Anyone who cycles in Dublin needs that soft thing under their padded fruit bowl examined.

Stark, raving bonkers death-wishers.

You certainly do require a good helmet.

A serious matter is people doing left hand turns and shaving right up against the curb when they round the corner. Terrible if you are going around the corner at the same time.

Kate P wrote:

Anyone who cycles in Dublin needs that soft thing under their padded fruit bowl examined.

Stark, raving bonkers death-wishers.

I had to read that again. 

cactus flower wrote:

You'll never find us here Ard Taoiseach. We got all the Limerick signs, and we sure as hell ain't Limerick.

For anyone who would like to direct their complaints further, the signs on the National Roads and Motorways are all in the hands of the NRA and the rest with the local authorities. My theory is that the concept of directional signage (signage that shows you which way to go, in time for you took make the appropriate manoevres safely) is unknown in either of these organisations. Signage in Ireland is looked upon purely as ornamental and descriptive, as in "that was the turn-off to Cavan that you just missed".

( * stems bit of culchie parochial patriotism, knows well that Cavan is code for middle of nowhere *)

... or even if you were trying to navigate round, say, the Ashbourne / Ratoath area about 2 years ago (maybe even still?) with all the building works there / not a solitary sign in sight or, even more disgustingly, if you're heading southbound on the M50 to Dun Laoghaire ... right lane as you come off it, not left, even though there is absolutely nothing definite to indicate which way but signs sort of suggested left lane (sitn. last year anyway) ... i've done my nut on this before on MN, but it is actually a national disgrace and it incenses me every time I visit home. It's a good 8 years ago that an English workmate went on hols to Ireland and regaled the whole office on his return about the vagaries of Irish road signage. Obviously hasn't improved an iota since then.

It's true there is some startling lunacy among Dublin drivers. The other morning I saw a white van driver who had turned his vehicle clean around and driven back up a motorway exit on the hard shoulder - displacing all of the traffic on the slip road and trying to get back on the N4. The driver clearly thought that if he drove fast somehow he might not be noticed and so came at speed back onto the main carriage way causing the taxi I was in and several cars behind us to have to take evasive action. We were lucky to escape alive and without injury. It may well be that poor signage was at the root of this episode - that the driver was understandably lost and angry enough about it to do something rash to rectify his mistake. Whatever the reason, ashen faced and still reeling from the madness of what we had just seen, we were overtaken in the fast lane a few minutes later by a chap who thought he would secure some advantage to himself by mounting the central reservation on the approach to the roundabout on the N4 where you can turn right into Kilmainham past the Hilton Hotel. Where are the Gardai when you really need them? They're down in Ballinhassig, County Cork, is where, leaping out of hedges on unsuspecting, law abiding citizens who failed to notice a 30mph sign completely obscured by foliage and travelling at a tame 37mph - and sticking 80 euro fines on them for something they genuinely could not help! Or so I've heard.

The more I think about this issue the more I'm inclined to conclude that in fact the entire country is trying to keep itself a secret - from its own citizens and hapless visitors alike. Sadly, asking directions of natives isn't likely to get you very far either. As I've noted on other fora, there is a slice of countryside down in Cork between the roads west to Kilarney on it's northern extreme and Skibbereen in the south, which is a veritable latticework of unsigned roads - a sort of Irish Bermuda Triangle wherein innocent visistors have very likely been lost for decades, still driving around aged and grey trying to find Dunmanway or Drimoleague. I once asked a Macrumpian for directions for the elusive back-route to Cork so I could avoid the tarffic nightmare that was Ballincollig (in pre-bypass days). He leant himself to the request with kindly enthusiasm but as the enormity of what I was asking of him began to sink in, his face crumpled into an expression of perplexed defeat and he offered me this: 'try to find your way to Cookstown and head away off into Cork'. Thinking about it afterwards I was sympathetic - the only conceivable directions he could have given after necessarily lengthy consideration would have to have been something like 'take the eigteenth road to your left after coming off the N22, then take a right by the fuschia bushes a half a mile further on (a workable instruction for most people only in the summer months), keep an eye out for a grey house on your left after that and remember to go left again three miles beyond the house etc' . There are people employed by local authorities whose job it must be to work out ways to keep us in this state of road misery in perpetuity - and Cork County Council seems to have more than its fair share of them, it must be admitted. In fact the natives of County Cork all have an automatic entitlement to bypass purgatory and go straight to heaven when they die, such is the scale of their road sign suffering in this life.

Could we start a new political party to be known as 'The Efficiency Party'? When elected - and we surely would be elected - the first order of business would be to put signs on every road in the country - and to put street names on every street in every village, town and city where they could be seen by everyone - whether on foot or in a car. Imagine the joy of it! While we are about it, we could take down all the hideous roadside avertising hoarding. We could designate whatever sum of money it would take to ensure that every house and office in the country had broadband - just like in Estonia where this amazing feat was achieved in a matter of months! The possibilities are endless for such a party! We could legislate for real people to answer phones and ban all automated answering services - introducing a penalty of life imprisonment for any company, government organisation or private individual who dared ever to use one of them again. Better still, we could bring back the stocks and publicly humiliate such inconsiderates. Watch this space.

I had the pleasure of driving to Cork and back earlier this week, partly on new motorway. There seems to be a touch of toll avoidance going on as I only say three other vehicles on it. The tradespeople in Fermoy must be happy.