Dangerous driving, whats going to happen?

pat123

I cut off a garda on a motorbike leaving my estate, I just spotted him too late and decided to keep going instead of stopping suddenly. He pulled me over at the traffic lights (entrance to the estate) and gave me a warning.

Then he told me to drive on after that (I was parked at the traffic lights). The lights were green and a car was coming the other way so I waved the car on and then drove on myself, the lights had just turned orange as I passed them, when I crossed the road he turned on his siren and pulled me over again for running an amber light. He said "that was the worse driving he has seen in a long time" and mentioned something about going to court. I taught the light was green and that it had just turned amber when I started moving through it.

He took down my reg and insurance details and told me to show up at my local garda station with my insurance cert in the next 10 days.

Can someone tell me what is going to happen, will I have to go to court, or will I just get a fine and 2 penalty points? I have never been pulled over before.

KTRIC

Hopefully a nice little fine, some penalty points and a ban for a couple of months. Then you might think about driving with a bit more care.

colm_mcm

In fairness, if you know a Garda was watching, you shouldn't have let the other car out, The amber light warns that the lights are about to change to red, and shouldn't be treated like a green light.

pat123

It was stupid to let the other car go I know.But I was sure the light was green, thats why I went. It turned amber as I passed it.

Big Balls

After you produce at the station it'll probably be the end of it.

In my experience, any guard who mumbles something or other about court is just mouthing off.

colm_mcm

pat123 wrote:

It was stupid to let the other car go I know.But I was sure the light was green, thats why I went. It turned amber as I passed it.

Even if it was green, the person turning right would have gotten his chance to turn when the lights changed. If you let the other guy out you must've stopped, most likely you started off again as the lights were changing from red to amber and you were still going through the junction while the lights were red.

It's a huge problem in Dublin, people breaking red lights, the amount of times I've gone through an amber light, only to see 3 cars follow me

Esel

People who yield the right-of-way when they shouldn't get up my nose, tbh. I was waiting to turn right off a main road when a young guy coming the other way stops and waves me across. What a prat! I just waved him on. Jeebus!

Supercell

esel wrote:

People who yield the right-of-way when they shouldn't get up my nose, tbh. I was waiting to turn right off a main road when a young guy coming the other way stops and waves me across. What a prat! I just waved him on. Jeebus!

Interesting..rules of the road more important than rules of the jungle and it is a jungle out there (believe me, as a biker i'm very cautious at junctions in the car and especially on the bike). I hope you drive cautiously even at junctions where you have right of way.

seamus

I have no problem with people yielding when it's not required, provided that it's done with a little intelligence.

For example, if you're travelling on a busy road, in a long line of traffic, it's just plain considerate to slow down and allow someone to turn onto/off the road. Ultimately you're not going to impede anyone in your line of traffic.

However, people do all sorts of stupid things:
Slowing/stopping to allow someone join/leave a road, when they are the only person on the road, or are in the last three cars of a line. Just keep going - the people waiting to join/leave can wait a few more seconds.
Stopping at a green light to allow someone across. It's ok to hold off for a second or two after the light has turned green, but just stopping at lights is idiotic.
Stopping to allow ambulances to turn, when the ambulance isn't on an emergency run.

cantdecide

Big Balls wrote:

After you produce at the station it'll probably be the end of it.

In my experience, any guard who mumbles something or other about court is just mouthing off.

i agree. if you're not a confident driver but you're not all tracksuits and attitude, i think it won't go any further. that is unless you were driving in a spirited manner when you jumped out in front of him. but i even if you were, he would probably just have mouthed off anyway.


on the yielding issue. there is no good reason to let someone off, just to be sound. i always exercise my right of way, and i expect others to do the same. if i decide someone could do with being let out, i won't do it unless i can see the whites of their eyes! it does work for me.......

curiosity

cantdecide wrote:

on the yielding issue. there is no good reason to let someone off, just to be sound. i always exercise my right of way, and i expect others to do the same. if i decide someone could do with being let out, i won't do it unless i can see the whites of their eyes! it does work for me.......

Ouch, whatever happened to consideration?

ballooba

Yielding right of way leads to confusion, hesitation, delays and accidents. The Rules of the Road are there for a reason.

Anan1

ballooba wrote:

Yielding right of way leads to confusion, hesitation, delays and accidents. The Rules of the Road are there for a reason.

I couldn't agree more.

Henry Ford III

Amber means stop (unless it's unsafe to do so).

Yielding right of way at a traffic light isn't a good idea either. You have other drivers to consider.

Cutting up a Garda on a motorbike isn't too clever.

All in a bad few minutes.

