Speeding increases by 800%

Archeron

News report this morning says that since the introduction of penalty points, speeding has increased by 800% and that almost all single decker buses and truck speed all the time. Question is, do you speed, and if so why?
I personally do speed, and ther reason is that I'm sick of being blasted off the road by other road users when travelling at the limit. My own most commonly used road was reduced to 80kmph uner the new limits, and when I did travel at that speed when it was first brought in, i caused a massive queue of traffic behind me that tried to overtake in almost any circumstances. This led to dangerous manvoures, so I though to keep up with the pace and prevent people doing this. I think a lot of the new speed limits are badly thought out in the first place.
Whats your opinions?

Rovi

Archeron wrote:

I think a lot of the new speed limits are badly thought out in the first place.

I think that's the crux of the whole thing.
This '800 percent increase' thing is just daft, and (for me) casts doubt on the accuracy and intent behind the whole thing.
I'd bet the house that the vast majority of the '[FONT=Verdana, Arial]63pc' breaking the regional road speed limit are still at or around the old 60 mph limit. I think people are simply driving at the same speeds they used to on the roads they have driven all their lives, and the wonderful new 'safer' lower limits are being ignored in many cases.

I mean, what rocket scientist decided that when a National Primary Route road gets superseded by a shiny new motorway, it should get reduced from a limit of 60 mph to 80 kph (49.7 mph)? I'm thinking of the N7 in particular, and particularly the most recently bypassed part (Kildare, Monastervin, Ballybrittas) as it's a road I know well. When there were 40,000 vehicle movements a day, 60 mph was deemed the 'safe' limit; now that there are only a few thousand vehicles a day using it, the limit is reduced to 80 kph

What 'logic' is this? It's (mostly) a huge wide road with hard shoulders, and now that there is much less traffic on it, it's suddenly a crime against humanity to travel at the old speed limit?


.
[/FONT]

seamus

Is that a scientifically-measured increase of 800%, an increase in the number of people who admit to have broken the speed limit in the last five years, or an 800% increase in detections?

I seriously doubt that people are driving any faster then they ever have done. As Rovi points out, I'd say this "800%" figure is people being sniped by cash-cows on the side of safe roads that have inexplicably had their limits reduced to 60kph.

I speed, and I'll admit it. I very rarely drive faster than is reasonable for the given conditions though.

dts

I speed,
I just can not get out of the habbit.

mike65

Rovi wrote:

I'd bet the house that the vast majority of the '[FONT=Verdana, Arial]63pc' breaking the regional road speed limit are still at or around the old 60 mph limit. I think people are simply driving at the same speeds they used to on the roads they have driven all their lives, and the wonderful new 'safer' lower limits are being ignored in many cases.
[/FONT]

Exactly, damned statisicts.

Mike.

Owen

Speeding isn't the be all and end all fo miracle cures on the road. I've done **** loads of advanced driving training, both with the Gardaí, and the UK police, and for the car manufacturer I work for. Speed is fine if you know how to drive defensively, and anticipate hazards.

The only thing wiping out motorists in this country are our roads. The Cork Dublin main road is a contraflow for a 50 mile section! Motorways will curb road deaths, not more checkpoints, or kneejerk reactions by the Government. The only thing that will stop people being cleaved in two are dual carriageways/motorways - the chances of head on collisions are dramatically reduced.

Archeron

Rovi wrote:

II'd bet the house that the vast majority of the '[FONT=Verdana, Arial]63pc' breaking the regional road speed limit are still at or around the old 60 mph limit. I think people are simply driving at the same speeds they used to on the roads they have driven all their lives, and the wonderful new 'safer' lower limits are being ignored in many cases.
[/FONT]

100% right. I travel now at the same speeds I did before the limits were reduced. The percentage increase is just the figure i heard on the radio, not sure where it came from. Just goes to show that the whole penalty points thing is a complete fiasco, and has done nothing to change peoples attitudes. It all seemed great at first, but then turned out to be another half baked idea. Then again, I literally cant remember the last time I seen traffic police outside Dublin, so its hardly surprising. As another poster has said, I dont think speed is the be all and end all of dangerous driving on our roads, its a combination of f*ckwits doint the most unbelievabley dumb things on hills/blind corners, and the crappy roads that we're supposed to drive on. Anyone ever drive the Summerhill to Trim road in Co Meath? There's a couple of places where you literally look at the corners and you would really believe that they're TRYING to make people crash. Then again, i think the idea in this country is that when you have an accident black spot, instead of fixing the damn road, putting up a sign telling you its an accident blackspot will do instead. I never understood that logic.

mike65

I never understood that logic.

Fix road - many thousands, erect sign - a few hundreds.

Mike.

Rovi

mike65 wrote:

Fix road - many thousands, erect sign - a few hundreds.

Mike.

Exactly!
And then there's the politically expedient thing of being seen to 'do something'.

