Matt Cooper - Driving in Hard Shoulder

Berty

Did anyone hear the Matt Cooper section today when they spoke about driving in the hard shoulder and Irish peoples terrible driving on the motorways.

You will be glad to know that Conor Faulknen of AA roadwatch was first to point out that Irish drivers are incapable of driving on a two lane road and can commonly be found in the incorrect lane of the motorway.

Matt contested that if they are driving at the full speed limit then how could people need to overtake. Conor pointed out that the ROTR are such that you must drive in the left hand most lane and that by blocking people from overtaking constitutes dangerous driving and also its the Gardai's job to police the roads not theirs.

The point of Matt Cooper speaking to him and some other guest was because(wait till you hear this):

The UK are considering allowing drivers to drive in the hardshoulder by charging them in the same way as our Etoll tags and also similar to Germanys toll system and Japans to a better extent.

Imagine the many many consequences of this and especially when there is a pile up 4 miles down the road and the emergency services cannot get to it because the hard shoulder is full of cars.

Example they used was in France in the mid 90's. A coach was overturned and on fire and the french drivers decided to try to get around the traffic and blocked the hardshoulder. The fire engine and ambulance could not get down so nearly all of the children burnt to death.

Yet another good idea from a politician with a chaffeur.

tossy

Raging i missed it!

After recently covering a couple of thousand of miles on motorways in europe including much autobahn driving i can safely say we haven't got a clue in this country!

We have consistantly failed at driver ed
We have failed at rules of the road and enforcement there of
We have failed at the standard of our roads (in 3,111 miles of driving i seen one pothole,that was in germany on a rural road with a massive white circle sprayed around it and an arrow pointing towards it)

Terrontress

quirke_folder wrote: »

Did anyone hear the Matt Cooper section today when they spoke about driving in the hard shoulder and Irish peoples terrible driving on the motorways.

You will be glad to know that Conor Faulknen of AA roadwatch was first to point out that Irish drivers are incapable of driving on a two lane road and can commonly be found in the incorrect lane of the motorway.

Matt contested that if they are driving at the full speed limit then how could people need to overtake. Conor pointed out that the ROTR are such that you must drive in the left hand most lane and that by blocking people from overtaking constitutes dangerous driving and also its the Gardai's job to police the roads not theirs.

The point of Matt Cooper speaking to him and some other guest was because(wait till you hear this):

The UK are considering allowing drivers to drive in the hardshoulder by charging them in the same way as our Etoll tags and also similar to Germanys toll system and Japans to a better extent.

Imagine the many many consequences of this and especially when there is a pile up 4 miles down the road and the emergency services cannot get to it because the hard shoulder is full of cars.

Example they used was in France in the mid 90's. A coach was overturned and on fire and the french drivers decided to try to get around the traffic and blocked the hardshoulder. The fire engine and ambulance could not get down so nearly all of the children burnt to death.

Yet another good idea from a politician with a chaffeur.

What a shocking idea!

Hard shoulders are there for a purpose.

Toll roads in the UK seem very limited compared to Ireland so why don't they just charge on normal roads instead of coming up with hairbrained schemes like this!?!

Berty

Catch it again on Podcasting or Saturday morning after 10am.

cyclopath2001

quirke_folder wrote: »

Conor pointed out that the ROTR are such that you must drive in the left hand most lane and that by blocking people from overtaking constitutes dangerous driving

Did he really say that? Driving on the left hand side of the road in a designated driving lane at the speed limit is dangerous driving? That's rich.

The hard shoulder is not a driving lane. If you drive on the left of the marked roadway at a reasonable speed according to you and your car's ability and the conditions, you've obeyed the law. Anything else is the faster driver's problem.

Anan1

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

Did he really say that? Driving on the left hand side of the road in a designated driving lane at the speed limit is dangerous driving? That's rich.

The hard shoulder is not a driving lane. If you drive on the left of the marked roadway at a reasonable speed according to you and your car's ability and the conditions, you've obeyed the law. Anything else is the faster driver's problem.

I think you're mixing up two separate quotes there...

Berty

Anan1 wrote: »

I think you're mixing up two separate quotes there...

