All these new signs

niloc1951 · 04-01-2011 4:00pm #1

What's with the NRA or who ever is responsible for road signs.
There seems to be a campaign underway to plant thousands of new direction signs (which probably cost many thousands of Euro each to buy and have erected) at junctions where minor roads join our N and R roads.
All very well you might say, but surely erecting such signs like the ones I've seen on the N25 which only serve to tell locals joining the road from their grass in the middle boreen which way Cork and Waterford are is surely a pure wast of scarce money which would be better spent on fixing up the N25.
BTW the clowns who ordered, paid for and installed the signs don't seem to be able to get place names right either, Gortroe village has become Gortaroo and I'm told Cahir is now Caher :rolleyes:

ClareVisitor · 04-01-2011 4:27pm

When I was home over Christmas I noticed there are still signs directing you down the old N18 to Limerick where you should get onto the M18 motorway now. Not getting the new ones right and leaving the old ones in place isn't encouraging!

etchyed · 04-01-2011 5:03pm

niloc1951 wrote: »

which probably cost many thousands of Euro each to buy and have erected

What's this based on?

niloc1951 · 05-01-2011 12:50am

etchyed wrote: »

What's this based on?

Cost of signs (design, manufacture and delivery)
Cost of sending a crew with machine and vehicles to dig the holes for the new polls
Cost of setting the new polls in delivered ready mixed concrete
Cost of crew returning after concrete has set to attach new signs
Cost of above crews enjoying multiple tea breaks and investigations of how the holes are progressing:)

Considering your local tradesman can charge over €100 for a call out and half an hours labour, a few thousand for the above would seem to be on the conservative side.

etchyed · 05-01-2011 1:51am

niloc1951 wrote: »

Cost of signs (design, manufacture and delivery)
Cost of sending a crew with machine and vehicles to dig the holes for the new polls
Cost of setting the new polls in delivered ready mixed concrete
Cost of crew returning after concrete has set to attach new signs
Cost of above crews enjoying multiple tea breaks and investigations of how the holes are progressing:)

Considering your local tradesman can charge over €100 for a call out and half an hours labour, a few thousand for the above would seem to be on the conservative side.

So, in other words, your own back of a fag packet calculation. I think it undermines your point to use hyperbole such as "clowns" and to surmise based on pretty much zero knowledge that each individual sign costs "many thousands of euro". I may have been willing to consider you had a point if you hadn't made it with an ill-informed rant.

Amtmann · 05-01-2011 2:14am

The NRA are installing new signage all over the place at the moment. For the most part I welcome this.
I haven't a clue how much signage procurement and installation costs, but I have seen what looks like waste. On the N24 Cahir Bypass to M8 junction 10, signage that was installed only three years ago is now being replaced. Not only this, but the poles that hold the current signage are also being replaced, sometimes with what look like identical poles just 100cm in front of the old poles.

niloc1951 · 05-01-2011 11:43am

etchyed wrote: »

So, in other words, your own back of a fag packet calculation. I think it undermines your point to use hyperbole such as "clowns" and to surmise based on pretty much zero knowledge that each individual sign costs "many thousands of euro". I may have been willing to consider you had a point if you hadn't made it with an ill-informed rant.

My apologies if you think I am just having an ill-informed rant.
But, how about giving the tread your informed opinion on the subject, y'know why not shoot the message instead of the messenger.

serfboard · 05-01-2011 1:08pm

Furet wrote: »

The NRA are installing new signage all over the place at the moment. For the most part I welcome this.

I do too. While signage in this country has improved greatly in the last few years, there is still a good way to go. I was over in England there over the Christmas and the signage is very good. What I particularly like is the fact that areas of the cities are signed. We need more of that here.

As regards cost, well most of it is once off. It's not as if villages and towns are going to move in the next thousand years. However, I would somewhat agree with the original post in that you would wonder why they are doing it now, during a recession, as opposed to say, five years ago.

niloc1951 · 05-01-2011 1:50pm

May I go back to my original point.
My post was to highlight and get some discussion on the value or otherwise concerning the erection of the large green direction signs on N routes which are being placed facing the end of by-roads and boreens, roads which only serve local residents and who are in no need of such signage since they have managed to find their local village or town quite well over the years without them.

marmurr1916 · 05-01-2011 2:13pm

Believe it or not, delivery drivers and other visitors to these boreens can get lost without adequate signposting. People in Ireland have been complaining about the lack of decent signposting for decades. Now that we're finally getting decent signposting, people are still complaining...