There's a bit of road not far from me where there was a tragic crash some years ago. Basically, a group of late-teens/early-twentys crashed into the back of a farm tractor/trailer late one summer evening. The tractor/trailer was stopped on the road, indicating to pull into a farmyard on its left once the other tractor pulling out had done so. Both tractors/trailers were fully and properly lit and had amber flashing beacons.
Anyhow, this group of young people smashed their car into the back of the trailer, and as they were extracting themselves from the wreckage, another car came up from behind them and crashed into the whole lot.
Five died in the end, and as far as I know, it's still the biggest single road traffic death toll in the area.

What did the Council do, in order to be seen to be 'doing something'?
They painted a solid white line down the middle of the road!
So now we have a half mile 'no overtaking' zone on a long straight section of road, which used to be a perfectly safe and usable overtaking area.
The daft thing is, the entire crash took place on the left side of the road (from all the participant's point of view), and 'overtaking' simply wasn't a factor.
Indeed, 'overtaking' would have avoided the incident completely.

.

D'Peoples Voice

mike65 wrote:

Fix road - many thousands, erect sign - a few hundreds.

Mike.

In my experience, I've found that local government have abdicated all responsibility of their roads.
As Olivia O'Leary said when the speed limits were going metric, lets hope that local governments throughout the country will review the roads in their area and come up with an appropriate speed limit and not simply convert the old mph to km/h.
I know local government are dependent on their constitutents telling them if there are particular unsuitable speed limits in existence in their area, but some of the responsibility is on local government to at least carry out an annual audit of the roads in their area, taking into account the condition of the road, the traffic levels, the fatality rate, the bad signage on the road, whether it is well lit, very exposed to icy conditions in winter than most roads, and agree on a particular speed limit.
Of course, this is Ireland so you can bet your mortgage on the fact that people will blame central government, even though they have given the power to local government to do this job. It's about time local government tried to restore people's confidence in them! God knows they've a long way to go in my book, especially Dublin City Council/South Dublin CC and Fingal CC who still have yet to publish their transport strategy for trucks and the port tunnel opening in only a few months.

Capt'n Midnight

800% increase !
This can only mean that less than 12.5% were speeding before :rolleyes:
On some types of wide roads, like those in surbuban areas up to 98% of people were travelling over the 30mph speed limit.

Just PROVES that there is no ENFORCEMENT of current penalty point offences. Which means the new ones won't really help.

Archeron

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

800% increase !
This can only mean that less than 12.5% were speeding before :rolleyes:
On some types of wide roads, like those in surbuban areas up to 98% of people were travelling over the 30mph speed limit.

Just PROVES that there is no ENFORCEMENT of current penalty point offences. Which means the new ones won't really help.

Especially now that there's a total of 33 offenses (I believe). I wonder if they'll print little stickers listing all the things you;re not meant to do for us to stick on our dashboards, similar to the Miles to Kilometers changeover ones. . I know, lets improve road safety by making people look at anything but the road!! Martin Cullen should be tied to the front of a speeding forty foot truck, and maybe then he'll see how damn scary our roads can be, not the mention the complete and unbelievable lack of coppers enforcing the rules of the road. Perhaps they should change the name of that booklet to "suggestions for the road" because it certainly seems that to many, thats all they are. On a sidenote, I was nearly creamed this morning when a van sped through a red light at a busy junction in Ballyfermot and missed me by inches. Speeding AND breaking lights, and all in a busy city location. These are the things that really need to be addressed. The powers that be need to realize that they have to address the real issues that are killing off people on our roads, and stop throwing out dumb petty rule changes so they can sit there all glib and pretend they're doing the right thing.
"minister, people are dying in a lot of accidents on our roads"
"Really? Were they speeding?"
"No minister, we think its just the ****ty roads and poor lighting"
"Oh, OK. Well in that case, reduce the speed limits, and then we can say its their own fault for speeding. problem solved, and not a penny spent!!"

narommy

The whole national road v's regional road speed limits is ridiculous.

The N86 out to dingle going over mountains is a national route (100kph) and the road out to Castlegregory is 80kph but it is a much better road. Long straight stretches.

As for the old N7 and N4/6. Have they overnight really gotten more dangerous since the new motorways were opened. Hardly likely since thenumber of cars have reduced which should reduce the chances of an accident.

Until each section of regional and national road is reassessed and given an speed rating based on an honest risk assessment I don't think that there can be any expectation that motorists will behave.

I also note that i believe that slow drivers are indirectly responsible for a large amount of accidents.

I was coming down from a job in donegal via Sligo and the whole way between carrick-on-shannon and the mullingar bypass some idiot drove at 40-50mph and created a tail back of at least 50 cars behind me and 10 in front of me. This caused many dangerous attempts at overtaking. Personally i had to pull in once i got to the Mullingar bypass to calm down or else i would have done 90-100mph to dublin.

