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Anyone that thinks this is going to change anything in Ireland has never driven around Ireland. To say speed limits as taken as an amusing suggestion here is th

Anyone that thinks this is going to change anything in Ireland has never driven around Ireland. To say speed limits as taken as an amusing suggestion here is the biggest understatement I’m going to make all day.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
The other side of the announcement was an increase in the amount of enforcement using mobile speed cameras. I suspect that'll make more of an impact.
Mandatum 3y ago
Same issues in New Zealand. Good roads capable of driving fast, but there’s too much traffic and they should have invested in infrastructure 30 years ago.
cameronh90 3y ago
In the UK we're starting to install average speed cameras in lots of places. Almost every major road in my area has an average speed camera on some stretch. And I, for one, I think it's great. It's not a popular position but I'm a speed limit enforcement maximalist. I think if you're going 31 in a 30, after accounting for measurement errors, there should be enforcement action. Driving is one of the most dangerous things we do so I'm not sure why we're all so blasé about breaking this particular law.
- xnx 3y ago
  Amen. Enforce the limit as written or change the limit.
- ReactiveJelly 3y ago
  Me too. There has to be a hard limit. It might as well be the posted limit. Encouraging everyone to break the law just means selective enforcement is a bigger problem. If safety depends on cars moving the same speed, then everyone else should slow down to the speed limit to match my speed. I really don't get this brinksmanship stuff. "Oh it's just 5 MPH, it's just 10 MPH." A limit was posted. The negotiation process doesn't happen _after_ the sign is put up. It's very simple. All that said, I don't like ALPRs. They're so bad for privacy. I just know that they'll be connected to the Internet and used to track people wherever they drive, many of them already are.
  - cameronh90 3y ago
    > ALPRs. They're so bad for privacy. Some countries have, or used to have, regulations saying that the devices aren't allowed to record the number plate details unless a crime is detected. I don't know how well that works since you're relying on the police to self-enforce that. The UK doesn't have any such regulations and has fully embraced ANPR. They are being deployed everywhere now, for speed limit and red light enforcement, implementing toll roads and zones, enforcing modal filters, detecting cars reported in crime, detecting cars without insurance/tax/inspection, etc. and much of it is being converted to report to the "National ANPR Data Centre". I wouldn't say I'm pleased about the privacy implications, but most people here are fine with it and seem to derive more benefit from it than harm. Vehicle crime is one of the UK's biggest problems, and I know several people who've had their stolen cars recovered thanks to the system, and ~everyone supports cracking down on uninsured drivers. It's become more controversial lately due to low emissions zones and the potential future introduction of road pricing, but that isn't really a push back for privacy reasons. I just think in the UK, people don't have a cultural expectation of privacy when driving.
    - sixstringtheory 3y ago
      > potential future introduction of road pricing Interesting, because in the states, similar infrastructure is being deployed specifically for road pricing. I assume then we can start working on the more sensible uses you describe, but don’t have high hopes that it will be easy or quick.
      - acdha 3y ago
        That seems very sensible: in the United States driving is massively subsidized but even with so much general fund revenue we have more road infrastructure than we can maintain because cars don’t scale well. Shifting the cost back to the direct users will both provide desperately needed maintenance funds and reduce congestion by deterring low-value trips.
        sixstringtheory 3y ago
- petercooper 3y ago
  I think if you're going 31 in a 30, after accounting for measurement errors Sure, it is a limit rather than a recommendation. In terms of statute, anyway. Almost every social or legal convention in the UK pragmatically treats it as a recommended speed for some unknown reason and you could even pick up the attention of the police doing 40mph in a NSL on a bad day. (I even recall my driving instructor telling me I should "do the speed limit" unless I had good reason not to!) Getting older, I'm in support of your idea, though. Stick the cruise control on at 50mph and see how big an entourage could be mustered with no easy way to overtake. It could almost be as fun as speeding was. I've long assumed this is the way lorry drivers keep things interesting..
