Road Deaths - What can the Govt Do?

andrew

The number of road deaths in this country is soaring, and many people blame the Govt for this problem. They say that the govt should be doing more, that Bertie is to blame. But what can the Govt do?

If someone is stupid enough to drink and drive and then crash into a tree then surely its their own fault. How can people expect the govt to solve this problem? Yes, they could place more Guards on traffic patrol, but its impossible to be everywhere at once. And thats not to mention bad drivers, a problem which can't be solverd by just saying 'make everyone take a driving test,' because no matter what there will always be bad drivers.

I think that the number of road deaths in this country is down to people's stupidity, something the govt can do nothing about, and i was wondering if anyone felt the same.

mloc

i'd have to at least in part agree with you there.

In many rural communities drink driving is seen as an acceptable neccessity of going on the piss. The amount of people I know from small town Ireland who drive home absolutely locked is appaling. And while it's true that larger towns and cities have available public transport, there are always alternatives that people seem to totally neglect, citing thier "right to drink" over the safety of road users. It's appaling.

Can you actually imagine a successful designated driver scheme for 20 something year olds (in fact, drivers of any age) in somewhere like Dungarvan?

Arrogance, showmanship and sheer ignorance of road safety is the real reason for deaths in Ireland.

Captain Trips

I don't know if it's "soaring" at all. We are around about the middle of the road in the EU for road deaths.

In fact, considering there are literally ****loads of more cars on the road these days compared to the 1970s, I would say we are remarkably safe drivers considering the absence of driving education in schools (Primary schools would be a place to start!) and everyone having a car these days, whether fully licenced to drive or not.

samb

mloc wrote:

Arrogance, showmanship and sheer ignorance of road safety is the real reason for deaths in Ireland.

I agree totally. As one of the provisional license drivers on the roads I disagree that this is a major cause for concern although I would agree with measures such as curfews could help and that the waiting lists for test are a joke. The arogance and showmanship is the real problem. It is people who think they are great drivers (and may well have good control generally) who speed around corners on country roads.

That said, I believe in government attempts to intervention for all societal ills. To say it is individual responsibility is true but it does not change help change anything. Government must try to find out why such arogance and showmanship exists and try to change attitudes as much as is possible. I hear people regularly use the personal responsibility argument and variants of it (parental responsibility etc) but in reality is achieves nothing. To govern is to choose, and try to influence society positively. It's difficult and must impinge on responsible people as little as possible.

Also enforcement is a huge issue. I've been on the roads about 3 months, haven't seen a gardai checkpoint or even gardai with a speed camera. I'm shocked at the level of speeding going on. Cars queue up to overtake me when I am going 100kmph (the speed limit).

Akrasia

It's an irish pastime for people of all ages to sit in pubs and regale the crowd with tales of past motoring lunacy/bravery/skill. I bet the politicians who click their tongues and wag their fingers at the young people of today were doing the exact same thing in the days of the ford capris.

Most people will mellow out after a few years, but i think it's an inevitable part of road transport in this country.

penalty points aren't much of a deterrent to the worst offenders, it's almost a badge of honour.

SuperMacs

Here in Galway. Drink driving is not the main contributer in road deaths.
It is just pure stupidity, speed, and general messing by idiot young drivers.

There is a reason why the insurance companies charge astronomical premiums for young drivers. They are at most risk to splat against a wall doing 100km. Or overtake granny on a bad bend, taking themselves and the on-coming car out.

Educution of new drivers. Parents need to chip in here and show there sons that you have to slow down.

Also the gardas got to step in and start handing out points left, right and center to idiots for speeding, dangerous overtaking, tail-gating, etc.

People speed, because the chances of getting caught are really low.
Enforcment of the penelaty points system.

SCULLY

I don't think that any one measure by the government would solve the current problems but a range of changes would, imho, lessen the dire road statistics.

The situation that I can be a provisional driver, fail my test and legally drive away from the test centre is a farce. The current waiting for tests is approx 14 months (or there abouts). I would like for the gov to announce that say from the end of 2007 if you don't have a full licence you must be accompanied by a full licenced driver when you are driving. If you are not accompanied - you don't drive.

I also think that we should adopt a similar method as the 'R' plates in the north - where after getting a full licence you are still restricted for a year or so.

I would also suggest that you should only be able to drive a car of a certain size (> 1.3 ltr) for a couple of years after achieving your full licence before moving onto bigger cars.

The drink driving laws at the moment are fine but like all laws only work if they are rigourously enforced. The concentration of speeding on the main roads is crazy as most accidents seem to happen on secondary and back roads.


