How to save lives on the roads?

Victor

I just want to pick peoples minds on who strategy should be moved forward on how to save lives on the roads?

There are some obvious things like penalty points and new the speed limits, but I want to open the debate up to what others think.

cyclopath2001

Reduce all speed limits. The current limits are based on what speeds motorists want rather than what is actually safe. 30mph is not a safe speed in the city. The recent 'ready-up'where government engineers and the AA decided thespeeds should be must be thrwon out, it only reinforces the status-quo, a conspiracy against cyclists and pedestrians.

Reduce speed limits even more when it is wet, dark or both.

Enforce the speed limits via satellite monitoring of cars. Pass the information on to insurance companies so that prudent drivers do not have to pay for the bad habits of others. The satellite monitoring will also reduce thefts and help reduce insurance costs.

Enforce legislation that allows businesses to be sued where commercial vehicles are involved and where unreasonable delivery schedules have causes employees to drive dangerously.

Abolish traffic lights, require all drivers to slow down at junctions and give way to each other, make all drivers equally liable for accidents at junctions.

Drivers to give way to pedestrians at all times & to be required to drive at 30kph or less in residential & shopping areas.

If the same number of people killed on our roads had been killed by the IRA, we would have marshal law, so let's get tough on road-terrorists.

an_taoiseach

Victor,

This is kind of like asking how to stop wars....

Its a vast topic.

Of course road design comes into it. Simple things like :

- Not hiding signs behind other bits of road furniture.
- Not putting in traffic calming in housing estates in such a way that buses have to drive on pavements
- ( And perhaps even not using white line that doesnt work when its needed most - in the dark & wet )

Of course people and their actions are usually responsible for road traffic 'accidents'

Have a look at :

http://www.hants.gov.uk/roadsafety/statistics/causation.html

I'd say its fair to assume that these % figures would be similar for Ireland

So driver error is behind 66% of accidents and speeding 11%

I would take Driver Error to include

Wild Kids driving a ( perhaps stolen ) car
Mobile phone trickery and similar
A random error that some one might make once in five or ten years
Poor drivers who make frequent errors
.
.
.

Speeding is also a problem but nowhere like as big a one as Driver Error.

I read that the cost of running a speed camera in the UK is circa GBP100K per year ( around Euro145K ). I gather there is a move to populate Ireland with several hundred speed camers on the grounds of safety ( rather than fiscal grounds ). If this is true and we take a ( I am thinking modest ) estimate of 200 cameras then I take it that an annual cost of Euro29Million to address a source of 11 % of all road accidents is acceptable.

Cameras are not much good at catching Driver Error. If they were then can we extrapolate the figures above & say that the camera budget for 'driver error and speeding' would be seven times the 'speeding budget'?. Thats a little over Euro200M

Gardai ( the Irish version of 'The Mark One Eyeball' ) are much better at spotting driver error than cameras and they are also pretty good at detecting speeding ( so there will still be revenue from fines )

How many gardai can we have for Euro200M per year ?

4000 - 5000 ? Thats enough to see that drivers behave - eh ?

With the roads crawling with these extra Gardai one of the spin offs from this would be a reduction in general crime

More Gardai please ( call them traffic cops if you want to but I really think that it would be best that they were the full spec product )

Comments please from any Gardai that read this board


An T



P.S. I am not a Garda

mike65

The sinlge biggest way to reduce deaths on the road is to teach people to drive properly and to start the process while at school...

Mike.

ps On the issue of cameras, Top Gear noted how in Britain the number of GATSOs and the fines they achive has rocketed over the last 10 years while the number of fatalities has remained almost at about 3,500.

Capt'n Midnight

Don't introduce any new laws until the exisiting ones are enforced in the way they are done in UK and most EU countries.

Originally posted by cyclopath2001
Reduce all speed limits.
Leave them signs alone - just go metric
this will sort out the 30mph allowed in housing estates. - Then change the signs on the main roads to the new 100Km or whatever - easiest way for the metric change over - and will save a few bob (which is of course more important than saving lives..)

Reduce speed limits even more when it is wet, dark or both. Not likely to happen - motorists are already looking for > 30mph in many areas outside hours. - Dangerous Driving if properly enforced would cover driving at the speed limit in bad weather.

Enforce the speed limits via satellite monitoring of cars. Pass the information on to insurance companies so that prudent drivers do not have to pay for the bad habits of others. The satellite monitoring will also reduce thefts and help reduce insurance costs. main problems are Cost and Big Brother fears - some insurance companies are doing this already..

