South Link Road, Friday Evenings

overmantle

I need to travel from Hanley's Garden Centre to Little Island on Friday evening. I'm just wondering what time I could expect the worst of the traffic to have passed the approach to the tunnel and beyond? Around 6.00 p.m.?

Thanks in advance.

pa990

overmantle wrote: »

I need to travel from Hanley's Garden Centre to Little Island on Friday evening. I'm just wondering what time I could expect the worst of the traffic to have passed the approach to the tunnel and beyond? Around 6.00 p.m.?

Thanks in advance.

Take the South Ring to go via the tunnel,
If you need to go thru town and out the lower glanmire rd, take the South Link

If you're taking the South Ring and tunnel,on a Friday, traffic starts around 4pm ish, at 6pm the worst of traffic will be gone.

trishaaaa_X

Agree with the above! You could get lucky and sail through or there could be an incident and that could ruin everything.. I always keep a close eye to AA Roadwatch on twitter/online website and listen to Red FM for traffic updates just so I know to take an alternative route if one is backed up!

overmantle

Thanks folks. The best alternative route is to go into town and down Tivoli?

mik_da_man

overmantle wrote: »

Thanks folks. The best alternative route is to go into town and down Tivoli?

Yep, but generally at 6 the South Ring would be faster, traffic on a Friday is usually lighter at that time than during the week.
You'll get held up a bit after mahon, but nothing major barring an incident, or rain!

mik_da_man

Very bad evening for that trip!
Hope you weren't caught up in it!

Heckler

mik_da_man wrote: »

Very bad evening for that trip!
Hope you weren't caught up in it!

I was. Coming from Glanmire at around 4. Scooted off to the little Island exit when I guessed what was going on and doubled back to go the lower glanmire road way and on to the quays. Still slow. Traffic heading into glanmire from town was fecked too. Accident along there as well.

Multiple car crash west bound after the tunnel. Nearly guarantee that was caused by the low hanging sun. Its blinding heading that direction at that time of day at the moment. And cars still won't put on their lights. The car in front is invisible in that glare without lights so everyone slows down all of a sudden. Multiple rear ending I bet.

H8GHOTI

Crash heading eastbound as well near Mahon about half 4. Pretty bad damage on a couple of cars. 3 or 4 involved all together.

kcb

Ahh

The South Link

The South Ring


Two completely different roads

Pablo Escobar

kcb wrote: »

Ahh

The South Link

The South Ring


Two completely different roads

That really irritates me too. Incredibly the South Ring is referred to as the South Link more often than not. It's like The Peace Park and Bishop Lucey Park.....2 completely different parks, but BL park is more often than not referred to as The Peace Park for some reason.

TheChizler

On da links on da way to Douglas bai

JKerova1

The amount of crashes on this road and in or near the tunnel is unbelievable. I can not understand it as I don't find it a particularly dangerous road myself, but then I am used to it.

TheChizler

JKerova1 wrote: »

The amount of crashes on this road and in or near the tunnel is unbelievable. I can not understand it as I don't find it a particularly dangerous road myself, but then I am used to it.

I try to avoid it around rush hour. The number of people tailgating is genuinely unnerving. I try to leave an appropriate gap myself but someone always slots in to it.

Just look at people's brake lights. Constantly flashing. You shouldn't be braking doing 100 on a dual carriageway.

kcb

Question..

Is it legal for a tractor to crawl along the South RING at 70kmph ?

TheChizler

There's no minimum speed or vehicle restriction on a national road, so yeah.

Heckler

TheChizler wrote: »

I try to avoid it around rush hour. The number of people tailgating is genuinely unnerving. I try to leave an appropriate gap myself but someone always slots in to it.

Just look at people's brake lights. Constantly flashing. You shouldn't be braking doing 100 on a dual carriageway.

Problem is people don't know how to merge. Two slip roads between the tunnel and the magic roundabout. Guaranteed idiots slamming on at both of those.

Clowns coming off the slip roads at 30 mph. See it every day.

Shouldn't do it but when I'm coming up to those slip roads I move into the overtaking lane cos I know it going to be a brakefest.

pa990

kcb wrote: »

Question..

Is it legal for a tractor to crawl along the South RING at 70kmph ?

Completely legal.

It's an N road,

In fact, even If it was a Motorway... it would still be legal.

overmantle

mik_da_man wrote: »

Very bad evening for that trip!
Hope you weren't caught up in it!

Thanks for that. I ended up having to change my plans at the last minute so I saved myself a lot of grief, I guess.

kub

pa990 wrote: »

Completely legal.

It's an N road,

In fact, even If it was a Motorway... it would still be legal.

Tractors are designed for fields they have no business on dual carriageways. But as long as the farming lobby in this country is so strong, no politician will touch this.

mik_da_man

kub wrote: »

Tractors are designed for fields they have no business on dual carriageways. But as long as the farming lobby in this country is so strong, no politician will touch this.

Nonsense! They have every right to use the road, how else do they get from field to field?

pa990

kub wrote: »

Tractors are designed for fields they have no business on dual carriageways. But as long as the farming lobby in this country is so strong, no politician will touch this.

As long as they are 'capable ' of achieving 50kph they can drive on a motorway.

That's not to say that they have to drive at or faster than 50.
They can drive at 30 if they so wish.



