Michael McAleer answers your queries
From John Murphy:
There seems to be a great deal of concern about speed limits at present, distraction factor of speed traps, confusion over beginning and end of some limits, lack of uniformity in sequence from say 60mph- 40mph-30mph, etc.
I suggest that in built up areas, a continuous red line in 30mph areas and blue line 40mph zones along the centre of road/street (running alongside the existing white marking) would be a clearer indication of the speed you can do. At the moment, if you stop and park in a village or town, it is not clear when you resume what the limit is until you are leaving the area.
By then it may be too late. I speak from recent experience of having incurred two 'pointless' penalty points in such a situation.
From Ken Byrne:
I was wondering if you could help me with the question I have concerning the speed traps set up by the Garda?
Recently I have noticed that gardaí are hiding behind things like parked 40-foot trucks and ESB pylons, aiming the scanner down the road. They do it on the quays coming into town, and outside the Guinness brewery behind parked trucks.
I was of the impression that they had to be seen before they could trap you is this right or can they hide in the bushes and get you ?
The first thing that comes to mind is that setting up a speed trap on the quays in Dublin seems a bit of a waste of time, given that our average speed on these bottlenecks generally ranges between 2 and 5 mph.
While we all wish that there were warning signs wherever speed traps were set up but, unfortunately gardaí can hide where they like, up a tree or in the ditch.
Not only can they conceal themselves, but they don't even have to stop you. On the M1 motorway we have noted the use of the two-car tag team approach to speed checks, whereby an unmarked car records your speed while a second marked car up the road apprehends transgressors.
The days of highly visible speed traps may be coming to an end, along with the (illegal) habit of flashing lights at fellow motorists to warn of speed traps ahead. Gardaí clearly want to keep us to be on our best behaviour on all roads.
From Peter Dargan:
I have an old imported car I've been working on but it has the current registration plates of year-county-number. When can I change to ZV plates on my classic car?
Classic car owners can apply to have their numberplates changed from the current format to more traditional styling of ZV plates when the car is 30-years-old. They can also choose to change over at any stage after that by simply re-applying.
From Tony Proctor:
I was particular interested in your article on biker visibility (Motors, February 25th), and would just like to pass some constructive comment.
A couple of possibilities come to mind: the width of the average bike makes it difficult to gauge the speed.
With the binocular lights of a car, it's much easier to estimate how far away they are.
The number of bikes with dual headlights are precious few, but I always thought they should have been encouraged, both for visibility and as a fail-safe against losing power in one of the lights (vibration used to play havoc with bulbs in my day).
Another possibility is road positioning. I was taught never to ride in the gutter.
I feel sorry for people with underpowered vehicles who are compelled to hug the nearside of the road, thus making themselves susceptible to parked cars and cars/trucks entering or leaving side roads. When a typical motorist is looking to leave a side road, they would probably look directly down the main traffic lanes rather than gutter.
Our motorbiker John Wheeler says: "Numerous studies on the Daylight Riding Lights issue are inconclusive as to their effectiveness. Today headlamp bulbs are far more reliable than they used to be.
"As for under-powered machines, accident rates increased when restrictions, such as the "125 law" were introduced. In the case of rule-beating 50 cc mopeds, it is even worse.
"Only well-meaning but misguided legislators could have dreamed up this "solution" for motorcycles, but not for cars."
From John Foster:
Why don't cars come with the same window heaters in the front as they do in the back?
Such heaters are available. Ford has largely pioneered the technology, though Mini were renowned for heated windscreens in their rally cars in the 1960s (such as the one driven by Paddy Hopkirk when he won Monte Carlo).
Most car firms claim their heating systems are adequate for Irish weather, but with a push from the public heated screens could become more common. The problem is that to retrofit them can be quite expensive, and a replacement windscreen can be far more costly if it contains the heater elements. Broken back windows are a lot less common than smashed windscreens.
Send your queries to
Motors Help Desk, The Irish Times, Fleet Street, Dublin 2 - or e-mail them to motorshelp@irish-times.ie
