liveaboard

There are many access roads in Portugal that cross private land; we have one on ours, access for some properties behind us.
I'm interested in rules, laws that govern this.

Access has to be allowed, but what else?
Is there a national [or regional] speed limit for dirt roads when nothing is specifically posted?
It's my own land, but it's also a public road; so what happens when I drive an unregistered vehicle on it?
If someone drives at high speed on someone else's private land, could the GNR even fine them?
That's academic of course, GNR are unlikely to wait around out in the bushes for vehicles that pass by a few times a week. If they even can wait in privately owned bushes...

In this case, the road is maintained by the camara. They just come along and cut the verges once or twice a year, and they resurfaced it [clay and gravel] once.
I know that rental car insurance doesn't cover those who drive through to the short term rental houses.

I wonder what would happen if one of those uninsured tourist rental cars were to slam into my unregistered uninsured agriculture trailer on a pubic road on my land.

Here's a curious thing I noticed; the main road in front of us is a busy paved road to many homes, a couple of farms, and the beach.
Our property ends a meter from the edge of the road, and resumes a meter after the other edge. But our neighbors plot is continuous; on paper, he owns 100 meters of the main road.
The new owner is an educated sort, he's just checked all the paperwork and so on, so I asked him how that works?
He doesn't know either.

Rambling archer

bons

When we were on holiday last year, we stayed at a campsite and my husband decided to go for a run down what seemed like a private dirt road. I was having kittens thinking he would be told off or something. He came back, said he'd enjoyed his run and he'd met a couple of vehicles who just waved and said bom dia. It must have been a similar track.

liveaboard

It's common; public access way. even if the track / road only goes to one or two private residences, it's a public way.
Anyone might want to visit or deliver; or just take a run or walk their dog. That's accepted.
I'm just curious about the actual legalities of it all.

macliam

The whole thing about non-metalled roads is a quagmire... we have one leading to our house it is maintained (occasionally) by the Camara, but has no signs or restrictions and is regulary used by off-roaders looking for a bit of fun. Whether or not these idiots are legal or have insurance is doubtful and we have more than once had confrontations with people using it as a race-track. Weekends in the summer usually see idiots throwing up a plume of dust as the "enjoy themselves" at our expense. The Camara do nothing, the GNR are uninterested, it's the wild west.

liveaboard

Dust is our main complaint too; I keep thinking about setting up a system to water the track in summer, but it's tricky due to constant weed growth and weed clearance. any tubes or sprayers would be obstructed by weeds, then cut when they're cleared.
At the end of our land, there's a bridge at a right angle to the track; long vehicles get stuck there. Mostly material deliveries when someone is building or renovating something.
To get around the corner, they break some trees to widen the curve. One truck with a crane used it to rip some large acacias out of the ground so he could pass through.
I'm not really upset about it; I was expecting that to happen one day and I already set my fence away from the corner to make room.
Of course that means another 10 m2 or our property is now road. How does that wok???

Electricity company guys come along, hack everything down under power lines, and leave it there.
A few years ago, a water main was laid through, a HUGE tacked digger dug a 3 meter deep trench. We didn't even get a post card, they just turned up, did their work, and moved on. A lot of farmers were very upset, because the work left a lot of rocks strewn around the surface.

It seems curious that in a country where I need to go through a bureaucratic process before planting trees in my own field, private contractors literally just bulldoze through without even informing the landowners.

I have had my own little victories though.
If you have a fence and a gate, they can't enter without your permission.
By refusing to allow the phone linesmen in, I forced the rerouting of their nest of overhead wires around our property.
They had their little revenge on me, I laid an underground tube and asked them to reroute our phone line through it; no problem they said, made an appointment but never turned up.

I've been on both sides of the motorbike thing.
When I was younger and even more unruly, I had an enduro bike. I tried to keep the revs down when passing through my own area but it really annoyed some people.
One guy tried to [illegally] block the public access track in front of his house to stop me from passing through.
What fun I had noisily blasting over, through, and around his barricades...

bons

Did you know you had a 'public road' on your private land before you bought the property?

coleio

We looked at buying a piece of land, there were several (6?) strips of land with the access track bisecting them, lower ends was a stream upper ends a rocky wood so only access was the track. The non-Portugese agent also seemed to be the registered owner and suggested this was all normal access and not a problem at all, we got the promissory and repeatedly asked for information on the track because of things like laying a water pipe from well to building would need digging a trench across the track. We eventually gave up but i got the impression the legal status of the track was unknown/untested but instead was an unwritten historic "gentlemen's agreement" covered it so anyone could do anything in an acceptable manner. I also suspect that until Camera, lawyers etc have an expensive argument the real status will remain unknown.

liveaboard

Of course; it's pretty obvious. It's shown on the land papers too.
As macliam said, there are no posted restrictions.
So a 9 meter long truck comes along; gets to the sharp bend and can't proceed.
Or holiday people in rental cars drive through at highish speed, uninsured.
Or I drag trees along it behind my tractor.

