Somebody please shoot Martin Cullen!

fdisk

maidhc wrote:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

How about the drinking age ? most 17 year olds think it's unfair - how about we get rid of that, and then while we're at it, how about the age of consent? Why stop there? my 7 year old son could start paying his way working in a mine, so lets get rid of the age laws there too. If you're going to quote Niemöller at least make sure it's relevant (ie - you are actually being oppressed)

Stark

Once you're 18, you're an adult in this country and you should have the same rights and responsiblities as any other adult.

Vegeta

fdisk wrote:

How about the drinking age ? most 17 year olds think it's unfair - how about we get rid of that, and then while we're at it, how about the age of consent? Why stop there? my 7 year old son could start paying his way working in a mine, so lets get rid of the age laws there too. If you're going to quote Niemöller at least make sure it's relevant (ie - you are actually being oppressed)

the whole point of that quote is that if you are not part of the demographic being opressed that you stand up for those being opressed, just like that guy who posted the quote is

prospect

Stark wrote:

Once you're 18, you're an adult in this country and you should be entitled to the same rights as any other adult.

Not if it means putting others lives at risk.

IN MY OPINION (for all those who have trouble reading posts),
ALL drivers, regardless of age, should be restricted for at least one year after passing their test. (and the test should be considerably more thorough than it currently is).

Please note, this is only an expression of my opinion, it is not a statment of misinformed fact. I am not attempting to quote any non-existent laws. I am following the theme of a thread about PROPOSED laws, and methods of improving road safety in Ireland.

Alun

Stark wrote:

Uhm yes you can! It's what they do in Britain when they restrict your licence for the first year after you get your licence. It's based on time your licence was held, not age.

That's only in NI, not the rest of the UK AFAIK.

peasant

ahemm ...just a little side issue ...

All those people banned from driving at night (either for a year after getting their licence or until their 25 th birthday or whatever) ...

What exactly will prevent them from blowing their lights out on the first hairy bend they encounter while out driving at night, celebrating their first night out after the "curfew" has ended ??

Ha??

Vegeta

prospect wrote:

Not if it means putting others lives at risk.

IN MY OPINION (for all those who have trouble reading posts),
ALL drivers, regardless of age, should be restricted for at least one year after passing their test. (and the test should be considerably more thorough than it currently is).

Please note, this is only an expression of my opinion, it is not a statment of misinformed fact. I am not attempting to quote any non-existent laws. I am following the theme of a thread about PROPOSED laws, and methods of improving road safety in Ireland.

For all those who think i have a reading problem when infact they just find it difficult to express what they actually mean in wiritten form

I think this would not work (regardless of driver age) in Ireland where there is very little garda presence on the roads. The don't exaclty round up the lone drivers on 1st provisionals now do they

IN MY OPINION(by the way guys feel free to disagree I am not afraid of a debate, I wont acuse you of misreading anything)
I think we should adopt the german system, I would have no problem paying 600 euro if it meant a good education and no waiting list.

Anan1

Vegeta wrote:

the whole point of that quote is that if you are not part of the demographic being opressed that you stand up for those being opressed, just like that guy who posted the quote is

I'm not sure that "oppression" is quite the right term for what's being discussed here.;)

One other point - apparently there is more and more scientific evidence to support the theory that the human brain has not fully developed until around age 25. My understanding is that the parts particularly late to develop include those that deal with risk assessment.

To suggest that accident frequency is purely a function of driving experience is frankly ridiculous, age clearly plays a large part too. This is why a 35 year old on a first provisional will pay less for insurance than a 22 year old with a 3 year NCB.

Stark

prospect wrote:

Not if it means putting others lives at risk.

Oh ffs. What age are you and when did you become such a grumpy old fart? "Damn young people, putting my lives at risk with their youth." I specifically said in my posts "same rights and responsiblities". Ie: They still have to get the same provisional licence to start learning, they have to pass the same test to be a qualified driver and they have to drive with the same care.

Noone is endangering your life just by being under 24, stop being so melodramatic.

Boy racers may be endangering your life, but guess what? That kind of behaviour is already against the law. The law just isn't being enforced properly and now Cullen is seeking easy targets to shift the blame.

Vegeta

Anan1 wrote:

I'm not sure that "oppression" is quite the right term for what's being discussed here.;)

One other point - apparently there is more and more scientific evidence to support the theory that the human brain has not fully developed until around age 25. My understanding is that the parts particularly late to develop include those that deal with risk assessment.

To suggest that accident frequency is purely a function of driving experience is frankly ridiculous, age clearly plays a large part too. This is why a 35 year old on a first provisional will pay less for insurance than a 22 year old with a 3 year NCB.

I was just responding to a poster who used the word opressed, sorry.

Do you have any refrences for this brain development, i would like to read up on it.

To claim that age alone will make you safer is also rediculous

Carb

Carb wrote:

Does anyone actually have the statistics on the number of "young male drivers" killed this year. I'm not saying that anyone is wrong here, but people constantly on this forum refer to statistics, but never seem to seize the opportunity to win their argument, by presenting these statistics. And I mean independent statistics. Insurance companys happily announce that young male drivers are a higher risk when quoting 2.5/3k for insurance, but forget to mention that their biggest profits are from this age group also. A recent study in the UK showed that people over the age of 70 (not sure of exact age) were a higher risk than younger drivers. When this was put to the IIF here, they just said it was wrong, but couldn't quote any statistics/evidence as to why they didn't agree with it. RTE do a thing at the end of their news bulletin each month that lists the names and ages of all the people that were killed in the month. In April or May, there seemed to be more older people on the list than young people, but I wasn't counting, so I could be wrong.