Yes, Conor said you should & must drive in the left hand most lane. All other lanes are for overtaking and when you finish overtaking you must pull back into the left hand most lane.

cyclopath2001

quirke_folder wrote: »

Yes, Conor said you should & must drive in the left hand most lane. All other lanes are for overtaking and when you finish overtaking you must pull back into the left hand most lane.

But not the hard shoulder, I trust? Hogging the outside lane is inconsiderate driving, not dangerous driving. People need to have a sense of proportion.

Anan1

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

Hogging the outside lane is inconsiderate driving, not dangerous driving. People need to have a sense of proportion.

Anyone stupid/inconsiderate enough to be unable to get their head around something as simple as drive left overtake right isn't fit to drive, IMO.

Berty

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

But not the hard shoulder, I trust? Hogging the outside lane is inconsiderate driving, not dangerous driving. People need to have a sense of proportion.

But of course, the hard shoulder is not a lane. In the UK and Northern Ireland most of the shoulders are raised making it difficult to drive on them.

scubasteve

utter madness!
Driver in Ireland are awful! I Drove the east coast of Oz so much safer and aware driver over there

Scottie99

The hard shoulder thing has been mentioned before. These "think tanks" throw ideas every so often, it'll never happen.


I agree about Irish drivers.:D

Biro

The saving grace of Irish road users is the lack of agressiveness. Many will argue following this comment that we are agressive, but we're chicken****s compared to some European drivers, who, despite a large percentage of good driving, will risk lives and cars by forcing a move. If you adapt that attitude here, combined with our lack of a clue, you'd wipe out 300 lives a day, let alone year!
Italians are excessively agressive in many parts, particularly Scicily where if you make eye contact with another driver at a junction they see it as an act of weakness and drive in front of you whether you have right of way or not! Kind of similar in Paris.

DublinDilbert

tossy wrote: »

We have consistantly failed at driver ed

+1 We have no driver education here!

Our rules of the road are so out of date its not funny... We now have roads with 4+ lanes on them, and you still need to go to the far right lane to over take....

tossy

Biro wrote: »

The saving grace of Irish road users is the lack of agressiveness. Many will argue following this comment that we are agressive, but we're chicken****s compared to some European drivers, who, despite a large percentage of good driving, will risk lives and cars by forcing a move. If you adapt that attitude here, combined with our lack of a clue, you'd wipe out 300 lives a day, let alone year!
Italians are excessively agressive in many parts, particularly Scicily where if you make eye contact with another driver at a junction they see it as an act of weakness and drive in front of you whether you have right of way or not! Kind of similar in Paris.

True irish drivers might not be as aggressive as some,but irish drivers are equally as dangerous through stupidity,panic and down right ignorance on the roads,ive seen may a driver risk life and car pulling a stupid move or trying to get out of a jam!

The problem not only lies with motorway driving but all areas,yellow boxes,filter lanes etc!

tossy

we are a whole generation maybe two generations behind the rest of europe on good driving practise,i travelled down the autobahns at speeds that would be suicidal on irish roads,i passed cars that were in the lane to the right of me at speeds of 180 kmph plus and never once felt in danger of having one of them pull out in front of me,i saw no tailgating and no intimadation,also in maybe 1000 or so miles of german roads i saw NO speed traps,NO checkpoints and generally very little police presence,the driving populice is advanced to such a state that they are just trusted to drive right most of the time,hence my original statement that we are maybe two generations behind the rest of them,and this is a scary thought as this fact isn't going to be changed by any amount of TV adds,gay byrnes or panic thinking!

I also saw no SPEED KILLS signs and remember joking with my passenger about how german tourists must react ot the speed kills signs on irish roads...(bad german accent)

"what is vit these crazy irish,speed does not kill,it is clearly proven that bad driving is un killer"

Im not saying there are never accidents on the their roards there are clearly,but they are just so far ahead of us in thier approach to motoring that it is quite scary!

peasant

tossy wrote: »

i saw no tailgating and no intimadation,also in maybe 1000 or so miles of german roads i saw NO speed traps,NO checkpoints and generally very little police presence ...

a slight case of ze rose tinted glasses there ...:D

While German driving standars are generally better than Irish ones, you'll get your share of tailgating and intimidation alright ...they can be very aggressive over there.