GerardKeating · 05-01-2011 2:50pm

niloc1951 wrote: »

May I go back to my original point.
My post was to highlight and get some discussion on the value or otherwise concerning the erection of the large green direction signs on N routes which are being placed facing the end of by-roads and boreens, roads which only serve local residents and who are in no need of such signage since they have managed to find their local village or town quite well over the years without them.

And do these local resident never have visitors/deliveries?

I live at the end of an un-signposted boreen and would love some signs, so that I do not have to drive 2KM to a local landmark to guide visitors in.

loyatemu · 05-01-2011 3:28pm

Personally I'd like to see more signage maintenance - once a sign is erected, no-one seems to have responsibility for its upkeep and every road and street in the country is littered with signs that are

broken
bent
pointing the wrong way
fallen down the pole
so filthy they are unreadable
poles with no signs on them

NFD100 · 05-01-2011 3:46pm

loyatemu wrote: »

Personally I'd like to see more signage maintenance - once a sign is erected, no-one seems to have responsibility for its upkeep and every road and street in the country is littered with signs that are
broken

bent

pointing the wrong way

fallen down the pole

so filthy they are unreadable

poles with no signs on them

+1. The signs are never maintained or cleaned. Also, what with the very Irish phenomenum of signs half way down poles on some roads? Are ladders not provided?

etchyed · 05-01-2011 4:32pm

niloc1951 wrote: »

My apologies if you think I am just having an ill-informed rant.
But, how about giving the tread your informed opinion on the subject, y'know why not shoot the message instead of the messenger.

I would tend to agree that a lack of signage has been a problem on Irish roads for decades and saying "sure the locals know how to get around anyway" completely misses the point of having road signs in the first place - they're for those not familiar with an area.

That's my opinion, based on what I know, which, unlike you, I am prepared to admit is relatively little. Of course, everything we spend money on has costs and benefits and these have to be balanced against each other. So, hypothetically, if each set of signs at a T-junction cost a million euro it would be a no-brainer: we'd do without them. There has to exist a cut-off price at which it no longer makes sense to buy the signs. Of course, you'll never get everyone to agree on this. The truth is, nobody here knows how much the new signs cost, and by stating made up figures as fact ("many thousands of euro each"), you only serve to muddy the waters and hence lessen the quality of debate.

That's why it's important not to make up figures in your posts. I don't think I shot the messenger really, but I did tear into your posts, which was a perfectly valid thing to do, as they could never be viewed as the foundation for a fair discussion.

TouchingVirus · 05-01-2011 5:21pm

loyatemu wrote: »

Personally I'd like to see more signage maintenance - once a sign is erected, no-one seems to have responsibility for its upkeep and every road and street in the country is littered with signs that are
broken

bent

pointing the wrong way

fallen down the pole

so filthy they are unreadable

poles with no signs on them

A worthwhile endeavour if you ask me, don't forget to add signs obscured by hedge/tree growth to that list

serfboard · 05-01-2011 6:44pm

TouchingVirus wrote: »

don't forget to add signs obscured by hedge/tree growth to that list

+1. My particular bugbear.

SeanW · 05-01-2011 6:46pm

These signs will be very useful for locals in rural areas to direct delivery van drivers, friends and family, emergency vehicles etc to their houses. For that alone I give the new direction signs 2 thumbs up and reject the OPs completely and without reservation.

All that heavy gantry signage on the m-ways and dual carriageways, however, is another story.

Redsoxfan · 05-01-2011 11:50pm

SeanW wrote: »

All that heavy gantry signage on the m-ways and dual carriageways, however, is another story.

+1 to that.

tonc76 · 11-01-2011 3:38pm

The gantry signs that are provided on motorways and dual carriageways are needed just as much as low level signage. I'm led to beileve that when the M7/M8 stretch of motorway was opened south of Portlaoise that the majority of phonecalls that the NRA received in the weeks after were from people that had missed the turn off for Cork! In order to do so you would have to drive past 2 verge mounted next exit signs, 3 portal gantries and a butterfly sign in the nosing at the split.

niloc1951 · 11-01-2011 5:19pm

tonc76 wrote: »

The gantry signs that are provided on motorways and dual carriageways are needed just as much as low level signage. I'm led to beileve that when the M7/M8 stretch of motorway was opened south of Portlaoise that the majority of phonecalls that the NRA received in the weeks after were from people that had missed the turn off for Cork! In order to do so you would have to drive past 2 verge mounted next exit signs, 3 portal gantries and a butterfly sign in the nosing at the split.

