Irish Motorway Speed Limits should be Increased.

corktina · 18-08-2010 4:20pm

130 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

Arguably modern cars are safe at 160k...Irish Drivers as a whole definately are not safe at that speed.

challengemaster · 18-08-2010 4:35pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

The people in the outside/slow lane can then go about in 80kmph in their micras.

If they're going to go 80km/h in a 120-160 zone, what are they doing on roads with reduced speeds? At least on motorways/DC's, it's somewhat safer for everyone as cars going normal speeds can overtake easily. On other roads though, they're far more dangerous than anyone doing slightly over the limit.

corktina wrote: »

Arguably modern cars are safe at 160k...Irish Drivers as a whole definately are not safe at that speed.

I'd agree with the as a whole bit, as there are some awful twats on the roads.... but arguably, some Irish drivers are capable of being safe up to and over 200km/h

cyclopath2001 · 18-08-2010 6:37pm

130 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

unkel wrote: »

I've driven in many countries but only in Ireland can one see someone driving at 50-60km/h on a motorway every time you drive on one :rolleyes:.

I have never seen this, but admittedly if one were doing 160kph, other vehicles might seem like they were standing still. Depending on conditions I do 110-120 in the left lane and rarely need to overtake.

Safety concerns aside, increasing speed limts is fuel inefficient & bad for the economy.

-Corkie- · 18-08-2010 6:40pm

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

I have never seen this.

You should use the Motorway network more often. That and tractors in the slow lane.

cyclopath2001 · 18-08-2010 6:41pm

130 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

SARASON wrote: »

You should use the Motorway network more often. That and tractors in the slow lane.

Maybe it's different on the provincial motorways?

Mister men · 18-08-2010 7:07pm

bigbadbear wrote: »

Your a funny man

EDIT: trolling is against the charter. be careful

I'm deadly serious thanks.

ottostreet · 18-08-2010 7:07pm

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

I have never seen this, but admittedly if one were doing 160kph, other vehicles might seem like they were standing still. Depending on conditions I do 110-120 in the left lane and rarely need to overtake.

Safety concerns aside, increasing speed limts is fuel inefficient & bad for the economy.

what if you dont care about 'fuel efficiency'?

-Corkie- · 18-08-2010 7:18pm

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

Maybe it's different on the provincial motorways?

Maybe. I would be the first one here to put my hand up and say the speed limits should be increased but our motorways are little 2 narrow lane carrigeways. They would want to be at least 3 lanes with a wide hard shoulder. Our roads are not good enough for higher speeds.

dr.fuzzenstein · 18-08-2010 7:54pm

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

I have never seen this, but admittedly if one were doing 160kph, other vehicles might seem like they were standing still. Depending on conditions I do 110-120 in the left lane and rarely need to overtake.

Safety concerns aside, increasing speed limts is fuel inefficient & bad for the economy.

If one where concerned about safety than backroads would be better maintained and policed.
There would be some proper drivers training included in doing your driving licence.
Lesser fuel economy would be great for the economy, bigger tax take.
Also, if I drive veeery slowly I get 51 mpg. If I drive at around 140 km/h I get 50 mpg.
So no real gain there.
What REALLY is bad for the environment is the scrappage scheme.
Having to gather all these cars, scrapping them, making all these new cars, the amount of energy expended and co2 released for that is massive, no one gave a sh*t about the environment when it came to throwing a few bucks the way of the Germans, French, Italians, Japanese, Koreans, all the people who benefit from the Irish scrapagge scheme since we don't have a car industry.

corktina · 18-08-2010 8:04pm

130 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

challengemaster wrote: »

If they're going to go 80km/h in a 120-160 zone, what are they doing on roads with reduced speeds? At least on motorways/DC's, it's somewhat safer for everyone as cars going normal speeds can overtake easily. On other roads though, they're far more dangerous than anyone doing slightly over the limit.

I'd agree with the as a whole bit, as there are some awful twats on the roads.... but arguably, some Irish drivers are capable of being safe up to and over 200km/h

Of course they are but they will be just as dead as a an unsafe one if one of the latter hits them.