Probably 101 resons why the above couldn't work and I myself drove on a provisional licence for 2 years but just my 2c worth -

jhop

Yeah, public attitude is what needs to change.

In OZ we had a whole bunch of hard hitting adds, with slogans like 'if you drink and drive, you are a bloody idiot', 'country people are dying on country roads' and graphic crashes and stuff.

also the road toll is in the news EVERY public holidays, with a little score card for each state.

I have no idea if this actually makes a difference, but I think the road toll is less. (of course you can't really compair, OS roads are very different to here, most of our issues are from fatigue and stuff)

DublinWriter

jhop wrote:

In OZ we had a whole bunch of hard hitting adds, with slogans like 'if you drink and drive, you are a bloody idiot', 'country people are dying on country roads' and graphic crashes and stuff.

Sorry, but those 'snuff' videos don't work. People just become desensitivised to them over time.

Dublinwriter's suggestion is to replace the Angelus with the roll call of the names of people killed on Irish roads during the month.

Another prime reason we have so many deaths is that most of out 'National' N-roads are just single lane and many deaths occur during overtaking.

And lastly, take a look at the car park of any suburban Dublin pub on a Friday night. Are they all 'designated drivers'? I think not.

dahamsta

Captain Trips wrote:

I don't know if it's "soaring" at all.

Someone in the Senate yesterday said it's "spiralling" so it must be true. I rolled my eyes then too.

Speed kills boys and girls. You heard it here first.

Akrasia

SCULLY wrote:

I would also suggest that you should only be able to drive a car of a certain size (> 1.3 ltr) for a couple of years after achieving your full licence before moving onto bigger cars.

I'm not sure if restricting the size of the engine would help cut down road deaths. The law of unintended consequences could come into effect.
Here's what would happen.
If you pass that law, the price of small cars in the second hand market would rise drastically which means young drivers who can't afford a new car will be forced into older and less safe cars than they already are. the difference between a 5 star NCAP tested car, and a 2 star car is very often the difference between life and death, and between minor injury and severe mutilation. Small cars are, as a rule less safe than the bigger, better designed and better equipped cars, the older the cars, the less safe they are.

The drink driving laws at the moment are fine but like all laws only work if they are rigourously enforced. The concentration of speeding on the main roads is crazy as most accidents seem to happen on secondary and back roads.

the drink driving laws in ireland are useless. I know about 10 people who have been caught drink driving, several of them repeatedly, and 8 of them got off without even a fine, and 2 were banned from driving, but both of them still drive regularly, and still drive while extremely drunk. The courts are totally controlled and manipulated by unscrupulius lawyers and idiot judges

If someone is caught drink driving more than once, the car should be confiscated and their license revoked. If they continue to drive, they should be jailed and given treatment for alcohol dependence.

SCULLY

I take your point about the car size, though I still think that the appeal of speeding along in a micra to impress your mates is less than that of a car that is bigger and faster.

I qualified my point about the current drink laws as been ok by saying if they are enforced - it is obvious to most that they are not. However I would have no problem with your last suggestion

miju

my contribution to this thread would be:

a: tell the unions to **** off and bring in a boat load of new trained testers swiftly followed by new legislation - you dont pass your test - your not allowed drive unaccompanied on a provisional FULL STOP and if your caught ??? immediate ban

b: a garda traffic corps with a much higher visibility so people can see enforcement of road traffic laws and won't be as quick to break the law

c: get rid of the that PR stunt gay byrne

the rules are too soft in this country, zero tolerence should really mean zero tolerance

Boggle

Speed kills boys and girls. You heard it here first.

No it doesn't... Its the sudden stop that does the damage!!

I'm with miju on alot of points but I would add:
- proper, appropriate speedlimits.
- compulsory training before a test (proper driving centre, not the joke instructor system we have)
- proper legislation that isn't so full of holes that we have to try and scare people from trying to defend themselves.
- and for those who will want to push their cars I'd liek to see a few closed tracks so tehy can d1ck around away from the public.

SuperMacs

Enforcement...enforcement...enforcement
the guys who drive dangerous, do so because the chances of getting caught are real low.
The Garda already now have the laws in place.
It is a matter of getting out there and slapping points on anyone who drives stupid.
They will start to learn once they have to hand over hard-earned Euros. And when their premiums go nuts when they have points on their license.

silverharp

I think all teenagers ahould be brought on a tour of the national rehab centre. Nobody should be allowed on the road until they have had at least 5hrs of lessons and at least 10hrs before sitting the test. Outsource the test system if they can't run it themselves.