What's legal?
I've asked before but no one seems to know.
The property next door was recently bought by a family from Lisbon. they had the borders surveyed and did all their due diligence, the track goes through their place too so I thought they would be able to tell me.
Nope. They have no idea either.

Another thing is that the track has no number, no name. On maps it's a squiggly line.
So the residences along it have no addresses.

The main road out front is paved and all but also has no name or number.

Water mains are unmapped.
I asked one young English speaking council worker as his crew dug one up, how do you know where the pipes are?
He pointed at 'The Old Guy'.
"He knows everything."
"What will you do when he retires?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Muito problemo!" he informed me.

bons

I only asked as it's something to look for when/if we get to Portugal and buy a property. I don't think I could stand the noise!

liveaboard

That's an interesting angle.

The farther end of the track was actually changed around 20 years ago by German who bought 8 hectares there. The track cut diagonally right trough it.
He had a new road made around the edge of his property and somehow made it ok with the camara.
So there is something somewhere.
I also met some surveyors on it last year; they were updating the official map, which still showed the old diagonal cut, and didn't even show the canal and bridge that's 30 or 40 years old.
I asked them, can't we get names for our roads?
they just laughed; "You'll have to ask someone with more power than us." they said.

I have a road name theory.
It looks like Portuguese roads can only be named after non-controversial Portuguese historic figures.
There are only around 10 of them, so once 10 roads have been named, that's the end of that.

liveaboard

There's always a road somewhere.
I've found that noise is very relative; the less there is, the more sensitive you become.
To get to a place with no detectable road noise at all, you'd have to get very, very rural.
Tractors are clanking and roaring [sometimes it's me]. Dogs are barking [sometimes it's my dog], audible for 500 meters or more if there's no background noise.

The main road is 80 meters in front our house, just a small country road really. And as I type this, each car that passes sounds loud.
The dirt track is 60 meters behind the house.
Sheep are bleating next door, and the shepherd is shouting at them and his dog half the day.

Strimmers.
Pumps.
Airplanes.
Roosters.
cows [some with bells].
On a really quiet night, I think I can hear ships out in the sea. Maybe I just imagine that.

So it's always something with noise.
Sometimes I can hear a big wood planer in a shop 6km away.
How do I know it's a wood planer?
I have one too, the sound is quite distinctive. When I use mine, everyone for 5km around hears it too I suppose.

macliam

My house is in the Alentejo countryside, the "Cu de Judas" as my Portugiuese friends charmingly put it. I am 1.5Km from a metalled road and 95.% of the time, it's quiet. But as liveaboard says, that just makes you more sensitive to noise. I have no problem with the sheep bells, the cattle bells, the roosters and the general noises of the countryside - although i'd rather be out when they do the matança. I put up with the very occasional times that my neighbour decides to pump water from his barragem, or the sound of strimmers and chainsaws, or the cars that pass on the track 150m away to get to houses even more isolated than mine, or the occasional tractor or lorry collecting Eucalyptus (I'd gladly put up with the noise if they took it all!). Even the annoying prats out for fun with their 4x4s and trail bikes make more nuisance lining my pool with dust than with noise. Then there is the noise of the festas, which cariies for kilometres, but only on a few nights.The crickets singing away can get a bit much at some times, they have no volume control..... But the frogs, the frogs in my baragem 150m away take the biscuit..... the orchestra gears up before dusk and builds volume until you are having to talk over it... for ages.... and then stops, suddenly and apparently for no reason. Then a few minutes later, a tree frog in a yucca will defy the laws of nature and start to make a noise totally incommensurate with its size. Noise is relative!

Rambling archer

bons

There's noise an there's noise. Some noise I don't mind, vehicles tearing up and down a road right outside my house would drive me nuts. Ergo, I'll make sure I don't have one.