Voodoomelon · 18-08-2010 8:12pm

150 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

I have never seen this, but admittedly if one were doing 160kph, other vehicles might seem like they were standing still. Depending on conditions I do 110-120 in the left lane and rarely need to overtake.

Safety concerns aside, increasing speed limts is fuel inefficient & bad for the economy.

Ha, try joining the M1 coming from Dublin. You'd be lucky to get above 10kph with the amount of twats on it. Unbelievable.

EDIT:@ Hmm you seemed to have changed your post, or I quoted the wrong one!

skodacb · 18-08-2010 10:02pm

Safety concerns aside, increasing speed limits is fuel inefficient & bad for the economy.[/QUOTE]

Firstly how would it be bad for the economy? Higher speed, e.g 100mph=higher fuel consumption which equals more fill ups, which in turn equals more high and outrageous tax going to the government.

I did a 1000miles in two days in the UK recently, basically all motorways from wales to london and all the way up north and back, and there motorways even those designed and built originally 30-40years ago are better than Irish motorways that were built in last two-three years, longer slip roads better signage variable speed limits on certain stretches, better quality tarmac better safety, I know the speed limit is 70' there but I cruised average 80-85mph all along the M6 as did most. I would not have a problem with at least 80 or 90mph on our nations M-Ways but 100 is a little to high, not for the car's but the person behind the wheel, as I discovered in the UK, unlike us Irish the majority know how to drive on M-Ways, know when to use simple things like fog lights, YES there called that for a reason, for use in fog conditions only. know that indicators are there for a functional reason, not just as a ornament on the car, what good lane discipline is, the list goes on and does not apply to the UK alone but the majority of Europe, till we reach the those sort of levels of good behaviour and fully apply the rules of the road as we drive when we get behind a wheel, accidents will not only drop as a whole across this country, and then limits on M-ways though they are the safest roads we have, could rise, but not until then.

GTE · 18-08-2010 10:31pm

150 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

I just skimmed over some of the thread and Ill go back now to have a proper read after this but for now:

My answer to the original question is that I think it should go up to 140 or 160.
140 is what I cruise at and my car is perfectly comfortable and stable at that speed however I do firmly believe that not all cars are really designed for a comfortable cruise at 120 in the first place as mine isn't at 160 (for me anyway). Between light cars and cars not geared for much more I believe we would hit a serious area of problems in this respect but I do also think it can all be rectified, which Ill talk about in the next part of this post.

Secondly depsite being well intentioned I think it would be utter madness to bring in improvements like this when the level of driver education in this country could easily be 50/50 horrible/good. I believe the first major improvement will have to be in education followed then by speed increases for the motorway.

Now with this sorted and the slow development of three lane motorways in busier sections of network then we could easily have the same speed limit on all lanes but people could travel at 100, 120, 140 and 160 safely. Ill stick to my 140 because the car isnt geared for much more comfortably but Ill be well able to let people by who want to just as the 1.0 Yaris driver who is comfortable at 100. For everyone to be educated properly would be great. Though you will always have idiots, the point is the initial education is there.

Thirdly I would be in favour of doing a complete county by county review of the speed limits in this country along with this motorway increase. In general N roads and R roads just get the 100 and 80 stamp put on them. I think, and the perfect time passed with the introduction of KPH, that each county board should employ a reputable automotive crowd like the AA to survey their roads and give heavily weighted recommendations on their speed limits.

I say the AA but I dont know of many automotive groups in this country or the EU that would be suitable. Its just an example.

There are roads with 100 kph limits that I would hardly get past 75 on any of it. There are roads with 80 that could take 120 if there were no crossings. Why they cant be 100 is beyond me. Oh I forgot, its bypassed by a toll :rolleyes:

Lastly now that I think of it (not thought through) 160 kph motorway junctions may have to get a 120 speed limit so the joining traffic can get a chance to speed up without having a bunch of high speed traffic unintentionally causing them problems. As I think of it more increased joining lane slip roads lengths (sorry, cant put a name on them) would allow traffic to speed up in a comfortable space of time. I will not be supporting something like this where some people joining the motorway would have to floor it in certain situations. Again, driver education could solve most of this.