The_Magoo

1. The cop is on a White Bike with Yellow strips, and a white helmet. If you didnt see him its because you didnt look!
2. Waving traffic on at lights is a big no no.
3. Fair enough if you didnt see the amber lights, but you would have been gone if you hadnt waved the op on.
How long are you driving? Full license?

With regards court date I would like to think the cop is only putting the ****s up you but they are liable to do anything these days.

maidhc

ballooba wrote:

Yielding right of way leads to confusion, hesitation, delays and accidents. The Rules of the Road are there for a reason.

If some people didn't let people out every so often there would be a hell of a lot of trucks stuck inside in loading bays and industrial estates. Not to mention people would have to wait until about 4 in the morning to get out of city center parking spaces. Also people could forget about merging into different lanes.

How hard is it to show some consideration

Mc-BigE

esel wrote:

People who yield the right-of-way when they shouldn't get up my nose, tbh. I was waiting to turn right off a main road when a young guy coming the other way stops and waves me across. What a prat! I just waved him on. Jeebus!

Maybe i'm reading this wrong, but if i’m approaching a right turn junction and a car is stopped at the junction (Tee Junction in his case) trying to turn right, I will normally leave him out, especially if he been waiting there a long time before I arrived, its just good manners imo. There are circumstances when I wouldn’t let someone out, like a car coming from his right (opposite direction from me) or if a car passes me on the left. Am I wrong to do this?
The way I look at it if I was at that T-junction, waiting for 5 to 10 mins to try to turn right onto the main road, I would love if someone would let me out.
It rarely happens anymore, drivers have lost their manners on the road I think.

damo

Hopefully a nice little fine, some penalty points and a ban for a couple of months. Then you might think about driving with a bit more care.

I think youre in the wrong place K-tric - this is the MOTORS board not the ****ing HIGH HORSE BOARD.

OP: The worst that will happen is a couple of points, you wouldve been arrested then and there if you were gonna be done for dangerous driving.

\m/_(>_<)_\m/

K-TRIC wrote:

Hopefully a nice little fine, some penalty points and a ban for a couple of months. Then you might think about driving with a bit more care.

totally agree.... your were lucky this time...

how many times have we heard car driver use the excuse " just didn't see them" after they pull into the path of a bike...

open your fuc#ing in future when driving...

hopefully he will do you for dangerous driving... you'll will look next time you pull out into a main road, and might save the life of another road user in the future.

as for the rest... that's just stupid carry on... but with a cop behind you... wow
they should give out points for stupidity as well.

Jood

Ah come on, cut him a bit of slack like, it might have been a stupid thing to do but nobody was killed. We've all done stupid things from time to time and this might make him more aware the next time. OP I for one hope you dont get done for dangerous driving. You sound like you've learned something from it anyway.

Pherekydes

maidhc wrote:

If some people didn't let people out every so often there would be a hell of a lot of trucks stuck inside in loading bays and industrial estates. Not to mention people would have to wait until about 4 in the morning to get out of city center parking spaces. Also people could forget about merging into different lanes.

How hard is it to show some consideration

If you read some of the other posts, you'd realise they're not talking about not letting people out in heavy traffic; they're talking about letting people out when the traffic is fast flowing, and with gaps. And talking of consideration, who are you showing consideration to? The guy trying to get out, or the traffic that you've come to a complete and unexpected halt in front of? That's how rear-end collisions happen.

Stark

damo wrote:

I think youre in the wrong place K-tric - this is the MOTORS board not the ****ing HIGH HORSE BOARD.

Agreed.

maidhc wrote:

If some people didn't let people out every so often there would be a hell of a lot of trucks stuck inside in loading bays and industrial estates. Not to mention people would have to wait until about 4 in the morning to get out of city center parking spaces. Also people could forget about merging into different lanes.

How hard is it to show some consideration

Well like seamus said, sometime's it's good to do, other times it's annoying. Like the other day I was waiting to turn right at a junctions. A car stopped to wave me through but the junction wasn't yet safe for me to turn. The result was I ended up sitting there getting beeped out of it (cars behind me could only see in front of me, not to the right of me) until it was safe for me to turn 30 seconds later.

Incidentally, you fail a driving test if you wave someone through. I'm not sure how anal they are if you stop in the situations that seamus mentioned.

\m/_(>_<)_\m/

Jood wrote:

Ah come on, cut him a bit of slack like, it might have been a stupid thing to do but nobody was killed. We've all done stupid things from time to time and this might make him more aware the next time. OP I for one hope you dont get done for dangerous driving. You sound like you've learned something from it anyway.

why don't you tell that to the 559 people killed on bikes from 1993-2003.

Fey!

\m/_(>_<)_\m/ wrote:

why don't you tell that to the 559 people killed on bikes from 1993-2003.

