One sign forward and two signs back? A niche article about Ireland’s most confusing road sign

Comment & Analysis: One of Ireland’s most confusing road signs just won’t go away. The change of the default speed limit for local rural roads from 80km/h to 60km/h was the perfect chance to phase out the pointless sign, but instead, the change is being used to expand its use.

An explainer from the Department of Transport in 2016 about the “rural speed limit sign”, under the heading “Why was this sign introduced?”, said:

“As part of the metrication of speed limits, different default speed limits were introduced for National and Non-National roads, in turn creating many interface points that required speed limit signage. This created situations where a speed limit of 80 km/h was displayed on many roads where it wasn’t safe to drive at that speed. This sign seeks to remove the visual ‘target’.”

In plain English, the sign was introduced to save authorities the embarrassment of photos of 80km/h signs on boreens.

The Speed Limit Guidelines at the time, from which the sign was developed, were influenced by the motoring lobby group the AA. This was largely to avoid modernising the default speed limits (which is happening now).

While 60km/h is also too high a limit for some local rural roads, it is much closer to what is suitable for many rural local roads than 80km/h.

Having 60km/h posted is far preferable to having a confusing sign that few people know what it is and there’s a high potential for confusion among people who have experienced driving in most other countries.

Across Europe, the design of the sign means that there is an end to all restrictions.

It is posted on the sections of autobahns where no speed limit applies. As one Reddit user posted four years ago: Fun fact: the ‘no speed limit’ sign on the autobahn in Germany is the same as the ‘slow’ speed sign on rural roads in Ireland. German tourists must be surprised!”

The difference in the use of signs was featured on reddit.com:

Similarly, it can be found on rural main roads where restrictions end, and the maximum (non-motorway) rural speed limit applies.

We’re using the ‘end of all restrictions’ sign in a way that is kind of like how other countries use the ‘end of speed limit’ sign, which notes the particular speed limit sign ending and shows the previous speed limit struck out. The problem with this is that we don’t signpost the end of restrictions like this (except for motorway signs).

I don’t know how to explain the Irish obsession with using signs differently than most other countries or, in some cases, finding obscure uses in other countries to justify our generally strange use of signs. The ‘end of all restrictions’ sign is hardly the only example.

There is also the ‘home zone’ or ‘living street’ sign, which is applied internationally to shared streets with few or no footpaths and usually a 20km/h or lower limit. But the Department of Transport has very confusingly taken a version of that sign for wider use on 30km/h “slow zones”, and these have now been applied to most housing estates in Ireland.

Another example is using two different no-entry road signs.

We made the move to using the continental no-entry sign, but a weird fudge was made of the change, and only the old signs can be used with exception plates, which, for example, allow it so that restrictions don’t apply to people cycling or public transport.

This means that if a council wants to add an exception to a no-entry sign, the main sign must also be changed.

This is a blocker to the rollout of contra-flow cycling on minor streets without cycle lanes. Contra-flow cycling is expanded to suitable streets in many countries by just adding the exception plates (in some cases, it was done on mass).

It also weakens clarity regarding safety-critical restrictions, such as the prohibition on entering an otherwise one-way street, the prohibition on entering a cycling-only modal filter or motor traffic-free streets. And also for trying to give priority to buses at the entry to bus-only streets or at bus gates.

Secondary legislation (a law signed by the Minister) is needed to fix this and allow exception plates on the continental no-entry signs. Instead, the Department of Transport maintains that it’s actually not something that needs fixing. But we should be following most of Europe and most of the world, not a few countries with a dual no-entry sign.

While progress has been made in making our signs more like those of in other European countries, it’s as if somebody in the Department of Transport revels in the fact that Ireland is not a signatory to the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals. Except for some microstates, we are the only European country that has not signed the Convention, which harmonises road signs.

Back when the Vienna Convention was first drawn up in 1968, it didn’t matter as much for Ireland, which was much more isolated. It’s different now as a member of the EU with a growing population from other parts of Europe, more visitors, more truck drivers from other countries and a growing number of Irish people who travel around the world. Now, it makes a lot more sense to have a bit more harmony.

