A very interesting piece here on how car sizes have grown over the last 60 years

The 60 limit is not nonsense , what is nonsense is that there are never speed checks on the L roads. Most of my local roads are L roads and drivers of all ages, Male, Female are driving far too fast, there are blind bends everywhere on these narrow roads, entrances to houses where the driver had to be out on the road a bit to see what's coming, people walking, families walking but too many drivers are driving as if they own the road and don't care about the people including Children that walk or cycle these dangerous roads and now we have faster and more powerful cars that can accelerate to lethal speeds in the blink of an eye for such roads. people have demonstrated they are not capable of slowing down or driving appropriately to the road conditions and now often distracted by phones or car infotainment.

Where do we see the speed vans mostly ? on motorways and 100 Km/hr roads not in towns, villages or near schools where they'd probably catch many times more speeders.

Just the other day a BMW driver over took me coming down one of the M9 motorway bridges on a local L road, he must have reached 90 Km/hr, the speed of him/her was ridiculously dangerous. Not too long before that a car over took me same bridge but on the brow of the hill, it was absolutely impossible for the driver to see what was coming, a child on a bicycle or anyone walking would have been killed as the roads are so narrow.

Around a year before that coming the opposite direction , a Man driving a van came down the motorway bridge speeding, looking at his phone, didn't see me until the last minute and panicked almost hitting me and I had the Boys in the car.

It's the same on the motorbike, cars up my arse if doing the limits or expect me to fly around blind bends on 2 wheels at stupid speeds to please them then nearly wiping me out of it when they over take me out of frustration not caring I have family at home who expect me to come home safe.

Why are so many people now so inconsiderate to others, doing what they want ? I don't get it. On back roads now drivers hardly slow down any more to allow the 2 vehicles pass, they speed thinking the faster I go will intimidate this driver to slow down and climb into the ditch, they might often have SUV and are more capable now of driving faster on the grass verge.

I could be on the motorbike and some fool think I'll climb into the ditch to allow them to pass in their bigger vehicle trying to intimidate me when the realities are if the motorbike wheels hit the grass verge it's going down but car drivers don't realise or care but I'm entitled to half the road but they think the motorcyclist will move into the grass verge for their big car.

It's gone to f1ck out there on the roads and no, I don't think such fast, heavy powerful cars should be allowed and more needs to be done to tackle poor driving, dangerous driving and speeders. There needs to be a big recruitment of undercover traffic guards. Limiting car power "and" acceleration is an obvious sensible option, people have proven they can't drive with consideration for others.

I remember back when we had the Sergeant and the guard in the village I grew up, The barracks was the Sergeants home and almost every day the Guard would be out with the speed gun catching loads of people speeding through the village, I haven't seen a single speed check in the village when they retired and the village was left with no permanent guards.

We need to focus on better driver training instead of making cars with more tech to combat poor driving, this doesn't make sense and we need far more detection and accountability, for example, caught browsing the phone or looking at video in cars an automatic 2 year ban and 5000 fine. I wonder how many accidents are caused by driver distraction due to tech ? I'd say a lot all while believing their adaptive cruise and lane assist will allow them be careless.

The passat Estate is in full production, VW Ireland chose not to import it a few years ago, sadly the Saloon was discontinued. I drove the estate in Sweden in the Summer, great practical car but the interior leaves a lot to be desired with all the screen and software shite, the saloon and estate has fallen out of fashion at the school drop off and pickup locations.

Exactly, manufacturers know people want the SUV, although, I think this is more of a British, Irish, U.S thing, in Ireland new "SUV" means you have money and God forbid you show up at the school in a 5+ year old Hatchback ? they'll all think you're poor.

Back 2 or 3 years ago in one of the Irish papers said that 83% of all new Volkswagens are bought on PCP, the true never never.

The manufacturers put big wheels, wide body kits, raised the car xx mm and voila , they created an "SUV" With not much more room than a hatch for a lot more money, Genius and so many people fell for it.