LILO Tragedy ???

niloc1951

Was the tragic fatal accident recently on the N25 near Little Island another LILO, without physical lane separation barriers, gone seriously wrong ??.

corktina

i heard the car went the wrong way down the ramp on to the main road,

Chris_5339762

No, utter rubbish. Thats not a LILO anyway. The person, as far as I know, went eastbound along the westbound carriageway and ploughed into someone about 500-600m along the road. Now both east and westbound traffic basically use the same sliproad so they may have gone the wrong way without realising, late at night.

L1011

That section of road, assuming its the bit I think it is, is HQDC and the accident happened on the mainline.

LILOs may be dangerous but it wasn't the cause here.

niloc1951

Chris_5339762 wrote: »

No, utter rubbish. Thats not a LILO anyway. The person, as far as I know, went eastbound along the westbound carriageway and ploughed into someone about 500-600m along the road. Now both east and westbound traffic basically use the same sliproad so they may have gone the wrong way without realising, late at night.

Maybe strictly not a LILO, and eastbound and west bound traffic do not use the same slip, eastbound crosses on an overbridge to the eastbound slip.

Traffic exiting from and entering to the west bound carriageway of the N25 use a section of S2 immediately south of the intersection.
This section of S2 has lane separation by means of a double white line with hatching between them, but no physical separation. It is therefore very easy for a driver who might be disorientated and having taken the wrong exit (the one for traffic intending to go westbound) at the roundabout south west of the junction to fail to see and cross the painted markings for some reason and proceed to and enter the westbound carriageway in an easterly direction.

I cannot understand why all intersections, incorporating sections of S2 like the one mentioned above have not yet been converted to D1 standard. The hazard they present must surely be well known, in light of previous tragic events of a similar nature.

niloc1951

MYOB wrote: »

That section of road, assuming its the bit I think it is, is HQDC and the accident happened on the mainline.

LILOs may be dangerous but it wasn't the cause here.

Yes, the accident happened 'on the mainline' about 1.5km east of the junction.

Obviously 'driver error' was the cause, but surely the characteristics of the junction (a section of S2) 'facilitated' the error.

JupiterKid

It seems to me that what is really needed is a physical separation on the slip roads leading to LILOs so that drivers can't cross onto the wrong direction slip by mistake.

I'm sure wire rope barriers or armco barriers would suffice.

corktina

surely madness lies on that route?
you cant guard against people not interpreting the signs correctly in every possible place they could make an error. Driver education might be a btter way to spend money

murphaph

corktina wrote: »

surely madness lies on that route?
you cant guard against people not interpreting the signs correctly in every possible place they could make an error. Driver education might be a btter way to spend money

Exactly. If this driver managed to cross over the double white lines and then proceed the wrong way along the carriageway after entering the DC FROM THE RIGHT (which in itself should set alarm bells off as it's so unusual in Ireland), then I believe this driver was the accident waiting to happen, not the LILO.

serfboard

JupiterKid wrote: »

It seems to me that what is really needed is a physical separation on the slip roads leading to LILOs so that drivers can't cross onto the wrong direction slip by mistake.

I'm sure wire rope barriers or armco barriers would suffice.

Agree - they have already done this on the M18 along the Ennis bypass after a similar crash. What they use are those red pole thingys - cheap enough to put down and they do the job.

Carawaystick

We had "Wrong way, Turn Back" signs on the Newtownmountkennedy bypass in the eighties, are they there at the compact gsj?

I've seen a big hand making a stop signal in Luxemburg, and flashing red signs in Norn Iron to stop the same thing.

murphaph

The "big hand" is also standard in Austria and has recently been trialled by German authorities in Bavaria. It seems set to become standard across the German Autobahn network from next year (according to our ADAC (AA) magazine). The NI signs are standard "no entry" with 2 red flashing lights like a level crossing. Not UK spec but a nice neat solution.

