Can't walk on country roads anymore

The villages have existed for hundreds of years. Even if you say someone should only be allowed build in villages those people need to be able to travel from village to village. Quadcopters are not in use so the road between villages have legitimate reasons for existing and should be maintained to a minimum standard irrespective of whether there are a hundred houses on those roads outside Village limits or none.

Don't scapegoat owners of one off housing. They ceded ground at the front of their sites, provided sight lines, paid development levies and got no infrastructure investment in return.

Co. Co. underinvestment in a road which needs to exist in any case is the problem.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118558698#Comment_118558698

Saw him at the last minute alright, had to swerve the car to avoid, the person that told me abot him was a careful driver, professional lorry driver.

I came on three people walking one night, no hivis, a couple torches shining on the ground was all they had, I put up my lights after meeting a car,.... had I left the lights on dim I would've got it difficult to avoid hitting them

even avoiding deer, foxes, hares and badgers is a problem because the undergrowth is spilling out on to the road.

Here each night I usually come across deer while driving through the woods but the speed limit on my road is 30kmph so if I ever crash in to them it will be my fault.

Hurrache

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118559308#Comment_118559308

Torches are better than high vis. If you think you were never going to see people holding torches and using only your dimmed lights, the issue maybe isn't with them.

Ubbquittious

Go away out of that, is there any topic you and your fellow trolls won't shoehorn a rant against "one off houses" and "McMansions" into? Even if everyone is horsed into Soviet-style high-rise apartments just like in your fantasy it still won't make the roads any safer to walk on. This idea that you can solve the world's problems by shoving everyone into towns and villages despite them not wanting to live there needs to die.

wrangler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118559490#Comment_118559490

Torches are no good if pointed down, If people want to take risks, it's just that, a risk, like betting with your life or worse

timmymagoo

The reason the small country lanes are dangerous has zero to do with farmers or even truckers and has everything to with how some people drive their cars

This sizable minority are the most ignorant of people whether behind wheel or not

When I meet these pr1cks I go to the middle to slow them down, it's the only way

You have cars going 80k plus on country roads where in reality 60k is appropriate

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118559557#Comment_118559557

There won't be any country side if everyone lives in the country and expects access roads to their houses. There will be a huge influx into Ireland in the coming decades. So, we can plan for that or have urban sprawl everywhere.

Where I live we had country side to the back of us. Now it's housing estates joining two towns, heavy dangerous traffic. And that happened in 5 years. Once the roads get in the developers follow.

Do you want a country side or not ?

https://youtu.be/1vrEljMfXYo

https://youtu.be/xWwUJH70ubM

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118559747#Comment_118559747

That influx might never happen. Remember all the Polish people who were supposed to arrive at the end of the tiger? Also what is the point in importing more people? Just to make life harder for those already here?

Gile_na_gile

I always think of the second song SuperBowserWorld shared when I think of how Ireland's urban and rural development has proceeded since the 1970s. You can either have quiet country roads linking farms (not the N or larger R roads where you rarely get permission to build these days) or you can allow each person and their uncle and aunt their own 20 hectare parcel and large house on every laneway. Meanwhile, the villages and towns are often depopulating, businesses are closing, buildings derelict everywhere including on rural roads, and people cannot see what is happening right in front of their faces. If non-farming people must build in a field, then they should build in little clusters that can grow into new villages.

Anyway, for calming rural traffic it not feasible to upgrade every road. Each local road should have a maximum growth point after which no new houses are allowed. For walking, which whether you are living in a one-off or in a village, I think the solution would be to build a network of footpaths with right of way off the roads themselves like in England and the Netherlands. Like greenways but not following existing canals or railways.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118559034#Comment_118559034

Not so sure about that idea! Apart from ripping out the ditches to do this, people would just drive faster. We live on a narrow enough road, I walk it a couple of times every day. On the straighter bits, I just walk in the middle of the road. That's the best defensive mechanism, be ready to jump in but wait till the car is obliged to slow down and then step in and wave. If you see them coming and go to the ditch too soon, the f***ers will just fly past.