Enforce legislation that allows businesses to be sued where commercial vehicles are involved and where unreasonable delivery schedules have causes employees to drive dangerously. Surely the Employee can use existing labour leglislation to refuse to do this and sue for harassment. Also existing goods and services leglislatoin covers "as advertised" so any company with daft delivery schedules would already be in breach. Also a lot of couriers are not employed by the company - to save on insurance costs so would not have so much effect. Use the existing leglislation first - if it proves ineffective then propose new leglislation...

Abolish traffic lights, require all drivers to slow down at junctions and give way to each other, make all drivers equally liable for accidents at junctions. They tried this in the states - 4 stop signs at junctions - didn't work - everyone hesitated at first then took the right of way - more accidents...

Drivers to give way to pedestrians at all times Jaywalking is dangerous and muppets crossing the road without looking... & to be required to drive at 30kph or less in residential & shopping areas.once there are red paving bricks in an area drivers should have to slow down - Pedestrians are 1st class road users - drivers should already yield to them !

If the same number of people killed on our roads had been killed by the IRA, we would have marshal law, so let's get tough on road-terrorists. and cigaretts have only gone up 25c - just in case a large price rise would affect the revenue stream by getting people to quit - so no the Gov't wouldn't do anything..

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by mike65
The sinlge biggest way to reduce deaths on the road is to teach people to drive properly and to start the process while at school...

Driving test here is not working. It's too easy to pass - you can fluke it - and too easy to fail - one mistake or bad weather - and takes too long to retry. There should be something like the NCT setup to do this privately in parallel to the Govt one - simply charge €50 for the private test - two week waiting time... And then there was the whole amnesty thing too.

We should have two ways of getting a license
1- Driving course continuous assesment over three weeks. This would not be done by any place that has ever claimed 90% test passes - they are liers ...
2- Driving test - not all done at once - modules to include driving at night.
3- no international driving licenses accepted without a re-test cf. driving tests in Pakistan, India or Egypt.

What happened to the traffic school in Clontarf ? should be more of them and kids should go more than once.

MANY Schools can't teach people to drive:
Before the boom many school leavers would not have ben able to afford a car.. Now insurance costs would make it awkward - esp. now schools need basic necesseties like roofs and floors.

Speeding on toll roads - use CCTV to log people entering the road and tick them off at the toll booth - anyone who arrives early pays an on the spot fine at the booth.

Victor

Originally posted by mike65
ps On the issue of cameras, Top Gear noted how in Britain the number of GATSOs and the fines they achive has rocketed over the last 10 years while the number of fatalities has remained almost at about 3,500.

But, population, car ownership and usage has gone up in that time so to say they have **no** effect is wrong. I suspect cameras have also replaced a lot of manned checkpoints. Perhaps the statement was slanted to the benefit of a target audience?

mike65

That though had occured to me, as the driver population increases then the per capitia death rate falls its true. If I recall rightly about 1,000,000 GATSO fines are handed out a year - 10 years ago it nearly none.

There's a wider issue too perhaps regarding all the safety features that now adorn most cars, have they saved as many lives as we might imagine? Or have falities stayed static because drivers think they're unkillable and so driver worse.

You'd think they should have fallen...no?

Mike.

Victor

Originally posted by mike65
You'd think they should have fallen...no?

I suppose it's like house prices ... it's all down to what people are willing to pay.

Imposter

To increase road safety we need far more Gardai. Whether that's a dedicated traffic core or not is debatable. Don't make them profit driven.

A huge crackdown on jaywalking is needed (including walking through jammed traffic). Crackdown on cyclists breaking laws. And a push at dangerous driving offences.

As a sidenote in Austria here if you are caught cycling while drunk you can lose your driving licence. An idea such as this perhaps linking all instances of breaking laws related to roads, streets and traffic (pedestrians, cyclists and motorists) to driving licences (or future licences) and penalty points might be a good idea.

Victor

Originally posted by Imposter
Don't make them profit driven.

They need to cover **part** of their cost and the real profit that should be made is in the reduction in accidents and the consequent social and economic benefits.

Originally posted by Imposter
As a sidenote in Austria here if you are caught cycling while drunk you can lose your driving licence. An idea such as this perhaps linking all instances of breaking laws related to roads, streets and traffic (pedestrians, cyclists and motorists) to driving licences (or future licences) and penalty points might be a good idea.

Talking to someone last night, he understood that "drunk in charge of a bicycle" can impinge on your driving licence.

FinoBlad

I agree with lots of the points made but to add a different point, I think there is a huge gap between the faster drivers on the road and the slowest drivers. In some parts of the continent that I've driven [Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Denmark and the UK] it seems that people drive faster than here but they ALL seem to drive faster. Rarely do you see someone doing 60kph in a 100kph zone.

