PROVIDERS OF satellite navigational sets are to be asked to adjust their devices amid accusations they are leading bus drivers to travel the wrong way around the Ring of Kerry.
There is no obligatory one-way system on the renowned tourist route but there is a long-standing custom of tour buses travelling anti-clockwise. Depending on detours, the Ring measures between 168km (105 miles) and 193km (120 miles), takes in three national roads and at least one regional route and can take four hours or two days. The route is driven by thousands of buses each summer.
However, the monthly meeting of Killarney Town Council heard on Monday the centuries-old, time-honoured tradition of heading west from Killarney to negotiate the narrow roads was being upset by modern technology.
Moving his motion calling on the council to contact “the relevant authority” to update signage “or any other warning system” to halt heavy traffic from entering the Ring of Kerry the wrong way, Fianna Fáil councillor Tom Doherty said: “A lot of foreign buses using ‘sat navs’ satellite navigation systems] are entering the Ring of Kerry the wrong way round and getting stuck in the tunnel .” Signposts too were inadequate and needed to be nearer the town of Killarney and multi-lingual as the buses and trucks were often too far gone before realising their error, the meeting heard.
Overhead devices might be necessary “to indicate height and danger”, Cllr Doherty suggested .
Valuable Garda time was being spent unsticking buses and trucks and clearing traffic chaos, and the problem was generally with vehicles with “foreign registrations”, said other councillors in agreement. Killarney town clerk Michael O’Leary said he would “try and contact” makers of software for global positioning systems. Meanwhile, he would seek to have signs erected.