There's a woman new to the area this past year or so, always in a hurry to work after dropping the kids off. Drives a beemer a touch too wide for the road and goes that bit faster than prudence would allow, given lads can be coming around a bend with a tractor and load. She did it once too often one morning and it wiped the smile off her face. Slowed down for a while but I see her edging back up again.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118560214#Comment_118560214

20 hectare with road frontage. Are you aiming for Siberian levels of desolation?

roosterman71

I got back into the running this year. Usual mix of N and R roads, with a few L roads mixed in too. N roads, normally fine, especially ones with a hard shoulder. R roads are a death trap. The amount of cars driving towards me and only pulling out when they are 10m away is insane. Even moreso when there's no cars coming in the opposite direction.

If there is no cars coming the opposite way, there's no reason whatsoever that you can't pull out in time and go to the other side of the road. Ya wouldn't even need to slow down! But jaysus, clowns just barely moving out, often times not even hitting the white line (if there is one) when meeting me is insane. Utterly, insane. As a result, when I see a car coming now, I'll move out half metre or so from the hedge to force them to either slow if traffic oncoming, or go across the line. I find if they cross the line at all, they'll go much more across it.

magicbastarder

same reason when cycling you're advised not to hug the side of the road.

GandhiwasfromBallyfermot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118560695#Comment_118560695

You just perfectly described what cyclists describe as 'defensive riding' and is usually exactly what we are practicing when drivers complain a cyclist is riding in the middle of the road.

knipex

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118554948#Comment_118554948

So young fellas and ladies never drove fast in Rural Ireland until the collapse of law and order ?

I grew up and learnt to drive in Rural Ireland. Got my license in the early 90's. Drink driving was still endemic back then, fellas used to get a taxi from the town back to the local where the car was parked and they were off the "main roads" could and drive the last couple of miles on the back roads. And they were the responsible ones. My generation was really the first that didnt drink and drive (all though a significant minority still did)

Speeding was everywhere, especially on back roads where the gardai wouldn't have a check point. Seat belts...dream on It was early 2000's before seat belt wearing became second nature

And the generation before me were worse no insurance, No license, driving on public roads at 15, drink driving bald tyres, rusted out wrecks, cut n shuts.

Collapse of law and order must have been in the 50s

Gile_na_gile

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118560522#Comment_118560522

Was talking out my rear with that....! Meant 0.2 Ha which is the usual minimal plot size planners permit for new houses in the open countryside these days. Then there are the rest of the things you mentioned earlier for vehicles (setback, splayed entrance, sightlines).

Ave Sodalis

The roads have definitely become more dangerous, and busier. I live in the countryside and have done all my life. Our road doesn't really go anywhere. Despite this, it's gone from having one or two cars a week on it, to multiple a day. One person in particular absolutely flies on it and I've seen her having to skid stop a few times.

I only feel brave enough to venture out of the horses every so often now. Not all that long ago, you'd stick a child on a quiet pony and tell them to have fun. After several near collisions (including one particular day where I came within inches of being hit around 5 times in a 20 min loop), I wouldn't let a child out even with supervision and rarely go out myself.

Then on the other hand, I've noticed a definite increase in people who simply can't drive on country roads. Only yesterday, I was stuck behind someone going about 20 miles an hour, slowing to 10 on corners and stopping when they met someone even if there was plenty of room to pass. There is one particularly long blind corner and the car crossed entirely to the other side of the road, as in the driver side wheels were touching the verge. I stopped completely because if they had met a car coming the other way, they would have been wiped out, no question.

There's also been an increase in those ridiculous family SUVs that hog the road. Despite the type of vehicle they are, the owners of them can't go within a foot of the sides of the road without panicking.

So yeah, the way of the roads are currently are a bit of a sore spot.

Stark

I think the likes of Google Maps/sat navs is probably making the problem worse. Quite often Google Maps has directed me down previously quiet narrow country roads when the main route would only have been a few minutes slower. Like recently travelling from Limerick to Kenmare, I plugged in directions and it directed me this crazy backroads way nearly all the way there even though the N22/N21 would have been much safer if a little slower.

Hurrache

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118560695#Comment_118560695

What I do if I think an oncoming car is not going to give me the space they need to is hold out my arm and hand as if I'm pointing out into the middle of the road. I also tend to run out from the edge too. It focuses their minds a little more, even if just to have them think WTF is this eejit on the road doing.

