Motorways by Name only

Many countries in Europe, as well as on other continents, have an excellent system of roads. But Ireland does not. Many countries also have a network of motorways, and - again - Ireland is not among them. What we have on this island of ours is a patchwork of national, regional and local roads, interspersed with roadlets and paths that have not changed much over the past two or three centuries.

When most of Ireland's roads were designed and built, it was predominantly the (then British) military that was doing it, and for obvious reasons.
Thousands of years ago the ancient Egyptians, the Persians and other great empires had built roads to move their soldiers around faster, and the Romans became the true masters of strategic road building. Every major country in the world has learned from them and given attention to important roads.

However, Ireland is not a major country, and it was never touched by Roman civilisation.

This one can still notice here today. Most of our roads were built between the late 18th and early 20th century, and they were built for the usual traffic of the time: people on horseback, horse-drawn coaches and carriages, carts drawn by horses, oxen or donkeys, and people on foot.
And even though most of Irish roads are meanwhile covered with tarmac, they are still winded, quite narrow (especially when one compares them with roads in other countries) and often in need of maintenance we cannot afford.

Until about 30 years ago Ireland did not have any motorway at all. And it did not need one. Then some of the wider national roads around Dublin were designated as 'motorways', in order to give us a more modern look and impress a number of foreign visitors. We still had no real motorways, but pretence is a great thing for the Irish. And if one does it well here and pretends things long enough, people will actually believe that they exist. (Just think of leprechauns and the faireys...)

During the years of pretended economic boom, the period of the - once worshipped and now cursed - 'Celtic Tiger', a few new motorways have been constructed in Ireland. Most of them are in and around Dublin, and some of them were built with private money and are now operated as toll roads. They have the same traffic jams and congestions as all other roads, but their greedy operators charge motorists an arm and a leg for the privilege to crawl over their piece of tarmac instead of some other, a mile or two away.

But even with the new additions to the system, Ireland still has a very bad road network, and almost no motorways. If you want to see the real thing, you have to travel to Germany, where the motorway was invented in the 1930s. There most of them have six lanes as a rule, with some major sections being even wider and providing eight or even ten lanes.

What we have here in Ireland are mostly modernised national roads, in some sections widened to four lanes. But to make us look a little bigger and more important than we actually are, Noel Dempsey (right), currently Minister for Transport, has now "re-classified" 294.3 km of national roads as "motorways".

They are really motorways by name only, and nothing has changed on these roads, except that the speed limit has been increased from 100 km/h (the standard for national roads) to 120 km/h.
Under general traffic laws the new 'motorways' cannot be used by any learner-drivers, motorcycles and "certain types of agricultural vehicles".

One can understand the ban of agricultural vehicles. It makes sense and is the same in most other countries. As there are no 'learner-drivers' elsewhere - with exception of the UK - the question of them using motorways does not arise in other nations. But why ban motorcycles from our 'motorways'? Motorcyclists can use all roads in other countries, and there seem to be no problems with them, as long as they obey the rules of the road like everyone else.

This whole 're-classification' of roads is another example for the confusion and incomptence of our government in general, and for the specific incompetence of Noel Dempsey in particular. The man is useless and clueless, and has demonstrated this in several government departments he was in charge of. And Transport makes no difference to 'the bouncer' from Co. Meath.

The real joke - unfortunately not a good one - is the list of roads that are now 're-classified' as 'motorways'. If you expect a number of lengthy and well-developed sections of overland roads, you will be disappointed.

But then again, this is Ireland, so what can you really expect?

To begin with, of the 294.3 km of national roads that Noel Dempsey has pompously "re-classified as motorways" yesterday, less than half actually exist at present!
Only 42.6% (125.5 km) exist and are 'open for traffic', while 47.9% (140.8 km) are still 'under construction' and 9.5% (the 28 km section of the N 18 from Oranmore to Gort in Co. Galway) is only 'in planning'.

The longest part of newly re-classified 'motorway' that is actually open for traffic is a 21 km section of the N 11 between Arklow in Co. Wicklow and Gorey in Co. Wexford.
The rest is nothing but a higgledy-piggledy patchwork of small to medium-sized pieces all over the country, with the shortest being a section of the N 3 (from Dublin to Cavan) between Littlepace and Loughsallagh, which is just 2.1 km long.

This means that motorists driving on Ireland's national roads in future will constantly have to watch if they are on a stretch of official 'motorway' with 120 km/h speed limit, or on a normal national road with only 100 km/h limit. It will lead to even more confusion than there is now, and most likely to more speeding tickets for drivers who think that they are still on a 'motorway', while they have in fact passed it already.

The whole thing is nothing but a farce, another sick joke from an utterly clueless minister in an incompetent government that is simply not capable of doing anything right.

The Emerald Islander

New Motorway in Co. Cork

A new stretch of modern motorway (photo) between Fermoy and Mitchelstown in the north-east of Co. Cork opened to traffic for the first time this afternoon.

The new motorway part, whose building cost € 174 million, was completed nine months ahead of schedule.

This is good news for motorists and means that all but a 40-km-long segment of the overland road from Dublin to Cork is now at motorway or dual carriageway standard.

The final remaining section, which is currently under construction, will link the Portlaoise bypass with the M 8 motorway at Cullahill in Co. Laois and is expected to be completed in the second half of 2010.

"eFlow" is a Shambles

Less than two weeks ago I wrote about the organised highway robbery of Irish toll roads, which is now done completely electronically and without employing any longer people in toll plazas.

