority of drivers are decent and considerate, it still is surprising how many chance an overtake on a blind bend.

Wildly Boaring

Thought it was only me noticing.

There are 2 types that boil my blood.

1st driving flat out down narrow road and don't even slow down when they meet you. I mean I've usually stopped or pulled in and they lash past as of the road wide enough for 2. Don't even break. Have had a couple stsndoffs with these pricks. Just don't get that we both need to slow.

2nd are these ones who won't pull over. Sitting in the middle of the road expecting me to put the whole car in the ditch.

Reminds me of an old dear with a mini lived near us. Several times I met her and I had a tractor and trailer of something. 4 or 5 times she had to get out and let me drive her car past the tractor. She'd just sit in the middle of the road and wait.

Hard Knocks

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118555881#Comment_118555881

Sadly it’s everywhere, local Ag contractor was drawing bales on a back road, a car drove past a gap and had to stop because they then met him, there was stand off and then the car driver got out to tell the contractor to reverse, his reply was there’s a spot just behind the car driver and the next is 1km behind the tractor driver, eventually the car driver pull in.

I thought it was just me that noticed this. I live in East Meath but its becoming a suburb of Dublin here and there are huge SUV type cars everywhere.

I moved here in 2014 when you could walk and cycle on all the local roads. Not anymore, and especially in the last 2 years, its just too dangerous. There have been 3 crashes on my local road in the last 3 weeks, all requiring ambulances and fire engines. I realise this is a far busier part of the country than many of you are living in but its starting to happen everywhere. As other posters said, nobody has any regard anymore, they think they are insulated in their huge SUVs. I want to go and live on an island at this stage!

enricoh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118555371#Comment_118555371

2 massive head on crashes happened a mile up the road from me the last couple of years. Lads in their fancy Audi n BMW both times. Flying along n they won't stay on their side at the bend in case they scrape their alloys. Only sympathy I have is for the lads they plough into.

magicbastarder

Reminds me of an old dear with a mini lived near us. Several times I met her and I had a tractor and trailer of something. 4 or 5 times she had to get out and let me drive her car past the tractor. She'd just sit in the middle of the road and wait.

a neighbour of my mother in law used to drive the 4 or 6km to her local supervalu, along almost all country roads, and the reason i say 4 or 6 was that she drove there a different route to the way she drove home, as she was unable or unwilling to turn right.

that said, that's not really the sort of driver people are complaining about in this thread.

kyote00

You are not alone …. Always meeting cars with a wheel or more over the centre of the road…. Lots of people on phone driving single handed

I drive the navan/trim/Enfield area of co Meath and it has gotten worse over last 10 years. I have seen cars miss bend completely, catch wheel in soft margin and launch dukes of hazard style

I now practice ‘defensive driving’ ….. assuming there is some over speed gobsjite on the other side of the bend, keep speed down and good distance to vehicle in front.

The road at the home place hasn't been improved despite the increases in traffic. It hasn't seen fresh asphalt in my lifetime. There appears to be no money for fresh surfaces including a footpath while Council still keeps building offices for themselves and housing the idle.

The road has a justification for existing it just has never been improved and people living maybe 15 km from the local population centre are in a hurry to get there with no regard for road surfaces or safety. The only thing saving lives on these roads is the improved safety of cars.

I remember a national event was held at a site along this road and the council scrapped back the verges and painted road markings on what was essentially dirt and soil, not asphalt to give the impression the road was tended.

I requested the local authority put down a wire to count daily usage on the road so that with data there would be a justification to build on ramp and offramp for the bypass so that at least the local village could avoid some of this traffic. That was filed in their wastepaper basket.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118555932#Comment_118555932

Thankfully a sighting of that kind of moron is relatively infrequent round my place. ..... but you do encounter them from time to time and have to be at least partially fascinated by their lack of intelligence?

RaggyDays

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118555907#Comment_118555907

Cars might have gotten safer but the poor old human walking or cycling hasn't evolved so getting clattered by a driver in a hurry isn't good.

I think that years ago cars were slower to accelerate and stop but drivers were aware of this and drove handy. Today cars can go 0-60 in 6 seconds and back to a stop in under 3 but the problem is the driver is either too stressed to react or doped up on drugs or tapping away on the phone and not paying attention. I agree with the op, the country road belongs to Vehicles only now

whelan2

Have stopped walking on the roads, just do track at whatever football pitch I'm at now. Much safer

This should have been addressed with normal road resurfacing and paths over the last 30 years. It has not been addressed.

During winter the road surfaces get worse as well due to high tight hedges so the frost on the road never thaws.

ruwithme

"Tyres & diesel, not half dear enough yet for many "

20 year's ago it used to be young lads in cars, now it's young lassies I see round here doing a lot of the ripping & tearing & the young lads are now driving tractors 40 & 50k recklessly.( some oul boys at it too, who should know better)

SuperBowserWorld

I can see people complaining in the future that'd they never buy a self drive car because it drives too slowly and carefully around country roads.

Stark

I get the sense that the likes of the Road safety authority are quite anti-pedestrian these days as well. All about it being the walker's responsibility to "be safe, be seen", "1/3 of pedestrians mowed down had alcohol in their blood" etc. Comparitively very little on drivers' responsibility to drive in a manner that lets them see pedestrians in time. The most recent stuff about having to wear hi-viz in the middle of the day or it's your fault someone drugged up and on their phone crashed into you is a farce.

