Council crews have been busy preparing for Thursday's change to metric speed limits. Rosita Boland goes on the road with one
Before you programme the little calculator in your head to think in kilometres rather than miles, as it will have to from Thursday, there are a few other figures to consider. The statistics involved in converting all of the State's road signs from imperial to metric are big enough to make your head spin. Thirty-six thousand miles-per-hour signs are being swapped for kilometre-per-hour ones, with an additional 23,000 going up at junctions where regional roads meet major roads. You may already have seen these without realising it; at this stage, the job is 95 per cent complete.
Such a huge logistical job requires significant coordination. It's not long after 9 a.m. on a bitterly cold Wednesday morning, and it's the first day of Co Wicklow's sign changeover. Three council crews are out today, covering different areas of the county. I'm with Michael Keogh and Francis Crean in their pick-up. Co Wicklow needs 1,200 signs. The more urbanised the area, the more signage it needs. Counties such as Mayo and Donegal require fewer signs, but the distances between them are greater. Today the Co Wicklow crews will be covering Wicklow town, Ashford, Rathnew and Glenealy. Their overseer is Liam Woolley, who calls them on their mobiles, and turns up in person from time to time, to ensure the right speed limits are going up. "There are bound to be some teething problems with wrong signs," he says.
The crews know their areas well. Most of us probably can't say exactly where our local speed-limit signs are, even though we drive past them every day, but these men know them all.
Out on the road the drill goes like this.The pick-up trundles along, its back full of new speed-limit signs, ladders, cones, men-at-work signs, road-flooded signs and high-visibility jackets. It's perishingly cold, but Keogh and Crean are upbeat, happy that it isn't raining. Today they came prepared for floods, as the forecast was bad all week.
Outside Tinakilly Country House are two signs on opposite sides of the road. Facing Rathnew they indicate 30; facing away they show the black-on-white diagonal stripes that indicate the old general speed limit, of 60 miles per hour. The crew pulls up around the corner, off the main road. Then it's out with the cones and men-at-work signs. Keogh and Crean whip their ladder out and set about changing the cap-mounted signs. It's like watching a new lollipop being put on an old stick. A few twists of the spanner and the old sign comes loose. They drop on the new sign, which has 50 km/h on one side and 80 km/h on the other. They tighten the screws and they're done. It takes no more than three minutes a time.
Motorists slow down to stare, possibly in disbelief that the change to metric is happening. They certainly look astonished to be witnessing the changeover. A few lorries honk. Keogh and Crean take no notice of any of them. Then it's back into the pick-up with the old signs and on to the next location. (John Weafer, chairman of the Metrication Changeover Board, is confident that most of the old aluminium signs will be recycled.)
Safety is an issue in accessing some signs, particularly those on bends and on busy narrow roads. The next one is on a very busy winding road. The crew parks in a lay-by and repeats the process.
After a tea break we head to the next spot, in a residential street, where the existing signs have 30 m.p.h. on both sides. They come off and the new ones go on. They have 50 km/h on the side facing the main road, next to a stop sign, and 80 km/h on the side facing up the residential street. I'm surprised. This is a significant change, one that seems inappropriate. Keogh and Crean screw down the new signs. I ask why the replacements don't indicate 50 km/h on both sides. "It's a long time since they changed the speed limit here," Crean explains. Then he goes off to call Woolley, to check. They're the wrong signs. They should have 50 km/h on each side. There are none in the pick-up, so they remove the incorrect signs and leave the poles temporarily empty.
And it was all looking so efficient. But given that almost 60,000 signs are being changed or introduced, it's inevitable that mistakes will happen. There's probably one somewhere near you.
