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Galway to Dublin Autobhan?

galway_lad

Around about this time of year, I'd often find myself "driving home for Christmas" (ha!) along the Dublin to Galway motorway. I was thinking, should we copy the German system and have no speed limits on sections where it makes sense? Most of that road is fine for much higher speeds than allowed for.

Also it could link the two sides of the country in a more meaningful way. I do know people who often commute from county Galway to Dublin, imagine if we made it much easier. It would alleviate the housing crisis in the capital, and be more fun.

I'm sure other sections around the country could do likewise. Seems like a winner to me?

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PhilOssophy

ELM327 wrote: »

Agree, with one point of correction, the US has a "stay in your lane" type of law on the motorway/highway. So the expected behavior is exactly what happens, as there's no notion of an overta=king lane.

Really? I didn't know that, and by the lane-changing which was going on on most motorways I was on, nobody else seemed to know that either!

[Deleted User]

galway_lad wrote: »

I remember the bad old days before the motorway. Bus would take 4+ hours. Bus driver would pull over a few times for a fag and for people to have a piss. If it were up to the likes of you, it'd still be like that! Think to the future.

Did I suggest having no motorway?

beggars_bush

I'd prefer them to just extend the dual carriageways as far as Carrick on Shannon on the N4 and Cavan town on the N3

kippy

Christ. The autobahn isn't this magical place of brilliant drivers and safe driving. Plenty accidents happen and plenty idiots drive it.

In fairness lads, were you to go back twenty years ago when it would regularly take three or four hours to do eastern side of Galway to Lucan with plenty traffic bottlenecks and passing through every town and village on the way, you'd be absolutely delighted with the current setup of the motorway.
It's pointless trying to please everyone though.

CrabRevolution

German style speed limits are like Swiss style referendums in that people claim we're backwards for not copying them, but they also can't name a 2nd example of a country who has adopted them.

If it's such an inarguably great idea, why has not one other country on earth adopted it?

rock22

The Dublin to Galway road is not really to motorway standards. It was opened and upgrades promised - they never came

Thelonious Monk

Galway is hilarious. This fancy motorway goes all the way and then thousands of cars all stuck in and around a small enough town. The lack of planning for Galway and its surrounds is a disgrace. Ribbon development everywhere total car dependency. If they do ever get the ring road they want it'll just pave the way for more ribbon development and car reliance.
Also the last thing we need on our motorways is less restrictions, too many poor and careless drivers.

beggars_bush

rock22 wrote: »

The Dublin to Galway road is not really to motorway standards. It was opened and upgrades promised - they never came

apart from Athlone bypass and the stretch going into Galway city, it is motorway standard

ShatterAlan

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Feck it I can't stand this self loathing about the Irish and praising the Germans. It's this line of thought that set the stage for bailing out the banks and being stuck paying for the damned thing the next 100 years.

It's neither self-loathing of the Irish nor praise for the Germans. The German penchant for conformity is something I despise at time as it show them to be automatons. Take for example crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing. You could be there at 4am and not a car in sight and the signal is red and they will stand there like robots until it turns green I just cross when I see that it's safe to do so. I don't need a machine to tell me when I can cross a fcuking road.
In Germany they have machines where you can get a newspaper. You put in the money and take one out.....all the newspapers are there and the Germans just take the one. If that system was available in Ireland people would take all the newspapers out for the price of one and try to sell them. It's just a fact.

And our bailout of the banks wasn't necessarily the fault of the Irish despicable as it was.. IT was done under threat from Timothy Geithner. Granted we could have grown a pair and told him to FOAD like the Icelanders did but we didn't unfortunately.

Muahahaha

beggars_bush wrote: »

apart from Athlone bypass and the stretch going into Galway city, it is motorway standard

yeah but it is likely designed for a top speed and beyond that it is dangerous. Would presume autobahns are designed for 200kph+ whereas Irish motorways are not.

ShatterAlan

o1s1n wrote: »

Youtube autobahn crashes to see how 'disciplined' Germans are.

I said they were disciplined. I didn't say they were immune to accidents.