Tis what I think. The last point was very rough but anyway, you can get the points.

Saruman · 18-08-2010 10:33pm

150 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

SARASON wrote: »

Maybe. I would be the first one here to put my hand up and say the speed limits should be increased but our motorways are little 2 narrow lane carrigeways. They would want to be at least 3 lanes with a wide hard shoulder. Our roads are not good enough for higher speeds.

Are many of the autobahns with no speed limit not only two lanes? I know on the top gear episode where they tried to go as fast as their £5k sports cars could go it was only 2 lanes.

If 2 lanes are good enough for the Germans then they are good enough for us.

Esel · 19-08-2010 12:50am

Saruman wrote: »

If 2 lanes are good enough for the Germans then they are good enough for us.

They don't have a 'fast lane' in Germany, though.

unkel · 19-08-2010 1:41am

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

I have never seen this, but admittedly if one were doing 160kph, other vehicles might seem like they were standing still.

Unlike yourself obviously, I can pretty accurately estimate other road users speed.

cyclopath2001 · 19-08-2010 8:01am

130 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

unkel wrote: »

Unlike yourself obviously, I can pretty accurately estimate other road users speed.

Ah, but can you control your own speed?

If I'm doing a fuel-efficient 100kph in the left motorway lane, keeping pace with the other cars, not needing to overtake, I think it's accurate to say I'm not encountering drivers doing 50-60kph.

When I do need to move to the right lane, maybe to allow merging cars or to give more room to a breakdown, my biggest concern is watching for drivers doing 120+.

animalhuger · 19-08-2010 8:08am

We need das auto barn =D

shedweller · 19-08-2010 9:45am

130 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

Can any of you bring a car safely to a halt from 140-160kph if you get a blowout? And remember, not everybody has the feel for how a car behaves in extreme circumstances and can lose it in situations where enthusiasts would not.
Whatever chance you have at 120 you have less of a chance at higher speeds.
Besides, how much time will you save at these speeds? Is it worth the extra maintenance costs and stress from driving at high speeds?
Me personally, i would say not.
But i know there are enthusiasts out there with well looked after cars and could drive at these speeds with minimal risk.
I must also add that i like cars and driving but a commute is just that, a commute. There's fancy driving tricks, no nothing, just straight driving and listening to the radio while i go to work. A couple of minutes extra won't make a difference to my commute but it will save me enough to tax the car and maybe a service too.
This being a motoring forum will have a far higher percentage of car enthusiasts so naturally there's going to be a consensus on higher motorway speeds. But i'd guess that the vast majority of motorists are happy with whats there. Apart from the bad roads and bad signboards, especially on the back roads....;)

So, to summarise, i'm fine with higher speed limits but there needs to be room for those of us that are happy to do 120.
An extra lane for 140kph perhaps?

limklad · 19-08-2010 10:51am

150 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

shedweller wrote: »

Can any of you bring a car safely to a halt from 140-160kph if you get a blowout? And remember, not everybody has the feel for how a car behaves in extreme circumstances and can lose it in situations where enthusiasts would not.
Whatever chance you have at 120 you have less of a chance at higher speeds.
Besides, how much time will you save at these speeds? Is it worth the extra maintenance costs and stress from driving at high speeds?
Me personally, i would say not.
But i know there are enthusiasts out there with well looked after cars and could drive at these speeds with minimal risk.
I must also add that i like cars and driving but a commute is just that, a commute. There's fancy driving tricks, no nothing, just straight driving and listening to the radio while i go to work. A couple of minutes extra won't make a difference to my commute but it will save me enough to tax the car and maybe a service too.
This being a motoring forum will have a far higher percentage of car enthusiasts so naturally there's going to be a consensus on higher motorway speeds. But i'd guess that the vast majority of motorists are happy with whats there. Apart from the bad roads and bad signboards, especially on the back roads....;)

So, to summarise, i'm fine with higher speed limits but there needs to be room for those of us that are happy to do 120.
An extra lane for 140kph perhaps?

