You may not be aware of it but in a year or so's time the road infrastructure of this country will be utterly transformed.

This week a new section of the N8 Cork-Dublin road will open between Mitchelstown and Cahir, last week the notorious bottleneck of Moate in Co Westmeath was bypassed on the N6.

Slowly, but surely the main routes to the capital are being completed as dual-carriageways. On the route from Cork the road will be finished within two years as will the roads from Dublin to Galway, Limerick and Waterford as well.

Credit where it's due, but unfortunately as with much else that's done in this country they have made it difficult for themselves. You may have noticed that I described these roads as dual-carriageways and not motorways.

Technically, at the moment this is true but come September 25 these roads will become motorways. That might not mean much to you but it does provide an excellent example of just how (badly) things are planned in this country.

The main difference between motorways and dual carriageways is that motorways generally have a higher speed limit (120kph compared to 100kph), and they do not permit learner drivers, agricultural traffic and slow vehicles.

All the new dual-carriageways in Ireland have been built to motorway standard and all those under construction will be as well. Why then, didn't the geniuses in the Department of Transport designate them as motorways in the first place?

As already explained, dual-carriageways are 20 per cent slower which would make a big difference if you are travelling from one end of one of these roads to the other. It has clearly become apparent to the those in charge that having motorway quality roads that weren't classified as motorways was just plain daft.

The thing is that changing these new roads to motorways required new road signs, new road markings, public consultations and a ministerial order. In other words, lots and lots of money spent because a few numbskulls couldn't make the right decision in the first place.