:o:o I was one. TBH I was chatting to SWMBO and cruising along at a relaxed 110 km.p.h. and forgot I needed to leave the road I was on.
Realising I was in the wrong lane at the last minute I was able to retrieve the situation with the help of the ABS as there was no traffic close behind or inside me. Won't do it again though :eek::eek:.

Hopefully it was just a passing phase following the opening of junction, and we don't see a pile-up there some day with fatalities due to a sudden last minute maneuver by a driver who fails to check his mirrors first.

I know there is a lot of signage, but is there something wrong with it as quite a few drivers appear to have failed to respond to it

, perhaps its the old proverb of not seeing the tree for the forrest :rolleyes:

tonc76 · 11-01-2011 5:27pm

niloc1951 wrote: »

I know there is a lot of signage, but is there something wrong with it as quite a few drivers appear to have failed to respond to it , perhaps its the old proverb of not seeing the tree for the forrest :rolleyes:

There is nothing wrong with the signage. There are 6 signs in 4km indicating that motorists wishing to travel to Cork need to take the next exit. Its plausible that a motorist may miss one or even both verge mounted signs due to a truck travelling in the left lane but there's no excuse for missing 3 portal gantries that span the carriageway! The problem is down to people thinking they know the way and not looking at the signage! It happens all over the country on new alignments and not just at this junction.

niloc1951 · 11-01-2011 6:46pm

tonc76 wrote: »

There is nothing wrong with the signage. There are 6 signs in 4km indicating that motorists wishing to travel to Cork need to take the next exit. Its plausible that a motorist may miss one or even both verge mounted signs due to a truck travelling in the left lane but there's no excuse for missing 3 portal gantries that span the carriageway! The problem is down to people thinking they know the way and not looking at the signage! It happens all over the country on new alignments and not just at this junction.

Didn't say there was something wrong, just posed the question. After all drivers ARE missing these junctions, as you say.
The reason needs to be understood and effective corrective measures taken (I don't know what they might be perhaps the 'experts' at the NRA or the RSA might), perhaps a reduced speed limit for a short distance before such features as I have sometimes seen on Mainland Europe.
As I have said, let's not have a multiple fatality at one of them before the 'experts' exercise their little grey cells 'outside the box'.

One point, motorists have become accustomed to out of date signage relating to long finished/extinct conditions. eg. oil spill, flooded road, road works ahead, new layout (Sarsfield Road Roundabout N25) etc. etc. etc. perhaps this phenomenon has devalued the currency of signage generally.
Just a thought.

whyulittle · 11-01-2011 11:17pm

What good would a reduced speed limit do? If they can't see great big blue signs telling them where to go, they're not going to see small speed signs.

Maybe they could just pay attention.

coolperson05 · 11-01-2011 11:36pm

whyulittle wrote: »

What good would a reduced speed limit do? If they can't see great big blue signs telling them where to go, they're not going to see small speed signs.

Maybe they could just pay attention.

+1
People never miss the M7/M9 split. An exit is an exit.

Stonewolf · 12-01-2011 12:10am

To be fair (and I haven't been on the M8 yet), the Cork signs can't be much worse than the old ones.

Cork
Porlaoise

Trick of the Tail · 12-01-2011 3:07am

coolperson05 wrote: »

+1
People never miss the M7/M9 split. An exit is an exit.

Well, they do, I have and a mate of mine did last weekend and had to make a 40-km diversion to get back to the M9 because of the 'ratchet' arrangement of the M7/M9 intersection.

However, that was because he wasn't paying attention (nor was I when I did it).

Not because the junction isn't signed well enough. I think the first sign is 1.2km in advance, and there are at least 3 more large signs.

I'm not sure what more you could do.

Except make it possible for eastbound traffic on the M7 to join the M9!

A.

munchkin_utd · 12-01-2011 11:51am

alinton wrote: »

............
I'm not sure what more you could do.
......

Was thinking about this since I saw a Corkbound English car swerve sharply at the last second on the 200m long merge section
(such a major interchange would warrant at the very least 1km of merge abroad BTW)

The de-facto situation at the busy Waterford M9 turnoff by people in the know might be a solution.

People going to Waterford along with Sunday drivers tend to the left lane.
People keeping to the M7 tend to the right lane.
(the speed also tends to 100kmh!)

SIMPLY formalising this by splitting the Waterford/ M7 traffic earlier would ENSURE nobody gets lost.