Also, Germany IS the country where they use the gunsight of a Leopard II tank as a speed camera and where they divert all the traffic on a motorway trough a big parking lot for alcohol and vehicle checks.

tossy

Mass alcohol checks are also the done thing in australia and have been proven to be the way forward,can't be any worse than the "stop the young fella in the noisy car,wave the banker in the merc through" approach to check points over here.

Im not saying there was or is no tailgating,im merely stating in my time there i seen none,i don't know about rose tinted glasses line,in in no way shape or form affiliated with germany,im an irish man

Biro

Haven't driven in Germany yet, but I still maintain that the UK is my favourite place to drive. Good dicipline in general, and not so much agressiveness.

tossy

Like you biro i had only driven in the uk prior to this summer,the uk still rates very highly with me for driver discipline,i always thought the road quality was second to none in the uk,but i found out you can get better.

Smething that i noted about germany also was(i know i keep going on about germany butt hats now the bench mark for me!) that they are constantly shutting down sections of the motorways and resurfacing them,not just a thin top layer but proper resurfacing,two tihngs

1. it was done with minimal traffic disruption but more importantly,when is the last time the M7 was resurfaced,after naas? if it wasn't for the recent 3 lane upgrade (speeeded up and done in time for a golf tournament) the answer would have been never,as soon as you pass the ball at naas and hit the old 2 lane M7 which is badly in need of an upgrade!,you can't miss it as you pass the big ball the roadside lights disappear,the road surface gets worse and the speed limit goes up!

Other major motorways are too new as of now but in time the will need resurfacing that will never come,in ireland a motorway is for life!

bazz26

Biro wrote: »

Haven't driven in Germany yet, but I still maintain that the UK is my favourite place to drive. Good dicipline in general, and not so much agressiveness.

You haven't met white vanman yet then?

Berty

I have driven in most European countries, the US, South America, Japan, Australia and Russia. I have seen my far share of driving attitudes and local council attitudes to drivers. Ireland is the worst.

Our road network is pathetic but getting better. Our new roads are good are WILL be maintained well. Our old roads which gets the odd spray of tar and a spray of chipping and they let us grade it for them with the weight of our cars, those days are filtering out slowly but surely.

In Paris for examlpe I often came across the main motorway into the city closed in the evenings. My French colleague would tell me that they are cleaning that section and we must avoid it. CLEANING!!! Our cleaning involves guys directed by a judge to pick up litter as community service.

In Germany the only benefit I saw was no speed limits on the motorways. Drivers attitudes were relatively similar to ours but only in the way that they will not give you an inch if you make a mistake and leave it 1 second too late to move off from a green light. New York Sydrome I call it.

In Russia their drivers attitudes are fairly ok. I never noticed anything that annoyed me or felt that I annoyed anybody else. It just works. The Latvian are ok but can drive a little fast.

The UK is good with attitudes to driving but not if they introduce the hard shoulder rule.

Australia is good because I personally experienced the "beer bus" as they call it. They have around 15 cops with a few cops on motorbikes to catch the guys who try to leg it or do U-Turns. Everybody gets brethalysed but the other drivers are on to this and willl flash wildly to let you know whats around the corner. My brotherinlaw tells me that if you are on a learners permit and need a co driver they breathalyse the co driver because if you suddently fall ill they would have to drive.

In ths US driver attitude is fairly ok but its depends on where in the country you are. Orlando seemed ok when it came to big cities. New York was a nightmare, they are arrogant and dont give you an inch. Ohio and regional Texas were the best for me because nobody was in a rush anywhere and the biggest vehicle got the right of way. I had a Ford F150 so I was kind of in the middle when it came to right of way.

LA was different only in the fact that you got nowhere fast. You never got above 30mph and were always in rush hour(it seemed) so I cant really decide.

We are a long way back. Our road network is archaic, our ROTR are archaic, our drivers testing, enforcement and training are archaic. We cant simply overhaul it because everytime we do somebody gets put out in the cold.