They won't buy self-driving cars because self-driving cars will be passive and submissive and the self-driving car will stop and pull in to the hedges as the "danger" approaches. Once your average aggressive driver figures this out he or she will welcome self-driving cars for everybody but themselves.

barneygumble99

There’s a 5km loop near my house that I walk regularly, very rural, might meet 2 maybe 3 cars on it. Narrow road, wide enough for 1 car in places and in other places , 2 cars would pass by slowing down and pulling in a little bit. I always cross the road when I see a car coming if I’m even within 200 yards of a bend because every single car takes a bend nowadays as if they’re full sure no one is waking the roads. Literally hugging the ditches they are. As a side note, why don’t all farmers close the flucking valve at the back of the slurry tanker when leaving the field, the middle of the roads are destroyed around here and it’s not the same guy, they are farmer owned tractors and tankers.

farawaygrass

Isn’t it a pain when you have to drive somewhere for a walk though. Makes a big job outta it

Inability to walk or cycle is an Irish problem. Here, I can go to more rural locations and never have to think about stepping on to roadway to get between villages.

Who2

Have we all not been that idiot driver at some stage. I used to be mad about cars and motor bikes years ago and drove like an idiot, I crashed a lot of times and luckily came out ok but it was pure luck. I got sense since and I would be a fairly steady driver now. The thing is there was only three or four of us that drove when I was at college, nowadays most drive cars. Very few single car families around the country either. We just have more cars now and a lot of the roads aren’t suited.

what’s the story with idiots walking on the same side of the road as the car is on with their backs to the car that doesn’t step in or worry about maybe not been seen.

i was on a very busy main road a couple of weeks ago , it was half six in the morning and came around a bend and there was this clown on an electric scooter dressed in black in the middle of the road. No lights visi vest or anything to distinguish him in the dark but he stayed out in the middle of the road holding up everyone rather than pull over so lads could get by.

another dark evening I came around another bend an there was this woman out walking with a double child’s buggy.

it’s a bit more of no one taking personal responsibility and everyone else is in the wrong and that’s from both sides.

I won’t get into cyclists , they are just a breed onto themselves.

whelan2

The lack of hi vis jackets is concerning. With the low sun this last while its very hard to see pedestrians. Why do people wear black?

Still stihl waters 3

Roads are busier as more go back to work its also a sgn of a busy economy when more traffic is on the road, saying that tho drivers seem to be more aggressive on the roads, I'd do 4 to 500 km most days and have noticed a big increase in traffic and speeding

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118556338#Comment_118556338

Nope. Haven't been that idiot driver due to RTA who took a family member when I was a child. Brother on the otherhand is a lunatic and age has done little to moderate his behaviour.

Easten

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118556338#Comment_118556338

Ah cripes man listen to yourself. How would you feel if you mowed down that Mother and kids pushing the buggy. You have to be in control of your car at all times regardless and if that means driving very slow then so be it.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118556366#Comment_118556366

the majority of pedestrians i've seen on country roads are dressed visibly enough. but the issue is that if motorists are not driving to the conditions, that's where the problem lies. put it this way, i see many more badly behaved drivers than i see badly dressed pedestrians.

and if you've a low sun in your eyes, you really should slow down, it won't just be pedestrians you need to keep an eye out for.

Who2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118556403#Comment_118556403

I was going handy and just pointing out how she hadn’t the cop on to not be out walking and it nearly dark with her kids and buggy on a road that is narrow and busy.

Maybe you should listen to yourself sometime , that would be an argument worth watching.

magicbastarder

Have we all not been that idiot driver at some stage.

Nope.

Who2

Can you honestly say you never pulled out onto a road sometime when you shouldn’t, you’ve never passed on a continuous white line, broke the speed limit , took a turn too wide or done anything wrong. I doubt it.

we have all been that idiot driver at some time.

grange mac

Walking has gotten so dangerous last few years. I go walk to clear head after work. But fkrz in evening who drive at speed.. No need for it.... Walk with hi viz and had mini flashlight but cars just dazzling me and driving way to close to comfort.

So upgraded my flashlight to 2000lm and anyone who keeps full heads on me I dazzle them and doesn't long be slowing them down... I know shouldn't but it let's them know I'm there and it really slows them down whilst also ensuring they keep out from me...

Have had few run ins with people for blinding them but I just tell them speed limits are max not min. Speeds and fully headlights on me not very nice... So that's how it feels when I dazzle them back 😂😂

Rural schools pressuring children to cycle to school have to stop. A childs safety should always come ahead of a schools Green Flag.

PowerToWait

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118556338#Comment_118556338

This is called victim blaming pal.

Who2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118556589#Comment_118556589

It’s called common sense or personal responsibility. There are loads of examples of both drivers and pedestrians being wrong out there.

tanko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118556578#Comment_118556578

Are schools really doing that, how many teachers cycle to school i wonder?

farawaygrass

Remember the first few week of covid lockdowns back in spring 20. There was hardly a car on the road and no lorries. ‘‘Twas bliss in one way.

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118556589#Comment_118556589

Blaming everyone except drivers though.

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118556610#Comment_118556610

All the common sense and personal responsibility in the world is little use to you when some half wit, half in control and half on the wrong side of the road comes at you around a blind bend.

I agree with you that everyone should be careful but when did you last hear of a driver being killed in a collision with a pedestrian?

Say my name

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118556220#Comment_118556220

I'd say the future will be google maps in said cars knowing about pedestrians or cyclists on the route through their smart phones or fitbits. You can already tell of traffic jams or slowdowns on the maps. It'd hardly be much more bother to get pedestrians and cyclists included.

Sticking my farmer hat on another feature could be warning of stock being moved ahead on the road or horse riders.

Seems a logical step and one that would be welcomed.

Flinty997

If people won't drive properly they'll put limits on everyone.