Traffic calming ramp or pedestrian crossing?

it's what's sometimes referred to as a courtesy crossing - you're not obliged to stop. (TBH the rules of the road are vague on Zebra crossings as well - you don't have to stop for someone waiting, only if they're already crossing; but AFAIK a pedestrian crossing the road has priority regardless of where they're crossing, which is obvious, you can't just mow them down if you have time and space to stop).

Councils don't like putting in zebra crossings as legally in Ireland they have to have the flashing beacons which makes them very expensive to install.

Have seen these in Naas as well and wondered about whether they were a pedestrian crossing or not. I've seen a few of them, always on ramps like that.

Around my area there's a good few of these, they are set back about 5m from junctions. They don't cause any confusion because they are ignored by both pedestrians and road users, not that many pedestrians even check for traffic when crossing the road (regardless of they having right of way or not they'll be dead right with the some of the road-users around my area)

Try getting around Dungarvan without going over one of these things.

The council is besotted with them any excuse and in one goes.

IIRC it's DCC policy not to install zebra crossings, as too many motorists don't adhere to them. So it's actually motorist behaviour that has led to more lights (and also less flashing ambers at pedestrian lights).

here's what the ROTR says, though I think the same would apply to any area where pedestrians decide to cross, i.e. anywhere:

Anyone familiar with the ruination of Church Street in Athlone have to put up with those crossings. Disgraceful what has been done to that street.

There's one of those crossings beside my house. It works reasonably well. About half of motorists will stop and treat it like a zebra crossing even without putting a foot on the street. Most of the rest will stop once a foot is put out.

(A minor irritant though are the boy racers with lowered suspension and tampered exhausts who have to slow almost to a stop to get over the ramp with the excessively noisy acceleration following. Not such an issue during the day but unpleasant in the dead of night).

Limerick I think it was. IIRC he had a lowered Passat but claimed it was 'standard'. The top-end super cars have a feature which raises the car a few inches to get over such ramps.

I was in France recently and they have zebra crossings everywhere but they don't have the requirement for flashing beacons. Every junction has crossings on every arm and villages will have multiple crossings along their main streets. They're pretty well obeyed by drivers in my experience. Any area with a lot of pedestrian traffic is usually a 30 zone as well.

I'd rather see similar here than these meaningless "courtesy" crossings - I'd also like to see us state explicitly, as they've done in the UK recently, that pedestrians crossing a side road have priority over cars turning into that road. We need to move from an attitude that pedestrians have to stay out of cars' way, to drivers having to take responsibility for pedestrian safety.

While I tend to agree I have seen some issues with all these new raised crossings particularly those near or connected to a cycle way.

The old dropped curb made it necessary for cyclists to dismount and so stop before crossing. Now and I've seen this a few times some cyclists don't stop or even look before sailing across in front of traffic.

I look at it this way. The ramp is there to slow me in a car down for cyclists etc but there is now nothing to physically slow the cyclists down and remind them they are crossing a road.

I slow ready to stop near these crossings and regularly stop for anyone that looks like they might be thinking of crossing but one very minor third world issue that boils my piss is stopping for a cyclist who then uses the crossing as a means to stop traffic and then drive off down the road.

So the cyclists can more easily cross from one footpath they're not allowed to be on, to another footpath they're not allowed to be on?

I think they and everyone else should obey the rules of the road.

Pedestrians must not be ignored, just because motorists often sh!t on cyclists is no excuse for cyclists to sh!t on pedestrians.

I don't like zebra crossings. It encourages the pedestrians to assume cars will realise they intend crossing and know they are going to cross.

Like mentioned I have seen cyclists go from footpath to crossing without checking. In one case I was a passanger in a car that had to stand in brakes as cyclist suddenly turned to cross zebra crossing.

I much prefer a traffic light controlled crossing away from junctions. However I would prefer if they went quickly to red when button pressed, rather than linked to nearby junction lights where they let cars go for ages making pedestrian wait and consider running across. I know at peak times these crossings delay traffic but at non peak times pedestrians should get immediate priority.

The OP crossings are not very clear and pedestrians and motorists get confused. At night they are hard to see, and sometimes there is parking spaces both sides meaning pedestrians cannot be seen staring to cross. A red light is far clearer and tends to be obeyed by cars. However as said costs of putting in traffic lights and maintaining them may mean they are not used.

I always watch like a hawk but it's very hard to tell if a pedestrian or cyclist on a path intends crossing shortly. The red light adds a tiny delay and confirms the intention of the person crossing. I would like to see statistics on road deaths and crossing types. I know in my town a new junction was not made a roundabout instead it was made a signal controlled junction with pedestrian crossings everywhere, it is safer but by God for motorists it creates delays that never existed when there was no traffic lights there at all. When car junction traffic lights are broken often traffic moves far better.

So cyclists can't see the black and white strips on the road or flashing orange beacons? Of course they can and they have to stop for pedestrians on a zebra crossing like any other road traffic.

Is that supposed to be an excuse to scare the shít out of elderly pedestrians on what is supposed to be a space which is safe for them?

It's not strawmanning to point out that a footpath is a space for feet.