  - cameronh90 3y ago
    I've found that this seems to entirely depend on who taught you to drive, and perhaps to some degree where you learnt to drive. In rural areas, almost everywhere is NSL but you'd die in pretty short order if you drove at 60 on tiny rural roads. My instructor very much taught me that it's a limit rather than a recommendation, however, that's also balanced out with the minor fault of "making progress". Obviously if someone just drives at 5mph everywhere then they're clearly not a competent driver, but there's definitely a grey area. My instructor said as a rule of thumb, on a clear day, clear straight road without any hazards, you should be within 5mph of the limit on the test, but that otherwise, examiners are relatively tolerant of driving below the limit. As far as the police go, I think it's because people driving slow is generally suspicious of perhaps them being a drunk driver or some other issue with their competence or road worthiness. I was once driving at 40mph on a dual carriageway in Scotland and got pulled over, but I explained to the police that I was just low on fuel due to a number of closed petrol stations, so I'm trying to conserve fuel by driving at the speed I get the best economy otherwise I won't make it to Inverness. They were completely satisfied with that and let me on my way.
    - petercooper 3y ago
      The "solution" (until we get self driving cars, anyway) may well lie in the automatic speed limiters the EU are pushing and hope to make mandatory in the next few years. I'd really love to defer as much liability for speeding to my car as possible. It knows what the speed limits are, it can read signs, I just need a button that prevents it going over that speed and lets me otherwise drive however I like.. but we're not quite there yet.
- linuxftw 3y ago
  If you want people to obey the speed limit, pay them more money. You don't need to speed to work or home if you live within a reasonable commuting distance of your office. You don't need to speed to go to some recreation activity if you make enough to actually enjoy your leisure time.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    It's not the government's job to pay people more (beyond the public sector obviously), and while they can do certain things to improve commutes, reduce working hours, or increase holidays… I don't have any reason to believe those are the reasons for the rush. (My belief may be biased by a certain person I used to know: he was driving one of two vehicles with me and my friends to an event that wouldn't start until both arrived; I asked why he was doing 98 mph (UK speed limit 70), and his answer was "If I was going faster I might have to waste time with a court case to prove I wasn't driving dangerously" rather than to slow down. The other vehicle was driven by someone who obeyed the speed limit, and we started at the same time and place).
    - linuxftw 3y ago
      Sure, there's a handful of crazies out on the road, but the majority of speeders are due to economic incentives. It's called 'rush hour' for a reason.
      - acdha 3y ago
        The majority speed because it feels fun to stomp on the accelerator. If you compare door to door travel times, they’re almost always paying a good bit more - and maximizing their risk to everyone else - for a tiny fraction of the total travel time, especially at rush hour.
- glimshe 3y ago
  Yes - but in some places the limits are set unrealistically low under the assumption that people will drive above the limit. Let's use common sense and data to figure out where the limits should be, and then enforce them strictly.
- thworp 3y ago