Thankfully I live in Dublin and mostly only drive around during the day, I have to say the standard of driving is fine, the markings and light changes could be better though

bonkey

andrew wrote:

many people blame the Govt for this problem. They say that the govt should be doing more, that Bertie is to blame. But what can the Govt do?

If the government had taken the initiative to tackle this problem, we'd almost undoubtedly see a "Nanny State" thread here in place of this one.

Go figure.

As to what the government can do....they could start with some obvious things....like sorting out the mess that is the Irish system for obtaining a driving license.

I know the laws have changed somewhat since I left Ireland, but take the following example. Here, in Switzwerland, in order to become a driver:

1) I must sit an obligatory "First Aid" course.
2) I must have eyes etc. checked, and sit a Theory exam.
3) Once I've done that, I'm allowed behind the wheel of a car, as long as I'm in the presence of a qualified driver, over 25 years of age, with a clean license for at least 5 years. This person must be awake & legally capable of driving while riding shotgun. (i.e. my fiancee can't turn me into her designated driver so I can bring her to/from the pub)
4) Before I sit the exam, I have to sit another course (Verkehrskundeunterricht) which is basically about safety awareness.
5) Once I've passed the exam, I'm still not done. For the next 3 years, I'm effectively on a provisional license (different to a learners license) which means that tolerances like alcohol-limits are way lower for me, and penalties for breaking the laws are much higher.

With no waiting lists to speak of, there is no excuse for any relaxing of the system....and it is fully enforced (my GF gota speednig ticket for being 1km over the posted limit recently).

I could be wrong, but I believe they've also introduced laws whereby breaking the post speed-limit by more than a certain amount (varies depending on the posted limit) will lose you your license for life.

What do the government need to do? Simple:

1) Improve the roads - already under way
2) Fix the qualification system
3) Enforce the law, and stop giving offenders an easy time.

netwhizkid

silverharp wrote:

I think all teenagers ahould be brought on a tour of the national rehab centre. Nobody should be allowed on the road until they have had at least 5hrs of lessons and at least 10hrs before sitting the test. Outsource the test system if they can't run it themselves.

Thankfully I live in Dublin and mostly only drive around during the day, I have to say the standard of driving is fine, the markings and light changes could be better though

I have to say I have to agree with you there Silverharp, I visited one of these places myself about 4yrs ago as a relation of mine was involved in a car accident which left one dead, (he was a passenger) He is now in a wheelchair as a result of the accident. [EDIT] It was a special hospital in Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin [EDIT] I think that education of young drivers is key. I have read that they teach teenagers to in other countries in school. A cousin of mine in New York was taught to drive in school. We should have drivers ed here too I think.

Another thing I feel that many people have missed when calculating road deaths. Our population is going through the roof, we have massive inward Immigration here and many of these immigrants are also getting caught up in the carnage. Like those poor souls in Donegal a while back.

As our population is rising we are inherently going to have more car crashes, and thus deaths. As the majority of these Immigrants are from countries which drive on the right side of the road. The adjustment to our style of driving is also another factor which make them more prone to accidents. I am glad to see that the government is going about educating them (or so I read) However I feel that erecting bi-lingual signs in Polish, Latvian etc is completely bonkers.

Sweden I believe recently brought their road deaths down to levels which are at their lowest for something like 40 yrs. If we were to look at their examples and see what measures we could implement here would be a good idea IMO.

silverharp

netwhiz - sorry to hear about your relation, re the RHD, I'm not sure if that is the issue, my wife is German and she never had a problem with switching sides. I think the issue is where they are from and their ages, you basically have a bunch of 20 somethings, maybe driving for the first time, and coming from countries that admit they have a drink drive problem Latvia & Lit.

elurhs

All good points made here. Personally, I think more enforcement would certainly have a large effect on road safety. You hear in America of people being stopped for a broken light, tailgating, etc. When has that ever happened here? A competent, visible Traffic Corps is needed.
Even in a city the size of Galway, ten guards in 5 two man teams moved around the city each day would make a big difference. 2-3 hrs in one location, then moved to another. Mix speed checks with the odd checkpoint.

A little OT, but we keep hearing that Templemore is at full capacity and can't train any more guards each year. Why don't they ....wait for it.... open a SECOND garda college??