However, the Irish "Wrong Way Turn Back" is pretty damn explicit as it is. Ok, you need to speak English (or Irish) to understand them and that's a distinct downside in this EU age. It would feel perfectly natural for a German or a Pole to drive onto a motorway "wrong way" so perhaps we should indeed look at phasing these worded signs out in favour of something more recognisable to non-english speakers.

The Austrian version:


I guess in Ireland it would read "STOP <hand> WRONG WAY" and then the clear meaning would be confused by the addition of Irish lol.

niloc1951

murphaph wrote: »

Exactly. If this driver managed to cross over the double white lines and then proceed the wrong way along the carriageway after entering the DC FROM THE RIGHT (which in itself should set alarm bells off as it's so unusual in Ireland), then I believe this driver was the accident waiting to happen, not the LILO.

What about giving some consideration to the occupants of the vehicle hit by the unfortunate 'accident waiting to happen' (your description murphaph, it would not be mine for the unfortunate person), lets not forget she has paid for her error with her young life.
None of us are infallible and any one of us can do at least one stupid thing in our lives, some times we are lucky, and 'get away with it', and sometimes not.
There are few of us who would not wish for some protection from the consequences from another's 'stupid' action or a method of preventing it in the first instance.
In my opinion the occupant of the other car paid for the lack of a physical separation which enabled the other driver to head in his direction with his life also.
The incident we are discussing is not the first of its kind with fatal consequences for the 'innocent' party, so we should remember that there but for the Grace of God could any of us be.

niloc1951

serfboard wrote: »

Agree - they have already done this on the M18 along the Ennis bypass after a similar crash. What they use are those red pole thingys - cheap enough to put down and they do the job.

An excellent idea and probably more effective than adding to the forest of signs already in existence.
There is some wisdom in the old idiom about 'not seeing the wood for the trees'

murphaph

niloc1951 wrote: »

What about giving some consideration to the occupants of the vehicle hit by the unfortunate 'accident waiting to happen' (your description murphaph, it would not be mine for the unfortunate person), lets not forget she has paid for her error with her young life.
None of us are infallible and any one of us can do at least one stupid thing in our lives, some times we are lucky, and 'get away with it', and sometimes not.
There are few of us who would not wish for some protection from the consequences from another's 'stupid' action or a method of preventing it in the first instance.
In my opinion the occupant of the other car paid for the lack of a physical separation which enabled the other driver to head in his direction with his life also.
The incident we are discussing is not the first of its kind with fatal consequences for the 'innocent' party, so we should remember that there but for the Grace of God could any of us be.

I think you have seriously misunderstood my point. I believe the issue is more one of driver education and training than one of engineering out every possible mistake (however seldom) that could conceivably be made by a driver. Where do you stop? There are countless more head on collisions every year on standard S2 roads all over Ireland. Do we fit red bollards everywhere where there are double white lines present? If not, why not?

There is only so much you can practically do. We are discussing the known facts of a tragic accident. You believe the engineering of the road is at fault, I believe the greater fault here lies with the driver who failed to realise what she was doing. Is it still tragic? Absolutely. Does it change my opinion that this driver was the accident waiting to happen moreso than the road layout, absolutely not.

She was clearly not competent on the road if she managed to navigate her way all the way down the slip, enter the DC from the RIGHT (this should really have triggered the alarm bells) and then see the central reserve to her LEFT (more alarm bells should be ringing loudly at this point) but to carry on at full speed and colliding with a poor unfortunate coming the other way.

I don't blame the driver exclusively. I blame the shoddy driver education and training regime in Ireland. No compulsory lessons with accredited schools, no minimum practice hours with an instructor. No compulsory night time or motorway practice before the test etc. etc. It's a shambles of a testing regime and it needs urgent attention before we go fitting bollards to anywhere a crossover could lead to a head on collision tbh.

murphaph

murphaph wrote: »

The "big hand" is also standard in Austria and has recently been trialled by German authorities in Bavaria. It seems set to become standard across the German Autobahn network from next year (according to our ADAC (AA) magazine). The NI signs are standard "no entry" with 2 red flashing lights like a level crossing. Not UK spec but a nice neat solution.

