30 K.P.H. Of Stupidity

05-02-2010

It's Friday.

The approach of the weekend.

I get to go to the opening match of the Six Nations tomorrow due to the lady friend getting me tickets for Christmas. Good times are in my future.

So why not have an early rant before diving into the mountain of work? Why not, I hear you say.

I was going to rant about "Avatar", which I saw in 3D last night, but I also wanted to rant about the new speed limit within the city and I figured I would split those into two separate rants. So this one will be about the speed limit of stupidity.

See recently the speed limit in Dublin City was changed from what it was to a max of 30 K.P.H. This starts on the very edge of the city and is in effect throughout the whole city up to the docks. The only roads not effected are the South and North circular roads which make the map look nice and pretty since it means there is a big circle containing the stupidity within Dublin City Centre.

The whole concept just smells of a bunch of dumb bastards not thinking things through and just going with whatever the hell they want.

For a start it is being touted as a limit that will make the roads safer for cyclists.

You know what would make the roads safer for cyclists? If they fucking obeyed the rules of the road. I can't count the amount of times I have been driving and stopped at a red light, only to see a person on a bike cycle straight through the light and shout swear words at the drivers who have the right of way and beep at him. Plus we all remember my Christmas-time rant about the cyclist who decided to annoy me as I crossed at a pedestrian crossing.

Now, I am never one to paint one class or section of people with the same brush just because of a few bad eggs. But in this particular basket you have to look really hard to find the good eggs.

Every cyclist I have seen on the road seems to think that the lights are for the cars only and don't give a damn about breaking them, thus causing problems that they later blame the cars on. If you get hit by a bus because you broke a red light you are at fault. If a car got hit by a bus after it broke a red light the car is at fault. This is basically the same as saying: "You're only picking on me because I am black!". Stupidity and disregard for the rules is not based on anything other than stupidly disregarding rules.

But the stupidity of the speed limit is more than this.

It is damn hard to make you car drive at 30 (which is just over 18 miles per hour in the old maths) because the pressure of your foot alone will bring it up to 35 without you so much as breaking a sweat. Driving home from the cinema last night I found myself watching the damn needle more than the road and was doing 40 every single time without noticing.

And 40 isn't even that fast.

I pointed this out to the lady friend and she laughed because the car was going slow.

So if every driver is now going to be watching the needle it will make for worse, not better, driving because of all the breaking that will be needed to maintain the new limit.

Not to mention the increase in road rage. I was overtaken last night four times by people because I was doing the speed limit. You throw a city into rush hour and see how long that lasts.

Rush hour of course being another hilarious element of this plan. Since cars barely move during rush hour anyway, forcing them to go at no more than 30 will make rush hour last longer, thus causing more congestion in the city.

More congestion means more emissions and cars can't really operate at 30 in a decent gear so that means yet more emissions and wear and tear on the car. Pretty soon you will have green house gases to worry about because everyone is obeying (or at least trying to) the speed limit.

There is of course the other side of the plan, the lack of traffic planning on the part of the politicians that brought this limit into law. Cities the world over use traffic lights to regulate the flow of cars at any given point in time. This is mostly an automated system, where the lights have been set to a given sequence based on how busy the street is and how keeping cars at one location will allow for more cars to move at another location. Basically it is very complicated.

One thing that Dublin's wise men have never seemed to take into account is how this traffic flow needs to be studied before implementing things. Streets become one way over night, Stephen's Green becomes a Luas haven. But they never look at the knock-on effect before hand. They need stop and see if what they want to implement will have a knock-on effect on the other side of the city. Now with a speed limit of 30 they will see more areas having cars build up because the lights have been set to use one sequence based on the old speed limit.

In lay-man's terms they would have to re-sequence the entire city grid of traffic lights to work based on the new speed limit to avoid traffic chaos. Which they haven't and probably haven't even realised they need to.

Pretty much they have screwed the city entirely. There is no public transport network worth speaking of to use as an alternative and no plans to provide/improve one so people have to drive. The buses have to obey this 30 limit as well, which means that even if a person did want to take the bus there is no benefit to it now. Retailers all over the city are crying out because of massive drops in trade. The Bus Corridor (a section of Dublin city off limit to cars in the morning and evening rush hour periods) has already caused drops in sales. Now if it takes twice as long to drive into town to shop you will see more retailers shut shop forever because who wants the hassle of moving slower than an O.A.P. in one of their buggies to buy some clothes and shoes? Ergo less customers.

The Government said in the last Budget that they want to get people spending again. Yet they keep coming up with more and more plans to make people not want to come into the city to spend.

All so a few cyclists with the mentality of a Muslim Extremist can break red lights.

The mind, she boggles.

Blue_jester


Tags: rant


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