IMHO, I think we need to look at the very slow drivers and why they are driving too slow. They certainly cause un-necessary overtaking. Is their vision poor, have they lost their nerve, are they taking prescribed drugs that affect driving?

You can be failed in your driving test for not making steady progress on the road but its not an offience afaik. [My car was recently hit by an elderly lady that had the "wrong glasses on" and her son told me she shouldn't have been driving because of the medication she was taking]

So perhaps a smaller deviation above and below the speed limit would help save lives.

an_taoiseach

"They need to cover **part** of their cost and the real profit that should be made is in the reduction in accidents and the consequent social and economic benefits."

Widen your vision

More Gardai on the ground will also cut out a lot of crime & make living for ordinary people nicer. Now Thats Real Profit ( for people if not for local authorities )

If we follow the Island to the east of us with lots of speed cameras and few police we will end up in the position that they are in where large areas of the country are effectively not policed, crime is rife in such areas and in addition the public at large has a disdain for speed cameras and any & everything that is associated with them

( BTW did any of you listen this morning to the BBC R4 Today item on this topic ? It seems that Whitehall is waking up to the fact that cutting speeding will only reduce the total number of accidents by a small amount & that to do a proper job more police patrols are needed )




An T

Victor

Originally posted by an_taoiseach
More Gardai on the ground will also cut out a lot of crime & make living for ordinary people nicer. Now Thats Real Profit ( for people if not for local authorities )

Yes, this is my point on social benefits, fewer dead people, fewer injuries, fewer people in wheelchairs and on anti-depressants, better used resources - gardaí and courts used to chase non-traffic offences and serious crime. BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE.

Originally posted by an_taoiseach
If we follow the Island to the east of us with lots of speed cameras and few police we will end up in the position that they are in where large areas of the country are effectively not policed, crime is rife in such areas and in addition the public at large has a disdain for speed cameras and any & everything that is associated with them

Speed and other cameras should be used to replace static duties and the freed up manpower used in more mobile patrols and reactive policing. Few serious crimes will occur on country lanes – they tend to occur in urban clusters.

Originally posted by an_taoiseach
BTW did any of you listen this morning to the BBC R4 Today item on this topic ? It seems that Whitehall is waking up to the fact that cutting speeding will only reduce the total number of accidents by a small amount & that to do a proper job more police patrols are needed

Warning fuzzy logic at work. One in 7 accidents result in injuries (typically 2 injuries per injury accident). One in 50 accidents result in deaths (average 1.1 deaths per fatal accident). High-speed accidents cause more deaths. Cutting speeding, cuts deaths. You need a balance between reducing deaths and reducing cost to society.

When considering accident costs, one has to look at the total cost not just to the individual, but also to society. In Dublin last year, 2,000 people were injured, but "only" 17 killed in Road Traffic Accidents (RTAs). This pattern is common to the rest of the major urban areas. In reverse, large towns and rural areas tend to suffer larger numbers of dead per injured, per accident and per capita due to higher average speeds and people not adjusting to the urban environment.

For Dublin, reducing the number of deaths below this figure is likely to be very difficult, however reducing the number of RTAs is possible, in particular by targeting specific black spots and types of accident. Of those 17 deaths in Dublin (down from 54 in 1998), quite a few will have been suicide, homicide and reckless driving deaths (e.g. the 2 Donnybrook gardaí and the taxi driver killed by dangerous driving / intentional endangerment). These are difficult to describe as accidents - less accident - more inevitable. They are very difficult to prevent in strict traffic terms of traffic enforcement and it is my personal position that resources would be better directed at preventing the injury accidents than the fatal inevitables.

Victor

Originally posted by an_taoiseach
How many gardai can we have for Euro200M per year ? 4000 - 5000 ? Thats enough to see that drivers behave - eh ?

More like 2,000 gardaí. However, if instead of training the traffic corps in detective work and similar over a 2 year period like gardaí and instead trained them as a pure traffic force over 3-6 months (less emphasis on discipline, detective work, physical fitness, law etc. more on driving ability, traffic law, self defence, etc.). Not only could they be brought on line quicker and cheaper, but would be cheaper to employ (cue uproar from GRA).

a_ominous

I agree with Mike65's assertion that education/training is the way forward. I read somewhere today (today's Irish Times motoring supplement?) that people would drive differently if the doors were removed from their cars. They'd be much more aware of the dangers that are there.

