Should they plant a big hedge in the median of M50?

RobAMerc

it would at least stop the ridiculous rubber necking on both sides when a little boy stops for a pee on one side.
Guards should also be told to turn off their lights once they've pulled someone over as the result from rubbernecking is chaos

colm_mcm

Hedges don't cut themselves though. Major disruption when that needs doing.

Ocean Blue

RobAMerc wrote: »

it would at least stop the ridiculous rubber necking on both sides when a little boy stops for a pee on one side.
Guards should also be told to turn off their lights once they've pulled someone over as the result from rubbernecking is chaos

Stopping on the M50 to let a child pee?? The mind boggles. Get off at the next exit or let them wee in the seat using something absorbent. Better a wet seat than a dead child.

RobAMerc

colm_mcm wrote: »

Hedges don't cut themselves though. Major disruption when that needs doing.

good point unless (god forbid) they did it overnight regularly
a big barrier - lets call it the "idiot proof fence"

RobAMerc

Ocean Blue wrote: »

Stopping on the M50 to let a child pee?? The mind boggles. Get off at the next exit or let them wee in the seat using something absorbent. Better a wet seat than a dead child.

i think your missing the point ! please dont try derail the thread ( if intentional )

GreatDefector

RobAMerc wrote: »

i think your missing the point ! please dont try derail the thread ( if intentional )

Yeah or they're be rubber neckers in here. You can usually tell they're here by the smell of popcorn

stampydmonkey

I reckon a big LCD display down the middle with advertising....we need more advertising

savagethegoat

turning off their lights when they are a stationary hazard on the hard shoulder? I don't think you've thought this through.

RobAMerc

turning off the roof lights yea - there is no need for them, people see them dont worry : no one is going to rear end a parked squad car on the hard shoulder, they are far more likely to rear end the car in front whos braking to look across the road at whats happening or hit someone while they rubberneck themselves

Markcheese

savagethegoat wrote:

turning off their lights when they are a stationary hazard on the hard shoulder? I don't think you've thought this through.

Wouldnt be impossible to have a switch for rear facing strobes

markpb

RobAMerc wrote:

good point unless (god forbid) they did it overnight regularly

If you've ever driven the m50 at night.m, you'll have seen the amount of work it takes for them to do any maintenance jobs.

I do love the idea of a hedge though. Maybe the should prune it by helicopter

Wildly Boaring

44km road

Say €100/m for fence on top of barrier.
Hedge is a silly idea. There's prob a meter of tar in places down the M50.
And hedges have to be cut.

Any fence would havee to be passively safe in event of a crash = expensive

100x44000=€4,400,000

Prob add at least 100,000 for Traffic Management = €4.5 million

Add 15% for Overheads of however does it = €5.2 million

Profit of Contractor 7% =€5.5 million

Fence will have to be maintained and replaced following any collisions and wear/tear say 2% per annum over 20 years = €1.8 million

Total cost of €7.3 million

Now justify that to the people without houses/hospitals/whatever



As for guards turning off lights.
Drivers are idiots.
More lights = more chance of getting home in the evening

Del2005

RobAMerc wrote: »

it would at least stop the ridiculous rubber necking on both sides when a little boy stops for a pee on one side.
Guards should also be told to turn off their lights once they've pulled someone over as the result from rubbernecking is chaos

Hedges are a bad idea due to needing to be cut, I remember a council getting grief for using astro turf on a new road till they explained the costs of maintaining proper grass. What could be installed are solar panels and a opaque fence to stop rubber necking, the panels won't be working at full efficiency but would do enough to cover costs, they should be installed on all Motorways so that the morons who use full beams don't blind oncoming motorists.

Emergency services use lights to protect themselves, even still there's plenty of in car footage of motorists hitting them even with the lights on.

buckfasterer

All this giving out about hedges being a bad idea. Maybe they could be artificial?

sjb25

RobAMerc wrote: »

turning off the roof lights yea - there is no need for them, people see them dont worry : no one is going to rear end a parked squad car on the hard shoulder, they are far more likely to rear end the car in front whos braking to look across the road at whats happening or hit someone while they rubberneck themselves

you obviously have never had to work on a active motorway I as a member of an emergency service have and I can tell you the more lights I have on the better and also the more lanes I can block with my vehicle the better I'm sure people hate when we block lanes because it's holding them up us Doing this and have our lights on are for OUR safety its up to other road users to drive correctly (ha)I agree rubber neckers are a plague but so are the people who feel the need to not slow down at all or give us any space

grogi

colm_mcm wrote: »

Hedges don't cut themselves though. Major disruption when that needs doing.

Closure of right lane from 22-4 - hardly any disruption...

Wildly Boaring

No disruption alright

You need to close a lane in each direction to cut a hedge in such a narrow median. So cannot do mobile closures (one would be reversing)

Costs min €1500 in labour and diesel to close and open one lane.

Creating regular maintenance hence cost and risk where there was very little previously (gullies only really)

Caliden

scanlone wrote: »

No disruption alright

You need to close a lane in each direction to cut a hedge in such a narrow median. So cannot do mobile closures (one would be reversing)

Costs min €1500 in labour and diesel to close and open one lane.

Creating regular maintenance hence cost and risk where there was very little previously (gullies only really)

110m generated annually from the tolls.

There's no shortage of money.

Buffman

What's with all the hedge talk, Gardening forum

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Or we could build a wall, next time Trump is down in Clare we should ask his advice.:D

Or people could just drive properly.