However, the Irish "Wrong Way Turn Back" is pretty damn explicit as it is. Ok, you need to speak English (or Irish) to understand them and that's a distinct downside in this EU age. It would feel perfectly natural for a German or a Pole to drive onto a motorway "wrong way" so perhaps we should indeed look at phasing these worded signs out in favour of something more recognisable to non-english speakers.

The Austrian version:


I guess in Ireland it would read "STOP <hand> WRONG WAY" and then the clear meaning would be confused by the addition of Irish lol.

Just installing some decent sized "NO ENTRY" signs should suffice, especially now they are finally in the Irish TSM, those stupid "no ahead" signs just don't show up well!

Stark

tbh

bofh666ie

murphaph wrote: »

The "big hand" is also standard in Austria and has recently been trialled by German authorities in Bavaria. It seems set to become standard across the German Autobahn network from next year (according to our ADAC (AA) magazine). The NI signs are standard "no entry" with 2 red flashing lights like a level crossing. Not UK spec but a nice neat solution.

Last time I drove on Austrian motorways, they also had stingers that would fold into the road when driven over in the right direction but would rip your tyres off if crossed the wrong way. Harsh, yet effective...:D

niloc1951

Drawing on the experience of many of the exit from the M7 to the M8 being missed or nearly missed, I personally nearly missed it and two of my friends actually missed it. We are all in the 50+ age bracket and widely traveled with experienced of driving in many foreign countries, so not exactly novices and are happily accident free so far.

Our opinion of of how we made such eejits of ourselves is that we were not paying attention to the signage because we 'knew' where we were going.
Now, for us and others who screwed up our journey to Cork it was just an inconvenience to ourselves.

But, 'being able' to commit the same folly at a LILO junction often can have fatal consequences for the unfortunate person who made the mistake and other innocents confronted by a vehicle approaching them on the wrong carriageway.

Physical separation is the only way to eliminate such tragic events.

murphaph

niloc1951 wrote: »

But, 'being able' to commit the same folly at a LILO junction often can have fatal consequences for the unfortunate person who made the mistake and other innocents confronted by a vehicle approaching them on the wrong carriageway.

Physical separation is the only way to eliminate such tragic events.

But a driver (especially a continental driver) can turn onto the wrong lane on any S2 road, anywhere in the country. You can't realistically engineer out these possibilities. Even if you put up bollards along the centre line, somebody can still turn onto the wrong side at the top of the slip, indeed we don't know for certain that that didn't happen in this case.

Missing an exit on a motorway is totally different to driving wrong side onto the same motorway. Most drivers would recognise that they are not in the same league and while many (most?) drivers will miss an exit at least once in their lifetime, very very few will EVER drive wrong way onto a motorway.

Empire o de Sun

murphaph wrote: »

.... very very few will EVER drive wrong way onto a motorway.

Geisterfahrer!!!!!!!!!!!!!

niloc1951

murphaph wrote: »

............. very very few will EVER drive wrong way onto a motorway.

All I can say is, I wish I was as confident as you are that I will never meet one of the very very few and join those unfortunate enough to have. :eek:

BTW there is probably a better chance of winning the lottery, but most of us still buy tickets !!!!!!!!

Stark

Plenty of people have met their end coming against someone travelling on the wrong side of S2 roads. Murphaph is right; you can't line every road in the country with bollards.

When you go to the expense of physically separating the carriageways and people still manage to end up in head-on collisions due to driver error, you're past the point of diminishing returns in terms of road engineering.

niloc1951 wrote:

BTW there is probably a better chance of winning the lottery, but most of us still buy tickets !!!!!!!!

A tax on people who don't understand statistics (nice version of the phrase).

niloc1951

I see a line of THESE have recently been installed on the westbound entrance/exit LILO.

What a pity they weren't installed after earlier examples of the type of tragedy witnessed on the N25 last March, if so, this Christmas would have seen two families less with empty places at the dinner table.