If that person had just pulled it would have saved so much risk taking and they obviously weren't in a hurry. If I know the route i really would have rang the Gardai in the next town and asked them to pull over the person in front.

MrPudding

Archeron wrote:

Especially now that there's a total of 33 offenses (I believe). I wonder if they'll print little stickers listing all the things you;re not meant to do for us to stick on our dashboards, similar to the Miles to Kilometers changeover ones. . I know, lets improve road safety by making people look at anything but the road!!

You need to be taken off the road mate. Allow me to refresh your memory

JD wrote:

Dangerous overtaking 2 5 €80 €120
Failure to act in accordance with a Garda signal 1 3 €80 €120
Failure to stop a vehicle before stop sign/ stop line 2 4 €80 €120
Failure to yield right of way at a yield sign/ yield line 2 4 €80 €120
Crossing continuous white line 2 4 €80 €120
Entry by driver into hatched marked area of roadway, e.g. carriageway reduction lane 1 3 €80 €120
Failure to obey traffic lights 2 5 €80 €120
Failure obey traffic rules at railway level crossing 2 5 €80 €120
Driving a vehicle on a motorway against the flow of traffic 2 4 €80 €120
Driving on the hard shoulder on a motorway 1 3 €80 €120
Driving a HGV or bus on the outside lane on a motorway 1 3 €80 €120
Failure to drive on the left hand side of the road 1 3 €60 €90
Failure to obey requirements at junctions, e.g. not being in the correct lane when turning onto another road 1 3 €60 €90
Failure to obey requirements regarding reversing of vehicles, e.g. reversing from minor road onto main road 1 3 €60 €90
Driving on a footpath 1 3 €60 €90
Driving on a cycle track 1 3 €60 €90
Failure to turn left when entering a roundabout 1 3€60 €90
Driving on a median strip, e.g. boundary between two carriageways 1 3 €60 €90
Failure to stop for school warden sign 1 4 €80 €120
Failure to stop when so required by a member
of the Garda Siochana 2 5 €80 €120
Failure to leave appropriate distance
between you and the vehicle in front 2 4 €80 €120
Failure to yield 2 4 €80 €120
Driving without reasonable consideration 2 4 €80 €120
Failure to comply with mandatory traffic signs at junctions 1 3 €60 €90
Failure to comply with prohibitory traffic signs 1 3 €60 €90
Failure to comply with keep left/keep right signs 1 3 €60 €90
Failure to comply with traffic lane markings 1 3 €60 €90
Illegal entry onto a one-way street 1 3 €60 €90
Driving a vehicle when unfit 3 Court Fine
Parking a vehicle in a dangerous position 5 Court Fine
Breach of duties at an accident 5 Court Fine

If you need something to remind you that these things are against the law then you should not be on the road. These are, for the most part, the most basic rules of the road, if you do not know them then I respectfully ask that you sell you car and start taking the bus.

I agree that enforcement is a major issue, well the lack of it anyway. Just listening to Newstalk 106 at the moment. They are going to do a bit on Road Safety, during the trailer for it they were talking about breath tests. In Ireland there are approx 10K breath tests per year. In Sweden there are 1.2 million per year. I bit of a difference.

MrP

Archeron

MrPudding wrote:

You need to be taken off the road mate. Allow me to refresh your memory
MrP

i hadnt seen the list Mr Pudding, thank you for posting it. OK, they;re basic rules, but I had heard debate that a lot of the new penalty rules were going to be fairly pointless. (today FM early morning show)
And for the record, re the statement on the little stickers:
"sarcasm

* noun, the use of irony to mock or convey contempt.
* a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut
* A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule". Aimed of course at our transport overlords.

MrPudding

Archeron wrote:

i hadnt seen the list Mr Pudding, thank you for posting it. OK, they;re basic rules, but I had heard debate that a lot of the new penalty rules were going to be fairly pointless. (today FM early morning show)
And for the record, re the statement on the little stickers:
"sarcasm

* noun, the use of irony to mock or convey contempt.
* a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut
* A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule". Aimed of course at our transport overlords.

Believe me, I do not need anyone to explain the term sarcasm to me.

You would not have been the first one to complain that there was now "too many things to remember." This was why a responded the way I did. When you made your comment I assumed, as you where commentiing on the new penalty points, that you had seen then. My apologies.

MrP

Archeron

MrPudding wrote:

Believe me, I do not need anyone to explain the term sarcasm to me.

You would not have been the first one to complain that there was now "too many things to remember." This was why a responded the way I did. When you made your comment I assumed, as you where commentiing on the new penalty points, that you had seen then. My apologies.

MrP

I tend to get angry and rant sometimes without explaining myself properly.Just electronically scribble the sh*te that springs into my mind!! cheers again for the list dude.