Car drivers aren't always to blame for motocyclists getting killed, so look to yourselves BEFORE blaming us entirely.

seamus

Fey! wrote:

Car drivers aren't always to blame for motocyclists getting killed, so look to yourselves BEFORE blaming us entirely.

75% of the time, the car driver is found at fault.

He needs to ask himself the question - If that was a Garda car, and not a bike, would he have still cut them up? If not, why not? If so, why?

JamesM

seamus wrote:

75% of the time, the car driver is found at fault.

He needs to ask himself the question - If that was a Garda car, and not a bike, would he have still cut them up? If not, why not? If so, why?

Mostly when you hear of motorcycle accidents- there is no one else involved

seamus

JamesM wrote:

Mostly when you hear of motorcycle accidents- there is no one else involved

Well, that's the other side to it. The pattern of motorcycle accidents tends to follow the same pattern as car accidents - the bulk of them being late at night, on a winding country road, with no other vehicles involved. The only difference is that you're that much more likely to die on a bike.

In general, when you have a car -v- other mode of transport crash, the car is found at fault well more than half of the time. This is probably because the car is the de facto mode of transport, whereas other modes of transport tend to be driven by professionals and enthusiasts, who would pay more attention to their driving on the whole.

Savman

Fey! wrote:

Car drivers aren't always to blame for motocyclists getting killed, so look to yourselves BEFORE blaming us entirely.

Perhaps you can elaborate what you mean by "us" and in that case who exactly are "them"?

I didn't know we were allocated driving "teams" and the world cup dont start til Friday :rolleyes:

The Doktor

From my own experience as both a bike rider (12,000 miles per year) , and car driver (60,000 miles per year). Most of the near misses I have had have been while riding the bike. These have all involved other vehicles, either pulling out in front of me at junctions, or changing lanes while I was beside them.
It seems to me that motorists simply do not see motorcycles, similar incidents rarely happen while in the car. While on the bike it seems that motorists are "out to get you".

In a study done in the UK, by the department of transport, a sample of 1790 accident cases were studied, they involved accidents between 1997-2002.

Of the 1790 accidents 681 were right of way violations, of this, only 136 was the motorcyclist partly or fully to blame. The rest were the fault of other motorists.
The majority of these accidents occur at T-junctions, which are 3 times more likely than roundabouts or cross roads.

Of the 1790, 90 accidents occured when the motorcyclist was filtering, in these accidents other motorists were considdered twice as likely to be at fault.

When these cases were examined, it was found that the other motorist failed to see the motorcyclist when they should have been plainly in view, and frequently IS in view according to witnesses at the scene.

Of the total 1790 cases, 268 accidents involve loss of control on bends. There is evidence of riders hitting Oil, gravel or mud in rural areas, though inappropriate speed is implicated in the majority of accidents. Generally these accidents are put down to inexperienced riders (ie prov license, just got full license or born again riders)
the remaining accidents were varied , with the likes of the motorcyclist being rear ended or visa versa.

Esel

Quote:
Originally Posted by esel
People who yield the right-of-way when they shouldn't get up my nose, tbh. I was waiting to turn right off a main road when a young guy coming the other way stops and waves me across. What a prat! I just waved him on. Jeebus!

Mc-BigE wrote:

Maybe i'm reading this wrong, but if i’m approaching a right turn junction and a car is stopped at the junction (Tee Junction in his case) trying to turn right, I will normally leave him out, especially if he been waiting there a long time before I arrived, its just good manners imo. There are circumstances when I wouldn’t let someone out, like a car coming from his right (opposite direction from me) or if a car passes me on the left. Am I wrong to do this?
The way I look at it if I was at that T-junction, waiting for 5 to 10 mins to try to turn right onto the main road, I would love if someone would let me out.
It rarely happens anymore, drivers have lost their manners on the road I think.

You misunderstood my post. I was waiting to turn right off a major road. The twat who yielded to me (by stopping and waving me across) was also on the major road, travelling in the opposite direction to me. There was no need for him to stop - no traffic behind him, I could have turned after he passed.

\m/_(>_<)_\m/

Fey! wrote:

Car drivers aren't always to blame for motocyclists getting killed, so look to yourselves BEFORE blaming us entirely.

its that attitude... them and us... we all use the road fey

seamus wrote:

Well, that's the other side to it. The pattern of motorcycle accidents tends to follow the same pattern as car accidents - the bulk of them being late at night, on a winding country road, with no other vehicles involved. The only difference is that you're that much more likely to die on a bike.

could you please quote where you are getting this information...
or is it just your opinion...

the only study done and that i have to hand is the one done in the UK. and it states that car involvement is a MAJOR factor in bike accidents, and most incidents are where a car pulls out in front of a bike...be it at a junction or overtaking...