Blow out for cars no matter what the speed is will cause accidents. It is the Driver responsibility to make sure that their car is safe and is road worthiness.
The vast majority of Blow out occur due to constant wear and tear and over weight vehicles.
Blow out for Cars is very rare, I have only heard of one incident and that was from a reckless driver on a rough local road, but for Truck is far more common than cars. You can see that with ripped tyres on the road side. I always see at least 1 new one ripped tyre due to blowouts on the roads during the Boom, less now due to the recession with less Trucks. One Garda told me when it was his job to monitor Trucks, he said you could tell the overweight one easily by the tyres especially the odd one with the bulge of a weaken tyre, as they bring them to weighing stations they inspect the Trucks and he say is far more common for Overweight Trucks to have blown out tyres and see the poor quality or badly maintained tyres on those trucks than under weight ones that regularly travel the road.

Cookie_Monster · 19-08-2010 11:11am

150 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

When I do need to move to the right lane, maybe to allow merging cars or to give more room to a breakdown, my biggest concern is watching for drivers doing 120+.

why? Is you biggest concern not watching out for other cars in the lane you moving into regardless of what speed they are travelling it, like it should be?

sentient_6 · 19-08-2010 11:23am

150 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

If I'm doing a fuel-efficient 100kph in the left motorway lane....

Why do you keep giving me reasons to hate you?!

You saying your keeping pace with traffic but your just adding to pile doing under the speed limit

I read somewhere recently though about this in america, & how there's a push to stamp this out & get people to keep up with traffic, even if it means doing greater than the speed limit. Priority number one should be keeping pace with traffic not your fuel efficiency. I'm all for fuel efficiency to a certain extent but not to the point where it compromises your safety on the road.

GTE · 19-08-2010 11:39am

150 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

sentient_6 wrote: »

Why do you keep giving me reasons to hate you?!

You saying your keeping pace with traffic but your just adding to pile doing under the speed limit

I read somewhere recently though about this in america, & how there's a push to stamp this out & get people to keep up with traffic, even if it means doing greater than the speed limit. Priority number one should be keeping pace with traffic not your fuel efficiency. I'm all for fuel efficiency to a certain extent but not to the point where it compromises your safety on the road.

Well to be fair (though I didnt read about him keeping up with traffic, not my point anyway), if we all drove like we should and we were in the left lane coming up to a car doing 100. Say we are doing 110 we would go into the over taking lane, accelerate to the speed limit, overtake, back into the left lane and back down to our 110.

Could you please tell me what is wrong with people doing between 100 and 119 kph on a motorway? Sub 100 is too slow for me though but I cant understand how 100 and above is bad.

af_thefragile · 19-08-2010 11:43am

150 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

Most small cars are fairly unstable at speeds of over 120kmph.
Cars which are less than 1.4l and hatchbacks.

Even my cars feels fairly unstable at speeds of 130-140kmph when there are winds blowing. I was doing around 120-130kmph on the M50 northbound and I could feel the force of the cross winds unsettling my car. Everytime I passed a truck, I felt it too.

Seeing as many people drive small light 1-1.4l hatchbacks, they wouldn't really be able to drive as comfortably at speeds of over 120kmph as people in big 2l saloons which are much more stable at high speeds.

So unless something is done about crosswinds on motorways, speeds of over 120kmph are pretty dangerous for small cars.

The autobahn is extremely well engineered. It has protection from cross winds and all that. So you won't feel your car being pushed asides by winds while doing 200kmph on the autobahn. Unfortunately our Irish motorways are a far cry from the autobahns.

Still I feel most saloons can easily go over 160kmph on our motorways and be safe, so for their interest a higher speed limit would be fine. But at the same time something needs to be done to cater for the majority of small car drivers who won't be safe at such speeds.

sentient_6 · 19-08-2010 11:46am

150 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

bbk wrote: »

Could you please tell me what is wrong with people doing between 100 and 119 kph on a motorway?