If we try to re-test everybody every 10 years everybody will say NO. If we tell anybody over 70 they must retest they will all march on the Dail(with free bus & train travel). If we completely ban a L driver from driving alone they wont do it and the first 10 we fine will have every paper calling the government scrooge. If we try to better our road network the government will cry recession and tell us we have no money. If we try to block L drivers from learning to drive in powerful cars(like daddys girl learning to drive in RR Vogue Sports & Lexus) and limit their speed and 0 their alcohol limit and the hours they can drive between then they will be up in arms.

Ireland has a long way to go to fix its own problems before it can start copying other countries who are far more advanced.

voxpop

sure we have only had the last 10-15 years to upgrade our roads. Before that we were a relatively poor country. Germany/France/Uk/etc have had a large head start on building motorways and decent roads. Bit of perspective maybe

AlanD

quirke_folder wrote: »

Catch it again on Podcasting or Saturday morning after 10am.

Is anyone's Last Word subscription not updating at all this week?

kmick

In theory the left lane for driving right lane for overtaking is a very good rule. However it only works if the traffic density is low->medium. Once the traffic builds it does not work. From my experience on motorways in low density traffic left for driving right for overtaking happens by default in Ireland. As soon as the traffic builds you have lots of cars in the driving lane doing 47 which means everyone piles into the overtaking lane doing 75.

Easy Rider

Anybody ever drive in Portugal? Mental they are, on small roads they will overtake on long bends.....I have seen several near misses on just one small stretch of road....

Not sure, but would not be suprised if there road death rate is high...

Ferris

Scottie99 wrote: »

The hard shoulder thing has been mentioned before. These "think tanks" throw ideas every so often, it'll never happen.

As per usual for these 'Ideas' the body concerned hasn't done its homework. For instance hard shoulders on motorways are not built to the same specification as the traffic lanes - because they are not intended to be used all the time. They have thinner wearing layers of tarmac and thinner substrates.

The degradation of the hard shoulders on the M50 shows this, except that its acceptable on the m50 as its going to be redone.

Berty

voxpop wrote: »

sure we have only had the last 10-15 years to upgrade our roads. Before that we were a relatively poor country. Germany/France/Uk/etc have had a large head start on building motorways and decent roads. Bit of perspective maybe

The Bull should have let the yank buy the field. He would have all the limestone he needed for those highways he wanted to build.

Typical farmers!!

randomer

DublinDilbert wrote: »

+1 We have no driver education here!

Our rules of the road are so out of date its not funny... We now have roads with 4+ lanes on them, and you still need to go to the far right lane to over take....

You only need to go one lane to the right of the car you are passing. On a four lane road, if the car you are passing in in the left lane, then you can pass them in the second lane.

The rules of the road were rewritten recently. Are you implying that passing on the left should be allowed in normal driving conditions?

Berty

randomer wrote: »

You only need to go one lane to the right of the car you are passing. On a four lane road, if the car you are passing in in the left lane, then you can pass them in the second lane.

The rules of the road were rewritten recently. Are you implying that passing on the left should be allowed in normal driving conditions?

Dont start this all over again.

You MAY pass on the left if the car on your right is travelling slower than you and you are not breaking the speed limit.

Example. Your are coming in the N7/M7 and are in the left lane doing 90kph and the car in the middle lane is doing 75kph. You do not have to cross into the middle lane and then into the right lane to overtake this car. You MAY pass on the left.

You are not undertaking, you are legally passing on the left. There is a legal and ROTR difference.

randomer

quirke_folder wrote: »

Dont start this all over again.

You MAY pass on the left if the car on your right is travelling slower than you and you are not breaking the speed limit.

Example. Your are coming in the N7/M7 and are in the left lane doing 90kph and the car in the middle lane is doing 75kph. You do not have to cross into the middle lane and then into the right lane to overtake this car. You MAY pass on the left.

You are not undertaking, you are legally passing on the left. There is a legal and ROTR difference.

Are you sure about that. The rules of the road states "slow moving queues".

Rules of the Road wrote:

Overtake only on the right, unless traffic is travelling in slow moving queues and the traffic queue on your right is travelling more slowly than you are. If you intend to move from a slower lane to a faster lane, adjust your speed first

Edit: I just reread your post, and the comment about passing on the left when you are not breaking the speed limit is just wrong!