GandhiwasfromBallyfermot

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118560902#Comment_118560902

Cars getting bigger and bigger is definitely a problem on roads that have remained largely unchanged since the 50's. Massive SUVs and american style ford ranger trucks should be heavily taxed to discourage use with the usual exemptions for commercial vehicles or where they are registered to a business with a need for them.

magicbastarder

it happens maybe once a month when i'm out on the bike and some idiot decides to overtake me on a blind bend, but i can see an oncoming car they can't see (or possibly don't care about); so i shoot my hand out, palm backwards, fingers splayed; a clear warning signal.

about five times in the last year the reaction to this signal has been for them to floor the car. and i think two or three times has resulted in the oncoming motorist having had to stand on the brakes and come to a complete standstill.

Ave Sodalis

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118561157#Comment_118561157

I wouldn't even mind them getting bigger (okay, tell a lie, having those lights exactly at eye level is very difficult to share a road with) if they'd realise they are in something designed to go off road, so they can use a perfectly solid pull in area and not force the cars that are only supposed to stay on the road up onto the ditch.

roosterman71

Most of those SUV yokes aren't designed for off road. Glorified car on stilts a lot of them. France are starting to tax vehicles over 1800kg upon registration in an effort to curb size and the associated environmental impacts of having to power a bigger piece of metal around than is necessary

elperello

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118561157#Comment_118561157

Most of them are commercial.

Tax is already high for big private SUVs.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118559695#Comment_118559695

"When I meet these pr1cks I go to the middle to slow them down, it's the only way"

Assuming you are a cyclist, I think we have met, briefly.

Do you mean the middle of the lane or the middle of an R road?

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118560327#Comment_118560327

I wasn't talking about lanes with grass growing down the middle, I meant R roads with bi-directional traffic.

A while back, a road I travelled daily started to get a lot of those insane log trucks on it; the ones that drive out from the hedge because of those tall side spikes they don't want to clip on a big tree branch, so are 25% into the oncoming lane. I very nearly got cleaned up by one of these and thought to myself someone is going to be killed by those idiots.

Sure enough, about a week later, someone local was killed in a collision with a logging truck - it could easily have been the one that near clipped me. There are trucks that are too wide and too tall using R roads that are just not wide enough for them.

Anto_Meath

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118555079#Comment_118555079

I was on today, from Meath to Limerick, seen some of worst driving / overtaking / ignorance I have seen in a long time & I do about 1,000 mile a week. It's unique when it comes to drivers not having patients.

jimmythesulk

Not enough guards in rural areas anymore.

charlesanto

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118561216#Comment_118561216

so you're blocking the road and its someones fault

GandhiwasfromBallyfermot

He's not blocking the road he's using the road and other road users need to wait until oncoming traffic is clear and safe before overtaking

malinheader

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118562998#Comment_118562998

Just listening to my local radio station yesterday, a gardai representative was on saying a certain busy gardai station in Donegal has no gardai vehicle since before Christmas and alot of the vehicles in Donegal are classed end of life and no replacement vehicles are available. You would be very unlucky to be caught for dangerous driving up here.

Still stihl waters 3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118563140#Comment_118563140

Obviously not what was said

_Brian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118556338#Comment_118556338

I’ll put my hand up to that in fairness. Fitting larger engines with huge carbs, wide wheels, no furry dice though

different times on the roads though, since then traffic volumes have exploded. Society has changed to walk and cycle more too.

K.G.

Slightly off topic but related to pedestrian safety,the number of cars we re meeting with 1 dip beam blown. It's seems to be very common this year

thefallingman

Everyone has an oversized suv now, there’s just no room left on the road

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118563140#Comment_118563140

Try reading this before you think of driving: https://www.rsa.ie/docs/default-source/services/s1.8-learner-driver-resources/rules-of-the-road-2020.pdf

i cycle regularly in west county Sligo and though try to stay on local roads, through the Ox mountains etc, there are inevitably sections on regional roads. The speed and impatience of drivers now is just astonishing. Motorway speed is common, and drivers will drive right up onto your wheel in an attempt to get around, then overtake into oncoming traffic or on corners and have to cut you off. There’s often no shoulder and even as a very experienced cyclist I feel intimidated as hell.

