What they say about us. . .: We are used to the vagaries of Irish roads and the low standards of Irish drivers, but how do tourists to the country see us? Georgina O'Halloran hears the worst . . .
"They drive too fast when the roads are narrow, but on the better roads, when they can drive fast, they don't!"
This is one Spanish tourist's experience of Irish drivers. Elizabeth Carpa and her husband David, who come from Andorra, spent a week travelling around Ireland visiting the scenic regions of Galway, Mayo, and Cork, as well as the Ring of Kerry.
At times they found local drivers a little crazy, to put it mildly.
"They never put their fog lights on when they need to, like when it's dark or foggy," says Elizabeth. This is a real risk factor because you never see when a car is coming," she says.
Tourists are generally not impressed with the condition of our roads either. Holger Happe, who has been travelling in Ireland with two friends says that most of the roads aren't in very good condition compared to the roads in Germany.
"The primary roads are almost as good as at home but the country roads are too narrow. Yesterday we had heavy rain and we had a difficult time driving through the flooded roads. Sometimes we felt quite sick. It was like being on a boat, but maybe some of that was to do with my driving!" he says.
Joel Froment from Paris agrees (about the roads, not Holger's driving). "I think the roads are narrow and not in a good state and there are too many cars. You need more improvements," he says.
But on the other hand Lutz and Fabriele Ringwelski from Stuttgart are philosophical about our roads and see it as part of the Irish package.
"There are differences and the roads are sometimes up and down but it's typical Ireland. Even though they are narrow here, it's a problem in other countries too. In Madeira they are much narrower," she says.
Road signs are perhaps the biggest bone of contention among our foreign visitors. Brigitte Raynaud from Bordeaux, who has been touring the west coast with her husband and daughter Claire, finds the system particularly frustrating.
"It's not standardised," says Brigitte. "Sometimes the signs are low down, sometimes they are higher up and sometimes they are different colours. We got lost a few times."
It's a common complaint. Tormented tourists get lost all over the place because of poor, confusing signs or no signs at all. Patrick Valdenaire from Toulouse in the South of France found the signs easier to read once he cracked the code.
"It's not like in France. For example, the signs for turning are too close to the actual turn itself. After a few days, we began to understand the signs and realised that," he says.
Fabio Orienzi from Rome is adament that the system needs to be changed and wants Ireland to get with the rest of Europe.
"The signs here were difficult for us to understand because they are different to the signs used in the rest of Europe," says Fabio. Ireland is in the European Union,so it should change its system of signs," he says.
As for our roundabouts while Carolyn McInerney, an American tourist from Savannah, Georgia was won over by them, her husband, Jim is not of the same opinion. "I don't agree, they're a waste of space," he says.
Meanwhile Spanish visitor, Lola Canero, found the lack of motorways very frustrating. She has been visiting Ireland with her husband and their children Daniel and Alba. For her the absence of decent highways and bypasses meant slow, painstaking drives through major towns sometimes during the peak traffic congestion times.
However, for other tourists this aspect of driving in Ireland scored brownie points. "We came here looking for the countryside so being on a motorway would have been an inconvenience," says Jim McInerney from Georgia in the US.
It's not all doom and gloom though. Indeed, despite the speeding on narrow, country roads, the average tourist's perception of the Irish driver does appear to be a good one.
But perhaps this is more dependent on where the holidaymaker comes from than anything else. Annemarie Elber from Bavaria says, "sometimes they don't keep to the rules, but in general they're OK," while Parisian Joel, from a city renowned for its maniac drivers, has been pleasantly surprised. While criticising the general disrepair of the roads he enthusiastically adds, " the drivers are good. They're not aggressive at all."
It's a point of view shared by many others and one that will come as a surprise to many Irish motorists who have their bumper felt by boy racers wanting to pass on a daily basis. Marilena Barbagallo from Sicily found the drivers were very considerate while Lola Canero from Cordoba in Spain says: "They drive very slowly. In Spain we drive much faster."
It wasn't the car drivers that Holger found annoying during his time here. It was the truck drivers.
"We didn't have problems except for the lorries. They overtook at bends and things like that and we saw this sort of thing more than once."
Meanwhile an American tourist from Boston who was waiting to hand his keys back to Hertz rentals had nothing but praise."They're excellent drivers," he said. "They're very courteous and much more civil than they are in the US."
The yield signs are interesting here because no one stops for them. They don't even slow down.
- Carolyn McInerney, Savannah, Georgia, US
It was perfect except for some of the roads in Connemara. Sometimes the signs were difficult to see and were hidden behind trees.
- Mary Agliastro, France
At the beginning driving was difficult but after some time it got better. But the holes in the road were bad.
- Heide Littig, Impflingen, Germany
It's very interesting, the Irish way of driving. At the traffic lights, they think every light is green.
- Alan Powell, Worcester, England
You have to be very careful driving in Ireland because of the size of the roads. They're narrow and are not very well indicated.
- Rosa Mateo, Barcelona, Spain
We find the Irish drivers very friendly but it's very difficult to drive on the wrong side of the road.
- Fabio Orienzi , Rome - Italy