N17 New Road Signs

Markiemarkso

I noticed new road signs today, and wondering who is responsible for putting them up.

Claremorris Bypass, the stretch where there is a two plus one road, new signs have gone up to show that motorists in the right hand lane, should merge into the left lane at the end of this stretch of road, however the road markings tell the motorists in the left lane to merge into the right lane.

At the slip road for Knock new no entry signs have being erected, but they are the Uk signs, they are a red circle with a white line through them, are we changing to a UK system of road signs.

Markiemarkso

Got an email reply from NRA in relaton to the no entry sign, it said

"There is a standardisation of road signage across a variety of jurisdictions. Therefore you will notice similar signage going up across the EU. "

You would think they would tell motorists about it.

MayoForSam

Who picks up the tab for all this new signage? Michael Healy-Rae made quite a good point a few weeks back when he commented that on most national primary routes in the country, on EVERY single minor side road / boreen as you come on to the main road, there is a large sign on the road opposite telling you which major town is to your left and to your right.

For people who use these minor side roads, i.e. locals 99% of the time, these signs are completely superfluous. Each of them must cost a pretty penny to manufacture and then install. Basically they are a waste of taxpayer's (or EU) money. In this day and age, we can ill-afford to spend money on this sort of thing but I suppose it gives the NRA something to do.

/rant over

ep71

its an absolute joke! drive the stretch between castlebar and westport, two huge signs telling motorists going each way the name of a tiny townland with two or three houses. the only people who use these roads are the locals and the postman, absolute waste of money!

oscarBravo

I'm reminded of something a Bostonian once told me (half jokingly) when I commented on the lack of direction signs in the Boston area: "if you don't know where you're going, what the hell are you doing driving here?"

artyeva

i was out foraging for elderflower at the weekend, and along a main road, i went up 9 byroads. some of them did actually have one or two houses at the end of them, so they had the little low sign with the road number on it. fair enough.

but EVERY one of them also had an 80km sign. even roads that were up to bog, or just dead ends with a derelict house at the end. next time i'm out that way i must take a few photos, cause it's kinda laughable. most of these roads could not be driven on at 30, never mind 80km/h, had grass in the middle and weren't even a safe surface to drive on at all, which leads to the question - are the county council even sending anyone out to do a proper and complete survey before deciding on the speed limit and what signage is required, or are they just wasting money and rubber-stamping the signage in an office

oscarBravo

When we changed over to metric speed limits, there was a blanket introduction of the 50km/h limit to replace 30mph, and 60km/h to replace 40mph. Outside of those zones, motorways got a 120km/h speed limit, N-roads got a 100km/h speed limit, and R- and L-roads got an 80km/h speed limit.

A local authority can't arbitrarily change the speed limit of a road on a whim. If the speed limit on a side road is to be reduced from 80km/h, it requires - as far as I know - the introduction of a bye-law to do so. I don't think it would be a useful exercise for our councillors to sit down and pass legislation to change the speed limit on every single cart track in the county.

As for the 80km/h signs - the legal speed limit is different on those roads from the road that you've left, so it's appropriate to have a sign indicating the change. I really don't see the problem with it.

artyeva

that's kinda my point though - these roads are being classified as a certain speed limit on a whim, without ever been surveyed. a road that you cannot drive a car down, with nothing at the end of it that has an 80km sign at the end is a waste of the resources of that sign, that's all my point was. i wasn't aware that any by-law needed to be passed but it was nice of you to go into such detail in your reply. while i agree it would waste their time passing a by-law to change the speed limit of every dirt track in the county, if you add up all the unecessary signage it would add up to a few loads of tarmac and gritting salt and other more necessary resources.

oscarBravo

They're being classified as having an 80km/h speed limit not on a whim, but by default. In other words, in the absence of someone passing a bye-law (in consultation with the Gardaí in each and every case), the speed limit is 80km/h simply because it's an L-road.

Given that each of those L-roads has a speed limit of 80km/h, there are two choices: either a sign can be erected stating that the speed limit is 80, or there is no sign, implying by default that the speed limit is still 100km/h. I'd argue that the former is the lesser of the evils. The signs were put up once, eight years or so ago, as part of a single project at a time when the country wasn't stuck for a bob. The ongoing maintenance and replacement of them isn't going to tax the local authority's budget; certainly not as much as the process of replacing them all with individually-assessed speed limit signs would be.

artyeva

yes. you're right.