On a relatively quite motorway nothing wrong. When there is plenty of room to over take. Busy motorway like any coming out dublin in the evening = alot of frustrated drivers wondering what the hold up is. Queue the rat race of people trying to over take in the right just so they can get up to the speed limit & make some progress. While all the numities in the left study their fuel efficency. Augh. Hard to explain. I just cant understand these people.

af_thefragile · 19-08-2010 11:55am

150 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

sentient_6 wrote: »

On a relatively quite motorway nothing wrong. When there is plenty of room to over take. Busy motorway like any coming out dublin in the evening = alot of frustrated drivers wondering what the hold up is. Queue the rat race of people trying to over take in the right just so they can get up to the speed limit & make some progress. While all the numities in the left study their fuel efficency. Augh. Hard to explain. I just cant understand these people.

You need to realise many cars won't do 120kmph very nicely.
Most small cars are quite unstable at those speeds. 100-110kmph is much more managable speed for small 1l cars.

You can't deny the right of these small car drivers to use the motorway just for the convenience of bigger car drivers who can easily do over 120kmph.

I don't have any problem with people doing 80kmph on motorways as long as they stick to the outside lane. Its really isn't a problem on 3 lane motorways like the M50 and M4 where you have plenty of room to overtake.

It maybe a problem in two lane motorways but there's nothing you can do about it.

dr.fuzzenstein · 19-08-2010 12:04pm

af_thefragile wrote: »

You need to realise many cars won't do 120kmph very nicely.
Most small cars are quite unstable at those speeds. 100-110kmph is much more managable speed for small 1l cars.

You can't deny the right of these small car drivers to use the motorway just for the convenience of bigger car drivers who can easily do over 120kmph.

I don't have any problem with people doing 80kmph on motorways as long as they stick to the outside lane. Its really isn't a problem on 3 lane motorways like the M50 and M4 where you have plenty of room to overtake.

It maybe a problem in two lane motorways but there's nothing you can do about it.

Unless your car is a 34 hp 2CV or VW Beetle and is no older than 20 years it should really not have any trouble achieving 130-140 km/h.
I had a Smart in Germany and cruising at 130-140 km/h is very realistic in them and it even touched 160 km/f for me once and it never felt twitchy and unstable.
I could do 130 km/h in a Yaris all day long, if I managed to do it in a 1993 Opel Corsa I'll manage it in anything.
Not so much the car but the driver's the problem otherwise IMO.

limklad · 19-08-2010 12:13pm

150 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

af_thefragile wrote: »

Most small cars are fairly unstable at speeds of over 120kmph.
Cars which are less than 1.4l and hatchbacks.

Even my cars feels fairly unstable at speeds of 130-140kmph when there are winds blowing. I was doing around 120-130kmph on the M50 northbound and I could feel the force of the cross winds unsettling my car. Everytime I passed a truck, I felt it too.

Seeing as many people drive small light 1-1.4l hatchbacks, they wouldn't really be able to drive as comfortably at speeds of over 120kmph as people in big 2l saloons which are much more stable at high speeds.

So unless something is done about crosswinds on motorways, speeds of over 120kmph are pretty dangerous for small cars.

The autobahn is extremely well engineered. It has protection from cross winds and all that. So you won't feel your car being pushed asides by winds while doing 200kmph on the autobahn. Unfortunately our Irish motorways are a far cry from the autobahns.

Still I feel most saloons can easily go over 160kmph on our motorways and be safe, so for their interest a higher speed limit would be fine. But at the same time something needs to be done to cater for the majority of small car drivers who won't be safe at such speeds.

You adjust your speed due to road conditions, wind included. No Body is promoting that you should always drive at very high speed. It is not just small cars that are effected by cross winds, Large high cars such as estates and trucks, vans are effect by cross winds, but the majority of the Time on Irish Motorway conditions are good. No body is suggesting you must always drive at 200kph. By the way I have never seen small cars drive at 200kph on the Autobahn. They were never built for Motorway/Autobahn driving, only city/local driving.