I remember as a kid in 5th class many, many moons ago I did a cycleing safety course. National Safety Council run I think. Teaches a bit of (un)common sense.

With so many schools running a transition year AKA doss-year, I think _this_ is the ideal opportunity to teach some people proper road safety.
Actually the green cross code is needed much earlier, for the 4 kids that walk to school each day.

But back to the transition year. Get all the kids to do a basic course on a bike. Until they meet an acceptable standard, they don't get to progress to scooter / motorcycle. Reason for moving people onto powered two wheels (PTW) is to demonstrate vulnerability at speed. Say after 2 hours in a car, then they could apply for the compulsory basic training (cars and bikes) which should be at least 10 hours of training and not by your da / ma / uncle.

And when you've completed basic training, you can apply for a driving permit. You apply for the test when you're ready within 2 years of getting permit. If you fail, you have to go back to CBT and apply for permit again. No automatic renewal.

And issue full licences for 10 years but the driver has to sit a 1 hour driving assessment in order to get licence renewed. Cars have to do an NCT, so why shouldn't drivers? In a recent goverment report (here), people were to blame for 86% of incidents. (I don't like to call them accidents)

FYI any advanced driving qualification has to be renewed every 3 years.

cyclopath2001

Imposter wrote:

"A huge crackdown on jaywalking is needed (including walking through jammed traffic). Crackdown on cyclists breaking laws.

This would be a waste of time & resources.

Accidents are mostly caused by excessive speed.

Victor

Originally posted by cyclopath2001
Accidents are mostly caused by excessive speed.

Not strictly true, Inappropriate speed causes lots of accidents, but lots of other factors are involved (inapproriate over-taking, lack of attention). Certainly what speed does is turn an otherwise minor accident into a major one.

10% of accidents are caused by pedestrians (running across roads, stepping out from betwene vehicles without looking, drunk in public, etc.) and pedestrians make up 20% of fatalities, so we can expect that pedestrians are probably "responsible" (insofar as they caused the addident, but not the killing) for their own deaths 25-75% of the time.

Imposter

Originally posted by cyclopath2001
Imposter wrote:

"A huge crackdown on jaywalking is needed (including walking through jammed traffic). Crackdown on cyclists breaking laws.

This would be a waste of time & resources.

Accidents are mostly caused by excessive speed.

I used to cycle around dublin and the amount of times I collided or nearly collided with pedestrians was unreal. The traffic was stopped as is the nature of dublin traffic but the lights were still green. I even got a bollocking off one of the middle-aged women I hit. She nearly threw me off my bike at the time as I was going around a corner and she just appeared, yet somehow it was my fault that she was on the road! I can just imagine the amount of concentraion that is needed if you are driving in such a situation. I'm sure the drivre would obviously get the blame and not the pedestrian.

If that saved even 2 lives a year I don't think it would be a waste of resources. The clocks that they have introduced at some pedestrian lights in dublin seem to be (sort of) working. That's the sort of thing as well as enforcement that make things easier for road users and may help save the lives of pedestrians and cyclists.

a_ominous

I fractured a wrist after braking hard and going over the handlebars of my pushbike to avoid a ped who has just gotten off a bus. Since then I've made the decision not to do that again. I'd rather run into the ped walking onto the road and use them to break my fall than take that sort of spill again. Well I'll make every effort to avoid kids or old folks.

My accident happened on Palmerstown bypass. The guy walked across 7 lanes of traffic, 50 feet from a pedestrian bridge. I had to cycle another 5 miles home with a broken wrist. So no more mr. nice guy.

a couple of weeks later, I was on the bus heading home with my arm in a cast. Saw the same muppet do exactly the same thing walking between the traffic across 7 lanes. Do something stupid like and suffer the consequences.

MadsL

Totally agree on Jaywalking even tho I do it myself. Strangely if I am in say Finland where they are very obedient I fall in line with it too. In Italy I just wouldn't trust the traffic.

I regularly see peds crossing the Dual Carriageway (60mph) section of the N3 at Blanchardstown - scares the bejesus out of me.

cyclopath2001

What gives cyclists and motorists the right to tell people to walk hundreds of metres in the rain to the nearest crossing, then wait for minutes until cars/bikes might stop for a few seconds so that they can run for their lives & then walk back to the point they were trying to get to? This especially affects the old and disabled for whom every extra metre is an effort.

'Road Safety' measures are made up by road users to suit the convenience of road users.

Imposter

Well perhaps if the law was changed so that any pedestrian that gets hit by a vehicle or cyclist in the middle of the road is entirely responsible for all injuries to themselves and the driver/cyclist and/or car/bike then it might make a difference.

