Driving Us Mad...
Bad speed limits are a blight up and down the country. In the last ezine, we asked people to get in touch and report poorly set speed limits wherever they encounter them. There are some choice examples, as you can see in the photo. A poorly set speed limit, whether too high or too low, is worse than useless. It brings the system into disrepute, catches ordinary people out and encourages us all to ignore the signs. We are building a list of the worst locations which will be pressing the relevant local authorities to fix.
There was a fairly-even division between limits those you felt were unreasonably-low and those you felt were too high, including many like this local road in Castletownsend, Co. Cork with an 80km/h limit, which was sent in to us by Tom Burke.
Too High
Limits that you felt were too high included the N71 in Co. Kerry, the "Ring of Kerry" road. Despite being on twisty, narrow roads, often with sheer drops mere millimetres from the edge, the road is almost uniformly 100km/h. This limit, many of you felt, is far too high, as are the 80km/h limits on many of the side roads of it, particularly in the Caherdaniel area.
Similarly, the road between Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare and Kinvara, Co. Galway was highlighted by a member as "....a narrow twisty road with stone walls on either side in places, often very busy in the summer. I don't know what tourists make of it!" Also in Co. Clare, the road from O'Brien's Bridge to Birdhill, Co. Tipperary is only suitable for 45km/h - certainly not its posted 80km/h limit.
The N16 in Co. Leitrim is, despite its N-road status, not suitable for a 100km/h limit according to one member, who described it as dangerous and bendy.
However there were quite a lot of comments received on the other side of the fence; limits that Irish motorists feel are too low. And not just too low; many of you commented on the ad-hoc and arbitrary way many local authorities in particular seem to set speed limits.
Too Low
Top of the "too low" list was the section of the N11 within Co. Dublin, where many motorists feel the limit is not only too slow but also too variable. One member wrote: "The entire length of the N11 from Loughlinstown roundabout to Donnybrook Bus Station is one of the worst cases I have seen.........it changes constantly between 30km/h at the roundabout at Loughlinstown to 50km/h to 80km/h and back again to 50km/h. This constant changing is very difficult to follow, you would almost need a notebook to ensure you kept within the speed limits."
The N11, which is a dual-carriageway for most of its length, is having its speed limit revised within Co. Wicklow, where we also received a number of comments on. The limit is increasing from 60 to 80km/h on the northbound lane and the limit at the Glen of the Downs is also going up from 80 to 100km/h. However there are currently no plans to revise limits in the section we received the most comment about, which is entirely within Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County. The N11 was one of the most complained-about roads in our replies, with all of the comments relating to the Wicklow section mentioning its low speed limits.
Many of you feel that the limit on the motorway should be a uniform 120km/h, the normal speed limit for all motorways. The section between Firhouse and Leopardstown has 100km/h sections (before roadworks began) and the newly-opened 3-lane stretch from Finglas to Ballymount is also 100km/h.
The N4 also came in for criticism, where one motorist noted the "unobserved and laughable" 60km/h limit in the vicinity of the Spa Hotel in Lucan.
A confusing situation for motorists on the road between Maghera
and Ardara, Co. Donegal, submitted by John Wall
Elsewhere in Dublin, the R135 - once the N2 Dublin-Derry road - has a 60km/h limit all the way from near the M50 to the border with Co. Meath, after which it becomes 80km/h. This stretch of road, while it was the N2, was 100km/h until 2005 and one member, using the road for 30 years, feels with Garda enforcement, this revision has been akin to "catching fish in a barrel...contributing nothing to road safety" The member went on to say that the limit on the smaller side roads off the R135 has remained 80km/h; so motorists are turning off a wide main road with a 60km/h limit onto a narrow side road with a 80km/h limit.
This is a pattern repeated across the county in Balbriggan; Fingal County Council have also been cited by one member for leaving a limit at 80km/h on one stretch of road between Balrothery and Ardgillan Demesne, despite the regular presence of pedestrians, horse-riders and a playground.
The seemingly-automatic downgrading of a road's speed limit to 80km/h overnight when a new motorway opens is a cause for concern for many of you. Former N-roads in Carlow, Wexford, Kinnegad, Moate, Durrow and Cashel were all mentioned in emails to the AA as places where 100km/h appeared to be appropriate until a new motorway opened nearby and they dropped to 80km/h.
And in Waterford, we received comments from a few members on the 4-year old Outer Ring Road. Despite it being a dual-carriageway with 3.75m wide lanes, the limit for the road is 60km/h. One member suggested that an 80km/h limit would be far more appropriate, while another member described the current limit as "outrageous and [bearing] no relationship to the driving conditions that this stretch of road affords."
We're still looking for more of your views on Irish speed limits, so keep sending them in to technical@aaireland.ie and we'll continue to collate them.