I don’t know what is wrong with people that they have become so impatient

magicbastarder

they've been sold the dream of open roads, fording streams, and driving up mountains in their SUVs. instead they're doing a run to the local lidl for cheap nappies.

Beechwoodspark

I do a lot of driving on rural roads around Mid/east Leinster and things are gone from bad to worse.

Lot of the big SUVs out hogging the middle of the road afraid to drive near the verge in case the alloys get scraped.

when I am clearing a corner I would take a very defensive approach as I’ve had too many close encounters over the last few years.

Danno

There are alot of problems to be addressed to make our rural roads safer. Up to now a lot of investment in N roads has made many of these safer, but the high number N routes still need further investment.

Without a hard shoulder it is lethal for a pedestrian or cyclist to use roads in the majority of cases. R roads are the worst, one-off housing, hedgerows spilling over the edge of roads, narrow roads, etc... it's a nightmare.

There needs to be a law passed that requires all roadworks to include a separated cycle and walking lane on at least one side of the road. Rip out the hedgerows and replant one back in towards the field. They will regrow and wildlife will resettle in a few years. It needs to be done and it will pi$$ off a few folk, but it would be worth it.

magicbastarder

if you widen the roads, people drive faster.

plus, the cost of CPOing land to widen roads on that scale would be ruinous.

and it's not lethal in the majority of cases to cycle country roads, but it's more than understandable why people would come away thinking this having attempted it.

Gary kk

The Freshford Road into kilkenny is full of bends and busy but there are always cyclist on it. Its to narrow for cars and bikes I just think some poor person is going to swiped one of these days

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118559490#Comment_118559490

Use both why not? They're both cheap to buy these days, ffs they even give hi vis vests away for free, no excuse.

A car hitting you at only 30mph while you're gowling around in the dark with dark clothes will still do a fair bit of damage.

Hurrache

I think the whole "SUV" thing is a scape goat for reasons that aren't always true (I don't own one). "Big SUVS" aren't necessarily bigger, other than in height, than many saloons and estates that are on the road, they footprint isn't much, if at all, bigger. It's all down to what you define as an SUV, a Range Rover, big Volvo yokes, certainly, but your standard Qashqai segment probably don't take up any more space than many other cars that are deemed acceptable.

It's the standard of driving that's the problem, not always what they're driving.

magicbastarder

i do think SUVs are a safety concern, but more so in urban/suburban contexts (precisely because of the height); but people feel safer driving SUVs, and i'd bet my bottom dollar that leads to higher speeds. how much higher, i don't know.

Hurrache

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118563825#Comment_118563825

Ask the RSA, the biggest pimps of a bit of material, for their evidence and research as to why I should wear one to increase my safety. You won't get any.

All it does is feed attitudes like yours, these magic vests will stop me getting hit by a car, as it'll be my fault if I ever do.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118563782#Comment_118563782

If there are always cyclists on it then other traffic should factor that in to their driving. A cyclist is part of traffic and has as much right to use the road as drivers.

The problem as this thread is showing is that many people who drive believe that they don't want to share the road with other users, particularly vulnerable users. They are the issue that needs to be dealt with, not someone on a bike. Unfortunately, the main reason that this entitled behaviour has increased is mainly because of a lack of any kind of meaningful enforcement of our existing road traffic laws.

Next time you are out in a town or village. Watch the number of drivers speeding, even up to a set of lights. Watch their behaviour towards pedestrians. What happens when the lights change from green to orange and then red - how many cars went through? What about bus lanes and turning left? How many drivers were holding their phone? We have tolerated this behaviour so long that it is pretty much normalised now.

gooseman12

Speeding is the issue we can't walk on country roads anymore.

Everything else, ditches, cyclists, SUVs, tractors, walkers, torches, high-vis don't really matter.

If everyone slowed down, we could walk on the roads again and it would be perfectly safe.

Probably the biggest mistake in the switch over from miles to km was the blanket setting of all country roads at 80kph. The default should really have been 60kph, especially on L roads, with exceptions made to 80kph where the conditions suited that speed.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118563947#Comment_118563947

As someone who used to be a compulsive speeder whilst driving, the posted limit meant pretty much nothing if there was no enforcement.