GTE · 19-08-2010 12:15pm

150 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Unless your car is a 34 hp 2CV or VW Beetle and is no older than 20 years it should really not have any trouble achieving 130-140 km/h.
I had a Smart in Germany and cruising at 130-140 km/h is very realistic in them and it even touched 160 km/f for me once and it never felt twitchy and unstable.
I could do 130 km/h in a Yaris all day long, if I managed to do it in a 1993 Opel Corsa I'll manage it in anything.
Not so much the car but the driver's the problem otherwise IMO.

Even if it is a drivers problem we do not live in a drivers world. The road network is not here so we can bomb down it at high speeds that a lot of users here find comfortable. The competent users of the road network are not there to be told to do the maximum permissible speed.

Other people, and there are many more besides the total of people who frequent this board, will be more comfortable at lower speeds About the 100 to 110 mark. A year 2000 sub 1 litre Yaris at 120 is not a nice experience for me when I had it. Im not going to be told I have to wear earplugs just to keep the noise down. The gearing is just not suitable. My Golf diesel is not fantastic at 160, I am not going to be told to keep to that speed limit if it were introduced. Ill stick at the 120 - 140 range.

ONE thing that will have to be realised is that the speed increase is there for people who want it, it will not be compulsory. Now I agree with the point that on busier motorways it can cause a traffic build up but how has the focus on high traffic volumes been diverted from having sections of unsuitable motorway (2 lane) to blaming people at driving less then the speed limit? Additionally trucks generally do a restricted speed so that would lead to the same problems you are complaining about.
No one can respond to that by saying we dont know how to use them (3 lanes) so we would still have a problem. Im still of the opinion that I wont support this without widespread education reform.

af_thefragile · 19-08-2010 12:16pm

150 on all Motorways ( excluding passing large urban areas )

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

Unless your car is a 34 hp 2CV or VW Beetle and is no older than 20 years it should really not have any trouble achieving 130-140 km/h.
I had a Smart in Germany and cruising at 130-140 km/h is very realistic in them and it even touched 160 km/f for me once and it never felt twitchy and unstable.
I could do 130 km/h in a Yaris all day long, if I managed to do it in a 1993 Opel Corsa I'll manage it in anything.
Not so much the car but the driver's the problem otherwise IMO.

Many 1l cars like old Micras have trouble reaching 120kmph. They start shaking and feeling very unstable. They even take quite a while to reach that speed. You probably could, I know many people who have taken their small cars to over 130-140kmph. But the cars a much less stable at those speeds than big saloons. Most people don't feel comfortable driving at such high speeds in their small cars. You can really feel the speed in such cars. In a big saloon you can't tell you're doing 140kmph unless you see the speedo. In a small car you can really tell by all the noise and vibrations at such speeds.

Germany autobahns are very well engineered and so there's not much cross winds there. The M50 nothbound has lots of crosswinds and you will feel a small car getting unsettled by the winds on such roads.

A 1l car would be doing around 4000-5000rpm at 120-130kmph compared to 2500-3000rpm in a 2l saloon. It makes a big difference in fuel economy as well.

Also many cars older than 10years have small issues like worn out suspension bushes, wheel balancing issues which aren't noticeable at low speeds but get amplified at high speeds making the cars dangerous to drive at such speeds.

I don't go over 120kmph in my Puma because although I have taken it over 140kmph at times, it gets very noisy and uncomfortable at those speeds. The engine's running at 4000rpm, its using a lot of fuel, it vibrates and the steering feels very light. Its just not a comfortable place to be. 120kmph is much more comfortable to cruise around on a motorways. And when I'm not in a hurry, I jump in the outside lane and drive at around 100kmph. Its a lot smoother and quiter, more comfortable. I don't want to be forced to blast down on motorways at 140kmph in a noisy, uncomfortable tin can for the convenience of some rich people in their expensive saloons...

Irish Motorway Speed Limits should be Increased.

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