The same could apply for the M8/ M7 junction.
1km + before the split, change the left/ right aka driving/ overtaking lanes to a Cork/ Limerick decoupling section.
i.e. Cork traffic is directed to the left lane, Limerick traffic is directed by overhead gantry to the right lane.
At the existing de-merge section, the 1 lane to cork/ 1 lane to Limerick becomes 2 lanes to cork/ 2 lanes to Limerick.
(A 100 limit though may be appropriate for that 1000/ 1500m section)

As a solution its not the worst.
Costwise you only need a gantry or 2 and a thickening of the white line between driving lane 1 and lane 2 for a kilometre.
Its safe and the traffic isn't that high that you are causing any unneeded congestion.
Its also proven as its already the defacto situation at the M7/ M9 split.

The alternative would be to lenthen the 4 lanes back another km, which would be a costly exercise for a government that has no cash, and the private operator wouldnt do it for free.

tonc76 · 12-01-2011 1:13pm

I think the underlying factor here seems to be that people are not paying attention when driving. As said previously motorists travelling south on the M7 have to pass 4 signs (4km verge mounted, 2km verge mounted, 1km portal gantry and 500m portal gantry) before they meet the junction (which has a portal gantry spanning the 4 lanes). The entire motorway network works on a left in left out basis at the junctions so it should be safe to say that anyone travelling on the M7 towards Cork should position themselves in the left lane in advance of the junction.

The most recent RSA ad campaign focused on a lady who admitted not paying full attention while driving and the consequences are plain for everyone to see. This is a welcome addition to the RSA's campaign which has been heavily focused on drink driving and speeding for a number of years now.

I think all exits from a motorway and entry to should be of a standard type thereby minimising confusion for the motorist.

jd · 12-01-2011 1:39pm

tonc76 wrote: »

I think the underlying factor here seems to be that people are not paying attention when driving.

+1

spacetweek · 12-01-2011 5:15pm

niloc1951 wrote: »

roads which only serve local residents and who are in no need of such signage since they have managed to find their local village or town quite well over the years without them.

You've completely failed to understand what road signage is actually for. It's not for the local residents; it's for everyone else.

It's the attitude "sure the locals know the way" that has resulted in this country having poor road signage.

SeanW wrote: »

All that heavy gantry signage on the m-ways and dual carriageways, however, is another story.

What do you mean exactly? Gantry signage was long overdue in Ireland and is a very welcome addition. There is not enough of it though, it should be on dual carriageways too.

niloc1951 wrote: »

As I have said, let's not have a multiple fatality at one of them before the 'experts' exercise their little grey cells 'outside the box'.

The NRA certainly should not stoop to the needs of idiots by taking these criticisms on board. If people are too inattentive to read the information on the road signage then they are not driving correctly. The solution to last minute swerving at the split is to fine anyone that does it.

niloc1951 · 12-01-2011 7:15pm

munchkin_utd wrote: »

Was thinking about this since I saw a Corkbound English car swerve sharply at the last second on the 200m long merge section
(such a major interchange would warrant at the very least 1km of merge abroad BTW)

The de-facto situation at the busy Waterford M9 turnoff by people in the know might be a solution.

People going to Waterford along with Sunday drivers tend to the left lane.
People keeping to the M7 tend to the right lane.
(the speed also tends to 100kmh!)

SIMPLY formalising this by splitting the Waterford/ M7 traffic earlier would ENSURE nobody gets lost.

The same could apply for the M8/ M7 junction.
1km + before the split, change the left/ right aka driving/ overtaking lanes to a Cork/ Limerick decoupling section.
i.e. Cork traffic is directed to the left lane, Limerick traffic is directed by overhead gantry to the right lane.
At the existing de-merge section, the 1 lane to cork/ 1 lane to Limerick becomes 2 lanes to cork/ 2 lanes to Limerick.
(A 100 limit though may be appropriate for that 1000/ 1500m section)

As a solution its not the worst.
Costwise you only need a gantry or 2 and a thickening of the white line between driving lane 1 and lane 2 for a kilometre.
Its safe and the traffic isn't that high that you are causing any unneeded congestion.
Its also proven as its already the defacto situation at the M7/ M9 split.

The alternative would be to lenthen the 4 lanes back another km, which would be a costly exercise for a government that has no cash, and the private operator wouldnt do it for free.

Well thought out, it's good to see people think for a solution rather than consider the status quo to be without fault.
Splitting the carriageway as you described is common enough elsewhere in Europe, hadn't thought of it myself though I must have driven through such layouts hundreds of times while abroad.
But then as is said if we were to be honest a lot of drivers, particularly competent drivers tend to be relaxed about the chore and focus on the more important features of traffic conditions, how many can remember details of signage and scenery even on todays trip but I bet any out of the ordinary behavour of other vehicles can be remembered.

All these new signs

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