Benster

silverharp wrote:

Thankfully I live in Dublin and mostly only drive around during the day, I have to say the standard of driving is fine, the markings and light changes could be better though

Sorry, Silverharp, I'm trying to restrain myself here...
What part of Dublin exactly? Have you been on the M50 in the last couple of years?
The standard of driving in Dublin is atrocious, especially on dual carriageways.
I dread roundabouts without lights as I regularly come across goons who have no idea what the rules are for driving on them.
Indicators are rarely used by the majority of drivers [I actually notice more if a driver DOES use them]
Mobile phone use is a regular feature on the roads.
Dangerous blacked-out windows are becoming a regular sight.

I really must disagree and would go so far as to say the standard of driving is getting much worse.


And in my opinion it IS the govt who should shoulder a large part of the blame, because of:

- underfunding / late-in-the-day setup of a Traffic Corp to enforce the law

- lax attitude to driver education (yes, licences and testing)

- vested interests being allowed to set agendas rather than the public good.

Rant over (for now)

B.

Hotblack Desiato

andrew wrote:

The number of road deaths in this country is soaring, and many people blame the Govt for this problem

Perspective: the number of road deaths now is about half that of the 1970s, with far more vehicles on the roads. That's not by any means to say it's acceptable, but tabloid outrage is a very poor substitute for informed debate.

If we are to tackle road safety in a meaninful way in this country it will have to be in the same way every other country has tackled it: the 3 E's - Education, Engineering, Enforcement.

We have practically zero Education. Training and testing is a joke.
We have poor Engineering. Single carriageway routes carrying traffic loads far more than they were designed for. Poor road surfaces, markings, signage, lighting.
We have poor Enforcement. If you're not speeding at a well known 'revenue collection point' then you need not fear the law, no matter how drunk you are or how dangerous your driving is.

Road safety costs votes and with 400,000 people on provisionals, you can be damn sure nothing meaningful will happen, at least not until after the election...

Stabshauptmann

Gardaí dont need to be everyone. You need to figure out the penalty that would discourage people and make the actually penalty times the probability of being caught greater than this.

Ie If a €40 fine for littering would stop ppl, it could be enforced by
A) A €50 fine and a 100% chance of being caught
A €100 fine with 50% chance of being caught
C) A €1000 fine with 5% chance of being caught

I dont know what would stop ppl, and I dont know the true detection rates, but a 10 jail term for drink driving would stop ppl!

Other things, improving the public transport system so ppl have more options. Drink driving is worse in rural than urban areas i think (opinion).

Legalising random breath testing.

Education on the effects of DD, not just gory ads but tell ppl the fact and figures of how alcohol impaires driving and prob of accident.

Then there are more nannyish things such as cool gadgets installed in cars so engines wont start if your drunk. A duel key and breathaliser ignition system (yes I know this is wholly unpractable and can be beaten but the OP wanted suggestions).

robindch

> The number of road deaths in this country is soaring, and many people
> blame the Govt for this problem.

What for? It's the people who are crashing, not the government. Neither is the figure "soaring", despite a lot of chatter in the low-brow press about the matter -- hey, it's easy news copy, let's print it! If you actually look at the statistics, available here:

http://www.garda.ie/angarda/statistics98/rtastats_longterm.html

...you can see that except for the last two years, road deaths have been dropping steadily since the early 1970's in absolute terms. Since the number of cars on the roads has increased massively since then, safety on the roads has increased proportionately even faster.

That's not to say that 400-odd people dead last year is acceptable, but that much of the self-important public whining in the media is misplaced. On the positive side, at least it's a politically neutral situation that everybody can agree is frightful, and does distract from any other disagreeable political concerns that might happen along from time to time.

Cork

Road Deats coud be cut by lowering the drink driving limit. There are vehicles on our roads that don't require MOTs eg. recovery vehicles, mobile workshops etc.

We should have a national insurance database and technology should check to see if cars are taxed and insured and not the garda.

Some road deaths are down to driver stupidity and no government should be responsible for this.

That said - measures should be taken to improve safety on the roads.

flogen

Cork wrote:

Road Deats coud be cut by lowering the drink driving limit. There are vehicles on our roads that don't require MOTs eg. recovery vehicles, mobile workshops etc.

We should have a national insurance database and technology should check to see if cars are taxed and insured and not the garda.

Some road deaths are down to driver stupidity and no government should be responsible for this.

That said - measures should be taken to improve safety on the roads.

If people are willing to drink at all and then drive no law is going to stop them.
Frankly, public transport improvements, price drops on soft drinks in pubs and increased patrols for detection would all have ten times the effect of a law change.

