M1 in the Snow - Where are the Reflectors?

Ernest

Travelling south between Dundalk and Dublin yesterday about 6.30-8pm with snow falling, it was very difficult to see the sides of the M1 in areas where there was no road lighting. What has happened to the reflectors that are meant to show the sides of the road and its direction? Most of them do not seem to work - my car lights were functioning correctly but were not picking up many guiding reflectors. With snow falling fairly heavily it was necessary to travel relatively slowly ( about 80 kmph or less in the slow lane) but I could only used dipped headlights because of the snow and this made driving dangerous since it was hard to see the direction of the road. (This did not seem to be a problem for some cars which whizzed by on the outside lane at a fast pace and in "tailgate" mode.)
The point is have the NRA bought cheap and ineffective road reflectors that don't work when they are needed? This is a relatively new motorway and the original reflectors should still be working you would expect. The NRA never quite bought the idea of the "cats-eyes" system used in many parts of the UK - these are effective and self-cleaning. Perhaps like their Motorway Service Areas debacle, the NRA thought we in Ireland wouldn't need the kind of things that all other countries routinely build into their motorways like reflectors, safe dividers, rest areas......

Alun

I can't say I've ever really taken too much notice of what the reflectors look like, to be honest, but the kind of driving wet snow that was around yesterday can stick to all kinds of surfaces, including reflectors and make them ineffective. Nothing to do with the "quality" of the reflectors .. light just can't get through snow!

I've quite a bit of experience driving in these kinds of conditions having lived in Holland and Germany for many years, and I can tell you that given the right (or is that wrong?!) snow conditions, even complete road signs can be covered with snow to the point where they're completely invisible let alone a tiny roadside reflectors.

Ham'nd'egger

The last time I used the new section of M 1, the reflectors were in fine form, Ernest. If you were driving in heavy snow, did you not use fog lamps, normal spec lights may have been defracted from their normal beams and unable to light up the "eyes".

PS, where is the "slow" lane on the M 1?

daymobrew

Ernest wrote:

The point is have the NRA bought cheap and ineffective road reflectors that don't work when they are needed? This is a relatively new motorway and the original reflectors should still be working you would expect. The NRA never quite bought the idea of the "cats-eyes" system used in many parts of the UK - these are effective and self-cleaning.

I wrote to the NRA a few years about the brutal state of cats eyes around the country. They replied saying that they met European standards, which, IMO must be quite pathetic.
I tried to argue that passive features (cats eyes, good reflectors on signs) are much cheaper (and maybe more effective) than active features (lighted signs).

mackerski

I'm sure there are European standards for cats eyes, but keep in mind that most countries don't actually use them as lane markers. As such, the fact that we have them at all has to be considered a bonus.

parsi

That's one thing that surprised me about France (Brittany) - whilst Irish roads seem to have an abundance of cats eyes (both the self cleaning and non-cleaning types) the fRench don't seem to use them at all. On normal rods they're not too into margin markers either.