As I decided to boycott the system and never use the M 50 motorway around Dublin, I do have of course no personal experience with eFlow, as the rip-off is now called to make it sound snappy.

But I just read two entries - in the blogs of Eoin Brazil and John Browne - that tell in detail how the eFlow online payment system works. Or rather not works, I should say, as both bloggers describe in detail how they struggled in frustration when they tried to hand over their € 3 toll fee.

This confirms my initial worries and suspicions about eFlow (see my entry from August 31st) and in fact things are actually worse than I thought. If you are interested, have a look at the entries of Eoin and John and read it for yourself. The links are:

http://braz.blogspot.com/2008/09/eflowie-broken-and-lacking-any-ia-or.html

and

http://www.johnbrowne.ie/?p=47

If you have any common sense, you follow my example and boycott the M 5o as well. Or if you are a good lawyer, perhaps you might think of making a name for yourself by challenging the eFlow rip-off in court. Good Luck!

The Emerald Islander

P.S. It is interesting and quite telling that the place from which eFlow is operated is not even in Ireland, but in Bristol / England. And there I was, thinking this country is independent from the UK ...

Highway Robbery - now online in Ireland

I am sure you are familiar with the phrase: Having your cake and eat it. It is used when any person in a situation of choosing would like to have both options simultaneously, even though only one of them is available. Well, as Ned Kelly put it so nicely a long time ago: Such is life. You cannot have it all and must make your choice or decision.

Except if you are the private company that runs the tolling system on the M 50 motorway around Dublin. Then you seem to have 'the right' to collect money from anyone using that road, without setting up collection stations any longer.

Yes, fellow victims of corporate extortion and legalised highway robbery, as hard as it is to believe, since yesterday midnight the toll plaza (pictured left) one had to feed with coins every time one passed it, stands now empty and has apparently no longer any purpose in the toll-road system.

Motorists are now controlled - or some might say spied on - with a system of video cameras and high-tech electronic. Even though the barriers have disappeared, the company expects to make even more money with 'barrier-free tolling', also known by the snappy name eFlow.

In order to be properly milked by the toll-road company that still wants to take our money, even though the government has bought out the contract, one is expected to register on the website of eFlow, which means of course giving a lot of very sensitive personal data to some faceless and in a way even nameless private company whose security level, qualifications and ethical standards we do not know.
Neither do we have any control or influence over it. Motorists are given the choice of carrying a permanent 'tag', which means that someone somewhere - without a name or face - can know any position of any participating car at any given time. Big Brother says Hello!

Alternatively one can 'open an account' (the 'Terms & Conditions' of which run to 28 paragraphs, all with many sub-paragraphs, which of course each motorist will read and understand to the very last t...) with them online and pay each time one's number plate is registered on the M 50 by their spy cameras. In order to comply with their rules one can pay in advance - in case one does know beforehand that one is traveling in the area and using the toll road - or afterwards. In the latter case one has one day to pay, as one "must pay by 8 pm on the following day". Must... well, one does wonder what the actual legal situation is.

What about tourists, as well as cars, buses and lorries from foreign countries? If they decide not to pay, how will eFlow get money from them? And how would foreigners know about this very odd system, not used anywhere else, in the first place? I have the strong feeling that we have been - once again - led up a very long garden path by people who grow rich and fat on the money earned by everyone else. And now they are not even prepared to make the slightest effort to get it from us any longer. Now Irish turkeys are supposed to vote happily for Christmas.

In case someone does not pay his € 3 (for once passing a 'toll point') within that set period, there will be a 'penalty' of € 3 extra. "If you fail to pay the toll and this € 3 penalty within the next 14 days, a further penalty of € 40 will be levied." So says the eFlow website. But it gets better. "Failure to pay the full amount due within a further 56 days will result in an additional € 100 penalty. Then, if you still have not paid the total amount due, legal proceedings will be initiated."

Which means that at some stage someone might end up in prison, simply because the toll-road company is too mean to pay any longer the wages of the people who operated the toll plaza in the past. What kind of Mickey-Mouse-State and Banana Republic do we actually live in? And why do we have toll roads in the first place? Don't we pay enough taxes?

It is interesting to notice that the toll road - then with money collecting plaza - was actually built at a time when money was available aplenty in Ireland, including in the government coffers. Why did we not just build the roads (and motorways) needed, like they do it in other countries? Well, I am sure some old pals of FF or PD were in need of extra perks. And good old Bertie - as we well know by now - could of course never say no. Not when someone gave him money, and not when those people then came for their compensation.

I wonder what kind of bureaucratic 'brain giant' came up with the eFlow idea in the first place. And I am waiting to read and hear of cases where false number plates are used on the M 50 and then unsuspecting people receive huge toll bills they have not run up themselves...
How would one proof this? And what would be one's rights in relation to a private company that feels entitled to our money and would certainly not shy away from making threats and using a heavy-handed approach?

Personally I have a very simple solution for the problem. I will never use the M 50, so therefore I will never be asked to pay those lazy and invisible fat cats of the toll-road 'industry' any of my hard earned money. There is also another and perfectly legal alternative to paying tolls: Just use a motorcycle on the M 50, since - for reasons unknown and not explained - they are toll-free. Well, maybe the bosses of eFlow are a bunch of wild bikers...

The Emerald Islander

UPDATE

For further information how eFlow works - or rather not works - have a look at my entry from September 12th and at the blogs of Eoin Brazil and John Browne. You find the links to their blogs in my entry from September 12th.