With the new speed limits, Minister Eamon Ryan and his officials could have left the Irish version of the ‘end of restrictions’ sign on the books as meaning 60km/h while advising councils not to install new signs and to replace old ones with 60km/h signs over time. It would have been that simple.

But now, at least some councils around the country are installing a load of new confusing signs. It’s some kind of weird Irish solution to a problem that doesn’t really exist anymore.

As a side note:

I was once told that our (US-like) yellow diamond-shaped warning signs are better than those in the Convention, but the Convention allows them as an alternative.

We have a US-like problem of overusing words in signs (including end-of-cycle track signs, the recently legislated for bus stop sign etc), these are issues which can be fixed over time. However, our use of US-style warning signs is not a barrier to following the convention.

This might be a surprise to some, but Ireland is largely compliant with the Convention. It wouldn’t take too much for the country to move towards compliance.

Is there a problem that some people in very niche positions might have to accept standardisation, which has been resisted for so long? Or are these people looking for standardisation and it’s resisted elsewhere? Does anybody out there know?

The case of the new bus stop sign may indicate what seems to be a struggle between different agencies and departments. The NTA spent some time developing a new sign that is clear, follows the best practice of mainly relying on the bus symbol (with small text), and the square version works alongside info on the services at the stop.

Then the Department of Transport updated the signs legislation earlier this year retaining that “bus” must be included at bus stop signs, which is also included in the new Traffic Sign Manual update.

There’s no world where the text in the legislation that “…and should show the word ‘BUS’ on a contrasting background” translates to an image of a bus with a small text “bus” on it. But maybe it’s less an example inter-agency fighting and rather another fudge of a solution? Or too many people not caring about the detail?

You were warned it would be a niche article.

4 thoughts on “One sign forward and two signs back? A niche article about Ireland’s most confusing road sign”

  1. Every country that has done this has or is in the process of reversing it it will cripple delivery company’s by adding on 2 hours to the same route every day or an extra day a week to do the same deliveries and add to the already bad congestion on our already overcrowded roads what we need is minimum speed limits on our national routes to aid traffic shockwaves caused by slow vehicles better driver training and more investment in our roads some of this could be paid for by the 22 million tourists that use our roads every year but don’t contribute to their upkeep

    Reply
    • Hi Michael, it’s really unclear what you think is happening or what other countries have done. Rural national roads, where minimum speed limits are applied in some other countries, are not being changed.

      How many other counties have reversed or are reversing lower speed limits, and to what extent are they doing so?

      What change would add 2 hours to a delivery route?

      Do you have any examples of countries where tourists pay taxes to improve roads?

      Reply
      • “What change would add 2 hours to a delivery route?” a 480km route at 60kmh vs 80kmh would add 2 hours to the driving time. Or to put in another way, an 8 hour day spent ONLY on 80kmh roads would now require 2hrs 40 mins extra to complete the same route.

        Realistically no route is entirely done on 80kmh roads. There are national N roads for getting between main towns, and there are 50kmh speeds within villages and towns where the deliveries are made. Purely in terms of time spent, there would also be time in an average day spent loading, unloading etc.

        It is also fair to say that the chances of speed limit adherence will fall in a similar way to when, about 20 years ago, the default was moved from 100kmh to 80kmh for rural roads.

        In summary, the impact to deliver drivers will not be the doom-scenario suggested by the OP.

        Reply
  2. I am glad you are bringing up the issue of the Vienna Convention and traffic signs having a different meaning to what they have in the rest of Europe and most of the rest of the world. The most egregious example of this is the abuse of what the rest of the world knows as prohibition signs, namely the circular signs with a red ring. In Ireland they sometimes mean the precise opposite of what they mean elsewhere. Their meaning according to the convention is that whatever is depicted on them is forbidden, so for example a red ring with a bicycle symbol means cycling is forbidden. It is used with that meaning in the UK and in the rest of Europe. South of the border it has been used to denote a cycle track (even a mandatory cycle track). I believe this use has been discontinued, but other similar signs remain in use, especially the parking sign (red ring with a P) which may be read as “parking forbidden”.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.