  There are good reasons why someone might temporarily be breaking the speed limit, that are even accepted legal defences in some countries (if you have enough proof). Biggest one is just merging / changing lanes. Often you have to go 10 or 20 over the limit to merge without impeding a lane of traffic. I sometimes see people stopping(!) at the end of a merging lane when there was a perfectly good gap they could have gotten by just speeding up. Trying to merge from a dead stop onto an 80kph+ road is more dangerous than going 90 fore sure. Another one is on 2-lane roads. You catch up to a truck/lorry and see a gap. The gap is big enough to get the overtake done, but you instinctively go faster to make the whole thing less of a close call. Is society really helped if every truck has a 20-car queue behind it because people are afraid they'll get fined if they help traffic flow? On a more general note, I agree that there needs to better enforcement. However, better enforcement to me includes removing all the sneaky money-making schemes you see in the wild. They put a speed limit sign on the wrong side of the road, behind bushes or behind street-side parking (often making the limit non-enforceable legally), put up a speed camera and cash in on people that won't defend themselves. That shit has to stop, put those ressources on deadly country roads, in front of schools and other accident hotspots instead. While we're at it, do more preventative traffic stops. It's not right that blind grandma or psychotic grandson have to seriously hurt someone before anything happens. Little anecdote here: I passed my driving exam despite going 30kph over the limit while overtaking a tractor. I just told the examiner that I was trained to leave the opposite lane asap, slowed down as soon as I noticed how fast I was going and there was no issue.
  - cameronh90 3y ago
    In the UK there is no legal tolerance for going over the speed limit to overtake or merge. The only defence (and not even technically a defence) is that there was some emergency/duress. Some police might individually tolerate it, but it won't get you out of a fine and you'd almost certainly immediately fail your test. I'm actually kind of shocked to read that a (presumably European?) country would tolerate going 30kph over the limit on a driving test! However, the UK is fairly strict about traffic rules. You can't even go through a red light to let an ambulance through here. People have been fined for it, and their fines have been upheld at appeal. Personally, I would imagine it's very unlikely to improve safety, and have seen near crashes result from it, so I think if you're needing to go 30 kph over the limit to make the overtake, then you probably should have just waited. However, I am completely willing to accept that this is a case where evidence should outweigh anecdotes, so if there was some study and reliable data to show that this sort of a tolerance is a good idea, then we should absolutely adopt it into the law under some objective criteria. I do of course agree about malicious enforcement though. Again that's something that doesn't tend to be a big problem in the UK. Speed limits must be posted on both sides of the road to be enforceable, and if it's not the default limit (e.g. 30 in a built up area), there will be repeater signs every 200 metres or so. Plus we tend to also paint the limits on the road, and speed cameras are painted yellow and have a sign telling you that there are cameras, often with a reminder of the limit. You do occasionally get situations where the signs are obscured by trees, especially now that maintenance budgets have been cut, but you can use that to get out of the fine. My experience driving around the UK is that it's really rare that I don't know what the limit is, and if I don't, 99% of the time it's my fault for not paying attention.
Spooky23 3y ago
I never thought I’d be on a road narrower than farm roads at home with two way traffic going highway speeds. Then i found myself backing into a hedge to avoid a large speeding tour bus in Ireland!
1letterunixname 3y ago
As freeways go in the States: (state of) Montana (drive whatever speed you want); Austin, LA, and SAC (avg speed is 90) are the same. As strict enforcement without the leniency of warnings go: most rural areas in the States because city and county revenue heavily depends on speeding tickets and fining home owners for petty infractions. The most essential enforcement is in the areas: 1) residential 2) residential/commercial Another racket is HOV/toll-lanes (also known as yuppie-scofflaw lanes) because they create more traffic, create dangers of speed differentials, and penalize people by socioeconomic strata. I wished the US adopted day-fines. [1] 1. https://lawreview.uchicago.edu/print-archive/constitutionality-income-based-fines https://lawreview.uchicago.edu/print-archive/constitutionali... PS: I haven't driven around Ireland (yet). As a general principle, I don't drive in other countries because of the insurance liability and idiosyncrasies in driving conventions and laws. RHD<->LHD can also be a hurdle to some.