Atlantic Dawn

beggars_bush wrote: »

apart from Athlone bypass and the stretch going into Galway city, it is motorway standard

Will they ever upgrade this part?

pgj2015

ShatterAlan wrote: »

It's neither self-loathing of the Irish nor praise for the Germans. The German penchant for conformity is something I despise at time as it show them to be automatons. Take for example crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing. You could be there at 4am and not a car in sight and the signal is red and they will stand there like robots until it turns green I just cross when I see that it's safe to do so. I don't need a machine to tell me when I can cross a fcuking road.
In Germany they have machines where you can get a newspaper. You put in the money and take one out.....all the newspapers are there and the Germans just take the one. If that system was available in Ireland people would take all the newspapers out for the price of one and try to sell them. It's just a fact.

And our bailout of the banks wasn't necessarily the fault of the Irish despicable as it was.. IT was done under threat from Timothy Geithner. Granted we could have grown a pair and told him to FOAD like the Icelanders did but we didn't unfortunately.

My first night in Germany a few years ago, all of us Irish, We all went out to the smoking area leaving all our drinks in another room. when we came back all our drinks were still there untouched, we hadnt even started to drink some of the drinks. we were amazed no one had taken our drinks, this was a student bar. we laughed about it the next day and agreed in a half joking way that Irish people are knackers as all the drinks would have been taken in Ireland.

[Deleted User]

Most folk on the autobahns don't do over the recommended 90mph or so.
I did Munich to Stuttgart return in a Golf Gti and was travelling at 140mph for parts of the spin but it's sobering enough to realise how a seemingly straight road isn't that straight when you are travelling at 100mph+.

Long story short, all considered 120kph limit here is best left as is IMO.

[Deleted User]

Blondini wrote: »

Galway is a kip. Who'd be in a hurry to get there?

2 hours Dublin to Galway @ 120 km/h

another hour spent getting through the Galway roundabout "system"

[Deleted User]

Good book actually.

ShatterAlan

pgj2015 wrote: »

My first night in Germany a few years ago, all of us Irish, We all went out to the smoking area leaving all our drinks in another room. when we came back all our drinks were still there untouched, we hadnt even started to drink some of the drinks. we were amazed no one had taken our drinks, this was a student bar. we laughed about it the next day and agreed in a half joking way that Irish people are knackers as all the drinks would have been taken in Ireland.

Take their system of marking your beer mat in pencil with the number of beers you've had. Try that in Ireland. Guy has 10 pints, then gets a new beer mat, takes out his pencil, marks one or two on it and pays and staggers out the door.

whisky_galore

rock22 wrote: »

The Dublin to Galway road is not really to motorway standards. It was opened and upgrades promised - they never came

There are main routes in this country that are barely up to boreen standards.

We rip up our railways and have barely adequate or non existent bus services and say our country is too small for rail freight and public transport yet we're stuck behind lumbering artic lorries on winding roads, sections of which have barely changed from days of horses and carts.

pgj2015

ShatterAlan wrote: »

Take their system of marking your beer mat in pencil with the number of beers you've had. Try that in Ireland. Guy has 10 pints, then gets a new beer mat, takes out his pencil, marks one or two on it and pays and staggers out the door.

I said it to someone before about the lack of stealing drinks in Germany, the guy said that the staff will be watching and if they see someone steal a drink, they will be kicked out. Irish bar staff wouldn't care if they saw a drink being stolen.

CrabRevolution

pgj2015 wrote: »

I said it to someone before about the lack of stealing drinks in Germany, the guy said that the staff will be watching and if they see someone steal a drink, they will be kicked out. Irish bar staff wouldn't care if they saw a drink being stolen.

Maybe you just hang out in rougher pubs but I've never heard of people having drink stolen from their table in a pub. More likely the bar staff thought they were gone and just cleared the table.

Maybe at a party or event (wedding etc.) where people are moving around a lot or going from table to table, but I've no idea where you get this notion that people go to pubs to steal unattended pints on a huge scale.

pgj2015

CrabRevolution wrote: »

Maybe you just hang out in rougher pubs but I've never heard of people having drink stolen from their table in a pub. More likely the bar staff thought they were gone and just cleared the table.

Maybe at a party or event (wedding etc.) where people are moving around a lot or going from table to table, but I've no idea where you get this notion that people go to pubs to steal unattended pints on a huge scale.

It is common enough in Ireland, especially in student bars/clubs.