RobAMerc wrote: »

turning off the roof lights yea - there is no need for them, people see them dont worry : no one is going to rear end a parked squad car on the hard shoulder,

punisher5112

At least that's an i30 out.......

Del2005

grogi wrote: »

Closure of right lane from 22-4 - hardly any disruption...

For the one person operating the hedge cutter you're going to need at least 5 others keeping them safe. A visual barrier is badly needed on motorways but it doesn't have to be a hedge. All that is needed is a fence with the same cost to install, or maybe less considering that the M50 is all concrete barriers so would need substantial soil for a hedge to be safe and viable, with less maintenance required.

duffman3833

i get where OP is coming from, when people see flashing lights on other side of motorway they slow down for a nosy, by building a fence or something to block this view people would just carry on not knowing anything has happened on the far side

Wildly Boaring

Idiot drivers everywhere. If I was a guard I'd look for more not less lighting

twin_beacon

RobAMerc wrote: »

turning off the roof lights yea - there is no need for them, people see them dont worry : no one is going to rear end a parked squad car on the hard shoulder, they are far more likely to rear end the car in front whos braking to look across the road at whats happening or hit someone while they rubberneck themselves

I disagree, if the lights are flashing that means a guard will be leaving their car to walk up to the car they have pulled over. being a few inches away from a busy road where the speed limit is 100kph is very dangerous.

A hedge is pretty much impossible. The center divide is reinforced concrete, all that would need to be removed before the required top soil would have to be brought in. Very time consuming job, and would take months to complete.

grogi

Del2005 wrote: »

For the one person operating the hedge cutter you're going to need at least 5 others keeping them safe.

The cutting cost does not convince me... You'd need two sign trucks (one at ~500m, one at ~150m and a hedge cutter). That's three people in total.





There are other things to consider - how much fumes the plants can tolerate for instance.

A visual barrier is badly needed on motorways but it doesn't have to be a hedge. All that is needed is a fence with the same cost to install, or maybe less considering that the M50 is all concrete barriers so would need substantial soil for a hedge to be safe and viable, with less maintenance required.

I absolutely get that. I don't know M50 well enough and planting a hedge at M50 might not be feasible.

However the roads need to be designed with green areas in mind. Our roads are bad enough as they are - there is hardly any landscaping done once they are finished. Building them green brings enormous benefit - green is known to calm drivers down, reduce noise levels escaping the motorway etc.

savagethegoat

As those photos show, there is much more danger on the carriageway that the obstruction is on. Truly daft idea ,planting hedges

Wildly Boaring

grogi wrote: »

The cutting cost does not convince me... You'd need two sign trucks (one at ~500m, one at ~150m and a hedge cutter). That's three people in total.

Actually one at 1km, one at 500m, one at 250m and one in the cushion =4
2 no hedgecutters

As I said earlier you need to close the lanes in both directions to cut a hedge in such a narrow median as the debris would be all over cars on the other side.

markpb

Caliden wrote: »

110m generated annually from the tolls. There's no shortage of money.

€50m a year goes to NTR to pay for the buy-out of the Westlink contract.
€14m a year goes to Sanef to pay for the operation of the toll.
Almost €8m a year goes to subsidise the M3 and Limerick tunnel tolls.
It costs €0.5m a year just to keep the lights on.

I don't have figures for the tow-away service, the incident response service, gritting during the winter and the ongoing maintenance of the motorway which can't be cheap considering it takes a team of about ten men to patch a pothole.

Guy:Incognito

RobAMerc wrote: »

turning off the roof lights yea - there is no need for them, people see them dont worry : no one is going to rear end a parked squad car on the hard shoulder, they are far more likely to rear end the car in front whos braking to look across the road at whats happening or hit someone while they rubberneck themselves

There's a reason why you're told to get out of your car and over the armco when you break down in the hard shoulder. Cars in hard shoulders get wiped out on motorways around the world all the time.

savagethegoat

yes, very scary place to be,

Del2005

grogi wrote: »

The cutting cost does not convince me... You'd need two sign trucks (one at ~500m, one at ~150m and a hedge cutter). That's three people in total.

One person in each of the sign trucks, on both sides of the motorway, and 3 people in the cone truck (A driver, a person to pick and place the cones and a person to unstack and stack on the back of the truck), there are semi auto cone layers so you might be able to remove 1 person. You'll need a vacuum truck or 2 for picking up debris. Then you'll need a site safety person and for work on an active motorway who knows what else. At least 8 people to cut a hegde.

We could paint the barriers green. Having people on a motorway at any time of the day or night is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.

Bandara

But if there's a hedge I won't be able to see the Hawaiian Tropic girls when they stop the bus looking for a guy to oil then up on their tour !

Sh1tbag OToole

They should make the M50 into a big beach and fill the area inside it with seawater.

ironclaw

In the UK they have large movable barriers that are easily placed near and around accidents. Nothing to see, nothing to stop for. They've saved millions already in lost time etc.

Of course, would be great if they educated people on motorways. We should have a two stage permit system like Canada e.g. The highway license, which you get after passing your primary driving test. And before anyone lamps in and say they live in the wilds, tough. If you want to drive on a piece of tarmac where your chances of living while standing on the shoulder are lower than the Green Mile in Baghdad, just take the day to do the test. Some pride in our driving would go a long way.

Markcheese

The idea of a central fence panel has merit,except it could make it feel claustrophobic... the solar panel idea is clever.. except for idiots crashing into them