bryanlarsen 3y ago

The other side of the announcement was an increase in the amount of enforcement using mobile speed cameras. I suspect that'll make more of an impact.

Mandatum 3y ago

Same issues in New Zealand. Good roads capable of driving fast, but there’s too much traffic and they should have invested in infrastructure 30 years ago.

cameronh90 3y ago

In the UK we're starting to install average speed cameras in lots of places. Almost every major road in my area has an average speed camera on some stretch. And I, for one, I think it's great. It's not a popular position but I'm a speed limit enforcement maximalist. I think if you're going 31 in a 30, after accounting for measurement errors, there should be enforcement action. Driving is one of the most dangerous things we do so I'm not sure why we're all so blasé about breaking this particular law.

xnx 3y ago
Amen. Enforce the limit as written or change the limit.
ReactiveJelly 3y ago
Me too. There has to be a hard limit. It might as well be the posted limit. Encouraging everyone to break the law just means selective enforcement is a bigger problem. If safety depends on cars moving the same speed, then everyone else should slow down to the speed limit to match my speed. I really don't get this brinksmanship stuff. "Oh it's just 5 MPH, it's just 10 MPH." A limit was posted. The negotiation process doesn't happen _after_ the sign is put up. It's very simple. All that said, I don't like ALPRs. They're so bad for privacy. I just know that they'll be connected to the Internet and used to track people wherever they drive, many of them already are.
- cameronh90 3y ago
  > ALPRs. They're so bad for privacy. Some countries have, or used to have, regulations saying that the devices aren't allowed to record the number plate details unless a crime is detected. I don't know how well that works since you're relying on the police to self-enforce that. The UK doesn't have any such regulations and has fully embraced ANPR. They are being deployed everywhere now, for speed limit and red light enforcement, implementing toll roads and zones, enforcing modal filters, detecting cars reported in crime, detecting cars without insurance/tax/inspection, etc. and much of it is being converted to report to the "National ANPR Data Centre". I wouldn't say I'm pleased about the privacy implications, but most people here are fine with it and seem to derive more benefit from it than harm. Vehicle crime is one of the UK's biggest problems, and I know several people who've had their stolen cars recovered thanks to the system, and ~everyone supports cracking down on uninsured drivers. It's become more controversial lately due to low emissions zones and the potential future introduction of road pricing, but that isn't really a push back for privacy reasons. I just think in the UK, people don't have a cultural expectation of privacy when driving.
  - sixstringtheory 3y ago
    > potential future introduction of road pricing Interesting, because in the states, similar infrastructure is being deployed specifically for road pricing. I assume then we can start working on the more sensible uses you describe, but don’t have high hopes that it will be easy or quick.
    - acdha 3y ago
      That seems very sensible: in the United States driving is massively subsidized but even with so much general fund revenue we have more road infrastructure than we can maintain because cars don’t scale well. Shifting the cost back to the direct users will both provide desperately needed maintenance funds and reduce congestion by deterring low-value trips.
      - sixstringtheory 3y ago
petercooper 3y ago
I think if you're going 31 in a 30, after accounting for measurement errors Sure, it is a limit rather than a recommendation. In terms of statute, anyway. Almost every social or legal convention in the UK pragmatically treats it as a recommended speed for some unknown reason and you could even pick up the attention of the police doing 40mph in a NSL on a bad day. (I even recall my driving instructor telling me I should "do the speed limit" unless I had good reason not to!) Getting older, I'm in support of your idea, though. Stick the cruise control on at 50mph and see how big an entourage could be mustered with no easy way to overtake. It could almost be as fun as speeding was. I've long assumed this is the way lorry drivers keep things interesting..
- cameronh90 3y ago
  I've found that this seems to entirely depend on who taught you to drive, and perhaps to some degree where you learnt to drive. In rural areas, almost everywhere is NSL but you'd die in pretty short order if you drove at 60 on tiny rural roads. My instructor very much taught me that it's a limit rather than a recommendation, however, that's also balanced out with the minor fault of "making progress". Obviously if someone just drives at 5mph everywhere then they're clearly not a competent driver, but there's definitely a grey area. My instructor said as a rule of thumb, on a clear day, clear straight road without any hazards, you should be within 5mph of the limit on the test, but that otherwise, examiners are relatively tolerant of driving below the limit. As far as the police go, I think it's because people driving slow is generally suspicious of perhaps them being a drunk driver or some other issue with their competence or road worthiness. I was once driving at 40mph on a dual carriageway in Scotland and got pulled over, but I explained to the police that I was just low on fuel due to a number of closed petrol stations, so I'm trying to conserve fuel by driving at the speed I get the best economy otherwise I won't make it to Inverness. They were completely satisfied with that and let me on my way.
  - petercooper 3y ago
    The "solution" (until we get self driving cars, anyway) may well lie in the automatic speed limiters the EU are pushing and hope to make mandatory in the next few years. I'd really love to defer as much liability for speeding to my car as possible. It knows what the speed limits are, it can read signs, I just need a button that prevents it going over that speed and lets me otherwise drive however I like.. but we're not quite there yet.
linuxftw 3y ago
If you want people to obey the speed limit, pay them more money. You don't need to speed to work or home if you live within a reasonable commuting distance of your office. You don't need to speed to go to some recreation activity if you make enough to actually enjoy your leisure time.
- ben_w 3y ago