As for your assertions on road safety I think you'll find that roads are built for vehicles and bicycles and footpaths are built for pedestrians.

And just like a_ominous I gave up trying to avoid pedestrians and generally went straight for them which meant they were out of the way by the time I got to where they would have been if I tried to avoid them.:D

Victor

Originally posted by Imposter
As for your assertions on road safety I think you'll find that roads are built for vehicles and bicycles and footpaths are built for pedestrians.

Then can you ask the cars and trucks to stop parking on footpaths, cracking footpaths and the gas pipes beneath them?

seamus

Originally posted by Imposter
Well perhaps if the law was changed so that any pedestrian that gets hit by a vehicle or cyclist in the middle of the road is entirely responsible for all injuries to themselves and the driver/cyclist and/or car/bike then it might make a difference.

Agree completely. If there is a pedestrian crossing with working lights within 150 metres then the idiot pedestrian should be held at fault and forced to pay for any damage to the car (if they survive obviously). Just like seatbelts, pedestrian crossings are there to save lives. If you're not wearing a seatbelt in an accident, the insurance company won't pay out. Why should it be any different for pedestrian crossings? If you don't use them, and you get hurt, tough.

Reduce all speed limits. The current limits are based on what speeds motorists want rather than what is actually safe. 30mph is not a safe speed in the city. The recent 'ready-up'where government engineers and the AA decided thespeeds should be must be thrwon out, it only reinforces the status-quo, a conspiracy against cyclists and pedestrians.

Lower speed limits may cause more accidents than they prevent. The current limits are based on what everybody else was doing when they were setting up speed limits. It's been established that drivers mostly drive based on what they deem to be safe, ie within a certain 'danger limit'. Lowering the speed limit (particularly in 30 zones, where most people consider 30 to be the minimum crawling speed on any road), will only raise people's danger limits, and create a wider gap between those who choose to drive at the speed limit, and those who don't == more accidents. To explain this better, if someone's 'danger limit' is 40mph, they may be happy enough to drive for a while at the 30 limit. If the limit is dropped to 20, they may not be satisfied to drive at that limit, and will now drive at 40 instead of 30 (in for a penny, in for a pound). It's a well-researched phenomenon (no links atm). Concordently, the minimum speed limit on motorways should be raised to 45mph. Driving at 30mph on a motorway is extremely dangerous, but legal.

Reduce speed limits even more when it is wet, dark or both.

Agreed for wet. If it was agreed that 30mph becomes 25mph in the wet, and all other limits drop by 10mph, a lot of accidents could be prevented.

Enforce the speed limits via satellite monitoring of cars. Pass the information on to insurance companies so that prudent drivers do not have to pay for the bad habits of others. The satellite monitoring will also reduce thefts and help reduce insurance costs.

As said above - too expensive. Something on this scale could not be implemented by our own Government. It's fine where people say it's ok, but if people don't want to be monitored, they can't be forced, and monitoring 1 million vehicles 24 a day is a logistical nightmare.

Abolish traffic lights, require all drivers to slow down at junctions and give way to each other, make all drivers equally liable for accidents at junctions.

Would never work. Gridlock would be epidemic. In fact, the whole point of 'Give way from the right' is to solve this. Making everyone wait for everyone else satisfies all the conditions required for deadlock. Two things are only useful in these situations - short light sequences (~30secs), or roundabouts implementing "Filter in turn". Anyone who's ever been to Jersey will have experienced what a joy that little rule is.

Drivers to give way to pedestrians at all times & to be required to drive at 30kph or less in residential & shopping areas.

Drivers are already required to give way to any pedestrians that are on the road. See above - if they're not at a designated crossing, and not on the road, then there should be no onus on drivers to give way.

Victor

Originally posted by seamus
See above - if they're not at a designated crossing, and not on the road, then there should be no onus on drivers to give way.

So what about those places where there isn't a designated crossing for miles?

seamus

Originally posted by Victor
So what about those places where there isn't a designated crossing for miles?

Then the current legislation comes into play, as I said above. If they're more than 150m from a crossing, then the car has an obligation to stop if the pedestrian is on the road.

Just to add to my point about danger limits....I found a Research Paper about it. A long read, but quite interesting

cyclopath2001

It seems to me that we have to get rid of the 'motorist mindset' when addressing road safety issues.

To decide speed limits based on what is acceptable to motorists and to curtail the freedom of movement of pedestrians (and call them idiots & muppets) when this freedom becomes inconvenient to motorists represents a form of oppression that has no place in a civilised country.