If there were to be a change in legislation I would say it should be an increase in penalties; someone is caught drink-driving they should have their licence revoked instantly (and perhaps permenently)

murphaph

miju wrote:

my contribution to this thread would be:

a: tell the unions to **** off and bring in a boat load of new trained testers swiftly followed by new legislation - you dont pass your test - your not allowed drive unaccompanied on a provisional FULL STOP and if your caught ??? immediate ban

b: a garda traffic corps with a much higher visibility so people can see enforcement of road traffic laws and won't be as quick to break the law

c: get rid of the that PR stunt gay byrne

the rules are too soft in this country, zero tolerence should really mean zero tolerance

Your above suggestions would just bring us into line with Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. That just shows how poor our diving standards and RTL enforcement are here.

Apart from proper driver education, training and RTL enforcement, the govt. could do much more to eliminate dangerous stretches of road. I'm not talking about bypasses and expensive realignments-I'm just talking about making sure the pavement (not the footpath!) is adequate for it's purpose, that the road is marked in accodance with law and has cat's eyes where necessary, that the road has adequate lighting where required and that ALL NECESSARY SIGNAGE is in place and MAINTAINED. Very few stretches of road in Ireland succeed at all these points. They are not grandiose expensive projects and as such do not attract votes, so the DoT does nothing to ensure the NRA and local authorities comply with their LAWFUL responsibiltes outlined above. It's easy to blame the drivers on it all (as most crashes are indeed due to driver error) but there are many deaths and injuries caused by poor road installation and maintenance.

seamus

The main problem here is attitude. There always has been (though it's slowly fading) and Irish attitude of the cute hoor. The guy who manages to chance his arm and get away with it is given a special place of honour in Irish society. The guy who got off jail on a technicality, despite being a complete scumbag, is patted on the back and has all his pints bought for him that night, with cheers of, "Congratulations", and "Well done".

You don't need to enforce the laws at all. You just need to make people think that they're unlikely to get away with it. Even if the speeding fine was only €20, far less people would do it if they thought there was a checkpoint around every bend.

The people who commit the serious traffic offences (dangerous driving, drink-driving, etc) or who habitually break the traffic laws are the same people all the time. While education would do much to improve the quality of driving, and reduce our stresses, the same people will continue to break the law, and of the new drivers, there will always be a law-breaking subset. It's unavoidable and not curable through education.

Higher penalties are useless. Increase the speeding fine to €1,000 and the only people who'll stop speeding are us people who feel guilty about breaking an amber light or who refuse to overtake on a white line, even on a wide road with no oncoming traffic. The other speeders will continue speeding because they're still not going to get caught. Increase the chances of getting caught, and you decrease the number of people willing to get caught.

I'm using speeding as an example btw, not pointing it out as the evil.

Stabshauptmann

seamus wrote:

Higher penalties are useless. Increase the speeding fine to €1,000 and the only people who'll stop speeding are us people who feel guilty about breaking an amber light or who refuse to overtake on a white line, even on a wide road with no oncoming traffic. The other speeders will continue speeding because they're still not going to get caught. Increase the chances of getting caught, and you decrease the number of people willing to get caught.

Higher penalties serve the exact same function as higher chances of getting caught, they increase the expected penalty. Simple economics and math.
x=fine, prob(x) chance of being caught, E(x)=expected fine.

E(x)=x.(prob(x))
If you want to double E(x)
2E(x) = 2x.(prob(x)) = x.2(prob(x))

If the fine were €10,000 I cant imagine anyone speeding.

TempestSabre

Kaptain Redeye wrote:

Higher penalties serve the exact same function as higher chances of getting caught, they increase the expected penalty. ....

I don't agree. If you think you won't get caught doesn't matter what the fine is. Take the example of driving illegally on a provisional. Everyone does it because no one gets done for it. Theres also the point that the fine should be relative to your income. A millionaire isn't going to be put off by a €500 fine if he only gets caught ones a month. If he gets caught every 2nd day, even the annoyance of it will stop him.

Enforcement. All other issues are related to that.

All this talk is meaningless without real stats. I'd like to see some stats on heavy enforcement and its results. There was talk of somewhere in Oz or New Zealand getting tough and it dropping the deaths dramatically.

mloc

Cork wrote:

Road Deats coud be cut by lowering the drink driving limit.

Negligably. Lets be honest. How many times have you been breathalysed? Even with minimal drink driving limit, it would have little or no effect with current enforcement.

Some road deaths are down to driver stupidity and no government should be responsible for this.

I would go further and say the vast majority of road deaths are due to driver stupidity. The fact is, with driving attitudes in Ireland, people just don't care about the laws unless they know they are going to get caught. It's almost as if the part of the human brain that controls driving safety is 8 years old.