ShatterAlan

CrabRevolution wrote: »

Maybe you just hang out in rougher pubs but I've never heard of people having drink stolen from their table in a pub. More likely the bar staff thought they were gone and just cleared the table.

Maybe at a party or event (wedding etc.) where people are moving around a lot or going from table to table, but I've no idea where you get this notion that people go to pubs to steal unattended pints on a huge scale.

I was in a neighbourhood family pub in Marino/Drumcondra a few years ago having a pint. I also had 4 cans of lager in a bag on the floor by my barstool. I got up and went to the jacks and then to the smoking area with my pint. When I returned my bag of cans was gone. I looked over at a booth and there was a man with I'm guessing his son and my bag was there with them. I walked over and simply said "these are mine, if you don't mind", took them and went back to my seat. The guy looked at me sheepishly. Obviously he didn't try to steal them or he would have gotten out of there had he known I was still around. He thought he just scored a bag of cans from someone who had left and forgotten them. Brazen bastard all the same.

alias no.9

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Will they ever upgrade this part?

The road is not the problem, its the lack of a viable non motorway route for traffic not permitted on the motorway.

.anon.

I drive for a living and based on what I see every day, I wouldn't trust people enough to legally allow them to drive at speeds in excess of 120km/h. Far too many men in mid-market German saloon cars with too much confidence and not enough driving ability, incapable of reading the road ahead of them, accelerating angrily towards potential hazards and other people's mistakes, reaching for the horn before the brake.

PhilOssophy

ShatterAlan wrote: »

It's neither self-loathing of the Irish nor praise for the Germans. The German penchant for conformity is something I despise at time as it show them to be automatons. Take for example crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing. You could be there at 4am and not a car in sight and the signal is red and they will stand there like robots until it turns green I just cross when I see that it's safe to do so. I don't need a machine to tell me when I can cross a fcuking road.
In Germany they have machines where you can get a newspaper. You put in the money and take one out.....all the newspapers are there and the Germans just take the one. If that system was available in Ireland people would take all the newspapers out for the price of one and try to sell them. It's just a fact.

And our bailout of the banks wasn't necessarily the fault of the Irish despicable as it was.. IT was done under threat from Timothy Geithner. Granted we could have grown a pair and told him to FOAD like the Icelanders did but we didn't unfortunately.

In Berlin if I remember correctly they now have the traffic lights flashing in all directions (including pedestrians) in the middle of the night. I think a pedestrian can press the button if they can't cross.

But the other thing - if a speed limit is added to an Autobahn (and there are vast sections of them with speed limites), the Germans will totally slow down for it to the very speed.

One other thing, and I think this is where the autobahn slips up - the enormous increase in carbon emissions due to no speed limits.

[Deleted User]

glasso wrote: »

Good book actually.

Brandenburg Airport?

smellyoldboot

Lads I'm on the road legally only a week now and most of the driving has been only around town. From what I've seen over that week, we will never and should never an autobahn or anything like it. Some absolutely appalling drivers out there. I'd say most of them think they are brilliant too.

PhilOssophy

Deleted User wrote: »

Brandenburg Airport?

Give another few examples, instead of picking 1 clusterfk compared to our plethora is clusterfks like the Childrens Hospital, e-voting machines, we couldn't even install a printer in the Dail without it costing hundreds of thousands more than planned.

Galwayguy35

A better idea would be to ban old people from driving on motorways.

Muahahaha

smellyoldboot wrote: »

Lads I'm on the road legally only a week now and most of the driving has been only around town. From what I've seen over that week, we will never and should never an autobahn or anything like it. Some absolutely appalling drivers out there. I'd say most of them think they are brilliant too.

The state of Irish driving has gone rapidly down hill in the last 10 years or so. It was bad enough during the Tiger years with people thinking their journey is more important than anyone elses. But then the crash happened and the first thing in the Gardai to get cut was the traffic corps. Suddenly there was next to no enforcement of the rules of the road and as people saw there was no consequences all sorts of bad habits crept in and then spread among more and more drivers.

Breaking of red lights became commonplace as people see you always get away with it. At this stage on a roundabout I can look ahead and behind me and I'll be the only one using my indicators, it really has gone to pot. I remember there was a poster on here who said they purposely dont use their indicators on roundabouts because they enjoy pissing other drivers off, thats the kind of meatheads youre dealing with on the roads plus theyre getting away with it all the time.