  It's not the government's job to pay people more (beyond the public sector obviously), and while they can do certain things to improve commutes, reduce working hours, or increase holidays… I don't have any reason to believe those are the reasons for the rush. (My belief may be biased by a certain person I used to know: he was driving one of two vehicles with me and my friends to an event that wouldn't start until both arrived; I asked why he was doing 98 mph (UK speed limit 70), and his answer was "If I was going faster I might have to waste time with a court case to prove I wasn't driving dangerously" rather than to slow down. The other vehicle was driven by someone who obeyed the speed limit, and we started at the same time and place).
  - linuxftw 3y ago
    Sure, there's a handful of crazies out on the road, but the majority of speeders are due to economic incentives. It's called 'rush hour' for a reason.
    - acdha 3y ago
      The majority speed because it feels fun to stomp on the accelerator. If you compare door to door travel times, they’re almost always paying a good bit more - and maximizing their risk to everyone else - for a tiny fraction of the total travel time, especially at rush hour.
glimshe 3y ago
Yes - but in some places the limits are set unrealistically low under the assumption that people will drive above the limit. Let's use common sense and data to figure out where the limits should be, and then enforce them strictly.
thworp 3y ago
There are good reasons why someone might temporarily be breaking the speed limit, that are even accepted legal defences in some countries (if you have enough proof). Biggest one is just merging / changing lanes. Often you have to go 10 or 20 over the limit to merge without impeding a lane of traffic. I sometimes see people stopping(!) at the end of a merging lane when there was a perfectly good gap they could have gotten by just speeding up. Trying to merge from a dead stop onto an 80kph+ road is more dangerous than going 90 fore sure. Another one is on 2-lane roads. You catch up to a truck/lorry and see a gap. The gap is big enough to get the overtake done, but you instinctively go faster to make the whole thing less of a close call. Is society really helped if every truck has a 20-car queue behind it because people are afraid they'll get fined if they help traffic flow? On a more general note, I agree that there needs to better enforcement. However, better enforcement to me includes removing all the sneaky money-making schemes you see in the wild. They put a speed limit sign on the wrong side of the road, behind bushes or behind street-side parking (often making the limit non-enforceable legally), put up a speed camera and cash in on people that won't defend themselves. That shit has to stop, put those ressources on deadly country roads, in front of schools and other accident hotspots instead. While we're at it, do more preventative traffic stops. It's not right that blind grandma or psychotic grandson have to seriously hurt someone before anything happens. Little anecdote here: I passed my driving exam despite going 30kph over the limit while overtaking a tractor. I just told the examiner that I was trained to leave the opposite lane asap, slowed down as soon as I noticed how fast I was going and there was no issue.
- cameronh90 3y ago
  In the UK there is no legal tolerance for going over the speed limit to overtake or merge. The only defence (and not even technically a defence) is that there was some emergency/duress. Some police might individually tolerate it, but it won't get you out of a fine and you'd almost certainly immediately fail your test. I'm actually kind of shocked to read that a (presumably European?) country would tolerate going 30kph over the limit on a driving test! However, the UK is fairly strict about traffic rules. You can't even go through a red light to let an ambulance through here. People have been fined for it, and their fines have been upheld at appeal. Personally, I would imagine it's very unlikely to improve safety, and have seen near crashes result from it, so I think if you're needing to go 30 kph over the limit to make the overtake, then you probably should have just waited. However, I am completely willing to accept that this is a case where evidence should outweigh anecdotes, so if there was some study and reliable data to show that this sort of a tolerance is a good idea, then we should absolutely adopt it into the law under some objective criteria. I do of course agree about malicious enforcement though. Again that's something that doesn't tend to be a big problem in the UK. Speed limits must be posted on both sides of the road to be enforceable, and if it's not the default limit (e.g. 30 in a built up area), there will be repeater signs every 200 metres or so. Plus we tend to also paint the limits on the road, and speed cameras are painted yellow and have a sign telling you that there are cameras, often with a reminder of the limit. You do occasionally get situations where the signs are obscured by trees, especially now that maintenance budgets have been cut, but you can use that to get out of the fine. My experience driving around the UK is that it's really rare that I don't know what the limit is, and if I don't, 99% of the time it's my fault for not paying attention.

Spooky23 3y ago

I never thought I’d be on a road narrower than farm roads at home with two way traffic going highway speeds. Then i found myself backing into a hedge to avoid a large speeding tour bus in Ireland!

1letterunixname 3y ago

As freeways go in the States: (state of) Montana (drive whatever speed you want); Austin, LA, and SAC (avg speed is 90) are the same. As strict enforcement without the leniency of warnings go: most rural areas in the States because city and county revenue heavily depends on speeding tickets and fining home owners for petty infractions. The most essential enforcement is in the areas: 1) residential 2) residential/commercial Another racket is HOV/toll-lanes (also known as yuppie-scofflaw lanes) because they create more traffic, create dangers of speed differentials, and penalize people by socioeconomic strata. I wished the US adopted day-fines. [1] 1. https://lawreview.uchicago.edu/print-archive/constitutionality-income-based-fines https://lawreview.uchicago.edu/print-archive/constitutionali... PS: I haven't driven around Ireland (yet). As a general principle, I don't drive in other countries because of the insurance liability and idiosyncrasies in driving conventions and laws. RHD<->LHD can also be a hurdle to some.