Although.. I do believe that they should not be allowed on motorways..... having said that, the South Ring rd, is a National route . It's open for cars ,trucks bikes ,dog walkers, everyone.

And that's fine by me

j8wk2feszrnpao

kub wrote: »

Tractors are designed for fields .......

Tractors are designed for fields and for road use. Hence the requirement for licence plates and road tax.

ScrubsfanChris

kub wrote: »

Tractors are designed for fields they have no business on dual carriageways. But as long as the farming lobby in this country is so strong, no politician will touch this.

Tractors and other farming machinery have been using the roads for lot longer than average Joe has had a car. They have every right.

kub

ScrubsfanChris wrote: »

Tractors and other farming machinery have been using the roads for lot longer than average Joe has had a car. They have every right.

Every right to crawl along the driving lane and hold everyone up on one of the busiest roads in the country?
I have no issues with tractors using roads per say, but how many farms are there between The Tunnel and Wilton where i seem to see mostly on the N40.
Or is it that a lot of farmers in East Cork own farms out around Curraheen as well? If that is the case, then i get it.

kcb

It may be legal but it's deadly dangerous. Like above I don't know what farms are around the South Ring that cannot be accessed by using back roads.

Is it possible that these tractors are not serving farms at all? Is there something about tractors being cheaper for construction companies to get on the road?

j8wk2feszrnpao

kcb wrote: »

It may be legal but it's deadly dangerous.

Can you provide the data that shows it's deadly dangerous? You know, the stats and figures that prove this statement?

kcb wrote: »

Like above I don't know what farms are around the South Ring that cannot be accessed by using back roads.

And if you ended up behind them on a back road, you'd complain they should be on the dual carriageway.

kcb wrote: »

Is it possible that these tractors are not serving farms at all? Is there something about tractors being cheaper for construction companies to get on the road?

That makes no sense.

The reason why you get held up by them is because of poor drivers. There's an overtaking lane to pass them out. But people tend to switch off when driving, speeding up the ass of a slower moving vehicle (such as a tractor) and moving out late causing those behind to brake and the chain effect that has.
I'm sure we've all experienced it (http://www.npr.org/2013/11/29/247825768/phantom-traffic-jams-what-causes-mysterious-highway-backups), driving along, suddenly traffic crawls, and then it disappears; no tractors or crashes, just the usual bad driving behaviors.

kub

Tara Shrilling Muck wrote:

The reason why you get held up by them is because of poor drivers. There's an overtaking lane to pass them out. But people tend to switch off when driving, speeding up the ass of a slower moving vehicle (such as a tractor) and moving out late causing those behind to brake and the chain effect that has. I'm sure we've all experienced it (

So you mentioned 2 things at fault there, the switched off drivers which I agree with.
But if that slow vehicle was not there in the first instance, there would be no issue.

kub

Tara Shrilling Muck wrote:

And if you ended up behind them on a back road, you'd complain they should be on the dual carriageway.

Well personally I don't mind them, once when they have an opportunity to get out of the way.
It's them being on the N40 is what I have issues with.

Actually does anyone know, legally are they allowed to be driving around on public roads and burning red diesel? As in the stuff that is cheaper than the forecourt diesel.

kcb

Tara Shrilling Muck wrote: »

Can you provide the data that shows it's deadly dangerous? You know, the stats and figures that prove this statement?


And if you ended up behind them on a back road, you'd complain they should be on the dual carriageway.


That makes no sense.

The reason why you get held up by them is because of poor drivers. There's an overtaking lane to pass them out. But people tend to switch off when driving, speeding up the ass of a slower moving vehicle (such as a tractor) and moving out late causing those behind to brake and the chain effect that has.
I'm sure we've all experienced it (http://www.npr.org/2013/11/29/247825768/phantom-traffic-jams-what-causes-mysterious-highway-backups), driving along, suddenly traffic crawls, and then it disappears; no tractors or crashes, just the usual bad driving behaviors.

Jesus wept! There's always one!

I don't have stats! I just think it's dangerous.

I wouldn't complain about a tractor on a back road.

In fairness to you (!) you're right about bad driving. But that'll always be there. And with bad driving then a tractor causes danger.

Pablo Escobar

Tara Shrilling Muck wrote: »

Can you provide the data that shows it's deadly dangerous? You know, the stats and figures that prove this statement?


And if you ended up behind them on a back road, you'd complain they should be on the dual carriageway.


That makes no sense.

The reason why you get held up by them is because of poor drivers. There's an overtaking lane to pass them out. But people tend to switch off when driving, speeding up the ass of a slower moving vehicle (such as a tractor) and moving out late causing those behind to brake and the chain effect that has.
I'm sure we've all experienced it (http://www.npr.org/2013/11/29/247825768/phantom-traffic-jams-what-causes-mysterious-highway-backups), driving along, suddenly traffic crawls, and then it disappears; no tractors or crashes, just the usual bad driving behaviors.

Tbf if you know the N40 at all, you know that getting opportunities to move to the overtaking lane are at a premium. Never mind when you're forced to slow to 50kph. That's when your suggestion to overtake becomes dangerous.

j8wk2feszrnpao

kub wrote: »

But if that slow vehicle was not there in the first instance, there would be no issue.

You mean the vehicle that's legally right to be there? Until the rules change, they are not the ones at fault,