Give me a break!!!

Driving back from Dublin recently I decided to stop off for a cup of coffee so when I saw a sign for services I decided to take that exit. I didn’t study the sign, just more or less glanced at it. I expected to find the service area just off the motorway but maybe that was expecting too much.

I was driving along a poor road for a bit until I eventually found myself in Cashel. I poked around there until I spotted a restaurant. The restaurant was fine and I have no problem with either the food or the service. My issue is that I didn’t want to be in Cashel. If I had wanted to visit the place, I would have planned for it.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect the service area to be adjacent to the motorway. Neither do motorists wishing to take a quick break expect to exit the motorway and spend the rest of the day negotiating traffic in a congested town while trying to find a place to park and get something to eat.

As it happens, I wasn’t in a rush that day but if I had been on a tight schedule and just wanted a quick fuel stop I would have been furious. As it was I could happily have dug up that sign, cut it into small pieces and chucked it into the office of the Taoiseach of Cashel or whoever is responsible for putting it there.

I was angry with the community too. It was like being in an old Hitchcock movie and this was all part of a huge conspiracy. The locals had deliberately tricked me into making this detour into their small town. They were peeping out through the curtains and they were laughing at me behind closed doors. They knew the strange secret of this town and I would be lucky to get out alive. Many had made this journey before me and were never heard of again. I could hear the scary music in my ears.

Of course that’s not true. But it is true to say it’s extremely irritating to be taken on an unnecessary detour. I would imagine that I’m not the only one to have made this road trip.

I understand that certain towns have suffered because of the introduction of the motorway system and I can see why they want to attract visitors and generate some income. On the other hand all of our European visitors are well used to motorway driving and they would not expect to make an overnight hike just to find the services.

There is a serious lack of service areas on the Cork to Dublin route which seems to be down to a number of issues. Things like planning applications, objections, appeals, more objections, more appeals, lack of funding and probably a boat load of red tape.

The planners have to consider a number of things when it comes to the granting of permission for a service area. They have to make sure that there is a need for one, that it won’t adversely affect the environment, that it won’t undermine the core business in the locality and that it won’t constitute a hazard to traffic.

That’s fair enough. Everything has to be done properly and to a specific standard and that’s how it should be. I’m a believer in health and safety and all that. Those who construct motorway service areas understand this too so it shouldn’t be a major problem. But this is Ireland so everything takes an eternity and there are always problems. If problems don’t exist, then we create some.

At the end of the day what most people want to do is to exit the motorway, use a bathroom, grab a coffee and a sandwich or whatever and be on the road again. The design of motorway service areas caters for that need. It’s a simple formula that creates a slip road into the area, provides parking and services within the area, and creates another slip road to get back out onto the motorway again.

They are in operation all over the world and they seem to work very well. You don’t hear too many stories of mayhem and chaos in service areas. You don’t hear of cars and trucks colliding and causing total carnage and it doesn’t take a fleet of traffic cops to organise parking. You don’t need to do a course on how to enter and exit a motorway service area. It all runs fairly smoothly and there’s no big mystery to it.

The planners/developers have to make sure they don’t create a traffic hazard but by not getting on with the construction of these things they are continuing to endorse an already existing hazard. Motorists at the moment are pulling in where they shouldn’t, while trying to find gates and hedges that they can duck behind to use as an outdoor loo.

You regularly see parents of young children struggling to balance the child precariously on the side of the road, trying to avoid disaster as the poor child has its bum exposed to the wind and rain and risking hypothermia for the want of a pee.

There are drivers fighting tiredness for the lack of a coffee or the want of a place to pull in to throw the seat back for half an hours sleep. These are the real hazards.

So please, just get on with it and build the damn things before we start using time travel and we will no longer need them.