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December 09, 2004

Comments

Jon Ihle

Fascinating. I've noticed something similar at certain intersection which is normally jammed at rush hour - except when the traffic lights are down. Also, Garda-directed traffic is invariably slower than either undirected traffic or traffic directed by lights and signals.

John

I don't think the two situations are comparable - crash barriers on the motorway vs traffic signals at an intersection, but it's interesting. Why not just remove the speed limits and lane markings on the N1 (although, most of it is motorway now, I bet that stretch between the border and Dundalk would still be pretty hairy if all restrictions were removed - it's pretty hairy with restrictions).

Frank McGahon

Well, I suppose one link between the two is that drivers often underestimate risk, imagining they are safer than they actually are in the event of a collision. If you make it seem to them that the road is safer, this increases this faux-invulnerability and invites them to be a little bit more reckless.

As for the stretch from Dundalk to the border - the worst part of it is going through Dundalk and have to negotiate the battery of roundabouts, traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, and now recently added to the junction between Avenue road and the Inner relief road, the uniquely Irish solution of a roundabout with traffic lights! The only problems between Dundalk and the border is if something is going on at Jonesborough/Carrickarnon, otherwise it's plain sailing until you hit the interminable tailback at Newry (caused by the bunch of ill-coordinated traffic lights beside the Buttercrane and Quay shopping centres).

John

Frank, my experience of driving the N1 is that you take your life in your hands when you head north from Dundalk. This situation exists pretty much all the way to the M1 near the Sprucefield Shopipng Center (have I got that right). The A1 is also deadly, mostly due to the odd intersections that the road has.

Doing the limit, 60MPH on the N1 (either direction, obviously), means you're going to be passed by all other cars, vans, trucks and even farmers' tractors. I always found the speed along that stretch to be breath-taking. Maybe it's worse if you don't really know the road.

Frank McGahon

Well the only section of this road within the republic which is not motorway is a few miles north of Dundalk. This is just a two lane road over the mountains to Newry and I wouldn't consider it particularly dangerous. The old N1 which is now bypassed by the M1 (and which I used to commute every day about ten years ago) had a load of really dangerous spots, for example at Dunleer and Gormanstown and massive snarlups going through Balbriggan and Drogheda. As for the road north of the border - once you get past Newry it is mostly dual carriageway (although there are one or two hairy two lane bends ) to the Sprucefield at Lisburn where you pick up the motorway.

The absolute worst road is anywhere to Cavan - Dundalk to Cavan is particularly bad but Dublin to Cavan is pretty bad too.

Adam

I had heard of this experiment before, and what I find interesting is that the whole world of traffic engineering grew up in parallel with the welfare state here in the UK, and works in a similar way: people's behaviour is channeled by 'the authorities', supposedly for their benefit, but this actually leads to antisocial behaviour: the system dehumanises them. By making people take responsibility for themselves, and have an interest in looking out for others (ie not crashing into them because they might be bigger or smaller) a healthier 'outcome' is achieved.
Is it similar to socialism 'levelling down': a system in which the behaviour of all drivers is determined by measures to control that of the worst drivers ends up with all driving badly?

Frank McGahon

I think it's a lot to do with the intervention (and indeed the car's hermetic comfort zone) obviating the need for interpersonal negotiation. There's (relatively) no such thing as "street rage". The jostling which goes on on the roads, the horn-honking, lights-flashing don't have analogues on the streets (well, except for certain city streets come 2am on a Sunday morning!). If two people are approaching on a collision course on a footpath, the passing is usually negotiated by eye signals or a well-timed "excuse me", almost automatically. Few people yell "Get the f**k out of the way, you w*nker". Yet that is a regular occurence in driving (well at least in my car anyway!). Also, there's no way of saying "sorry" for a perceived breach of protocol, as there is if you accidentally bump into someone on the street or block their path. I have often felt that one way of moderating car behaviour would be for each car to have a big speaker on top broadcasting the opinions of the driver. It might be bedlam at first but soon the interpersonal communication would evolve some norms of politeness.

Conor

I too have often thought that a means of instant communication with the car in front or behind would be useful. I was thinking of one of those strips of scrolling LCD. A sort of real time "Baby on Board / My other car is a porsche" bumper sticker, except potentially more annoying. However, I only ever think of this whenever I want to communicate something like "Get the f**k out of the way, you w*nker".

Also, I don't do much driving. Maybe, I should rephrase that. I drive about 7-10k miles a year. However, most of the time I am crawling around Dublin at 2mph at rush hour (i.e. anytime from dawn to 8pm, most days of the week). Most of my driving outside that consists of Dublin-Dundalk. About 6 times a year I go to places like Cork, Monaghan, Galway, Kerry, Waterford etc.

My point is that I find I am now so conditioned by almost exclusively driving on motorway (excluding city driving) that I am no longer able (or have any desire) to overtake at speed on the typical Irish single lane "main road". The combination of the huge danger and the fact that saving 8 minutes by overtaking 20 cars will be more thaqn gobbled up by sitting in the omnipresent jams in Cashel or Carlow.

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