Anyone??

prospect

Stark wrote:

Oh ffs. What age are you and when did you become such a grumpy old fart?

28

No need for the insults, you are supposed to be a moderator :rolleyes:

Stark wrote:

I specifically said in my posts "same rights and responsiblities".

Now that you have edited your post, it makes more sense.

Vegeta wrote:

I think this would not work (regardless of driver age) in Ireland where there is very little garda presence on the roads. The don't exaclty round up the lone drivers on 1st provisionals now do they

I fully agree, as I pointed out in my post earlier.
Enforcement & increased Garda presence is one of the big three potential solutions. But things like this take a long time to put into place, if they ever get the ball rolling.

Anan1

Vegeta wrote:

Do you have any refrences for this brain development, i would like to read up on it.

No, it's just something I picked up from a couple of articles and a programme on TV. You could try Googling it, see what comes up?

Vegeta wrote:

To claim that age alone will make you safer is also rediculous.

Quite true. This is why I didn't;)

Vegeta

Just put a request for a quote into quinn-direct.ie. One was for a man aged 33 with no driving experience on a provisional license, the car was a 2004 BMW 316 1.8 litre. I gave my address in Clare: the quote was 1415.23 euro

The second was for a 23 year old male with a full license for 3 years and 3 years no claims bonus on the same car again with my address in Clare: the quote was 915.85 euro

So i guess experience does account for something

kluivert

Carb wrote:

Anyone??

I agree with Carb here.

How many people who have died on the roads this year, have been under 17, under 19 under 21 under 23 under 25. Does anyone know.

Again everyone can give their opinion, but opinion is useless without facts to back them up.

There is driver education in this country its called www.steerclear.ie and I posted this a long time aga and there was not one response. No interest at all.

In regards to the OP, Martin Cullen is doing what politicans do best, diverting attention away from the real issues or disfunctionality of our present government that is affecting the country today.

Deaths in England are less than here why (I read an article on this and will try and find it again). England has:

Better road infrastructure than Ireland.
More Road Traffic police per Capita than Ireland.
Better driver educational programme than Ireland.

The last great proposal from the Government was to ban provisional license drivers from driving after dark, this is the same thing wrapped up in a different paper.

Have you listened to the radio reports, man killed in car crash after hitting wall. Died from hitting a wall??

People in this country are thick, sturborn, ignorant and disrespectful, and people die from drinking and driving because of their attitudes. Put a squad car outside a bar and see how many people drive home then, this wont happen because as said before its costs to much to employee Garda at unsocialable hours.

Vegeta

kluivert wrote:

I agree with Carb here.

How many people who have died on the roads this year, have been under 17, under 19 under 21 under 23 under 25. Does anyone know.

Again everyone can give their opinion, but opinion is useless without facts to back them up.

There is driver education in this country its called www.steerclear.ie and I posted this a long time aga and there was not one response. No interest at all.

In regards to the OP, Martin Cullen is doing what politicans do best, diverting attention away from the real issues or disfunctionality of our present government that is affecting the country today.

Deaths in England are less than here why (I read an article on this and will try and find it again). England has:

Better road infrastructure than Ireland.
More Road Traffic police per Capita than Ireland.
Better driver educational programme than Ireland.

The last great proposal from the Government was to ban provisional license drivers from driving after dark, this is the same thing wrapped up in a different paper.

Have you listened to the radio reports, man killed in car crash after hitting wall. Died from hitting a wall??

People in this country are thick, sturborn, ignorant and disrespectful, and people die from drinking and driving because of their attitudes. Put a squad car outside a bar and see how many people drive home then, this wont happen because as said before its costs to much to employee Garda at unsocialable hours.

Yup agree with most of your points there. Thing is though the gardai have refused to work with a volunteer force. If we had these voluteer guys then maybe they could be trained up to police the roads or free up real garda to police the roads

jhegarty

Here is what cullen wants you to believe...


Driver A :
Convicted of death by dangerous driving, drink driving with no tax and no insurance.... he is 40 and has just finished his 5 year ban from driving today... he is allowed drive at night...

Driver B:
24 years old. He has been driving since his 17 birthday. Got the test on his first attempt when he was 18. He has been driving claims free ever since, and has no points. He is not safe to drive and night and should be put off the road at night.....

fdisk

Putting a curfew in place is the right idea - the issue then becomes one of best practice - should they ban all drivers under the age of, say, 24, or should they ban all drivers for the first , say, 3 years after passing the test? Ultimately the reasoning isn't to stop inexperienced drivers out on the road - it's to stop immature drivers the drive at high speeds at which they foolishly think they are still in control of the car.

My 2cents says that a 30 year old is typically going to be more mature and aware than a 21 year old (note : typically).

There's no point in putting forward a point about 'driver a is 40 and a bad driver, driver b is 19 and a great driver - as I said earlier, the law has to generalise, so what is they typical scenario?

Guy:Incognito

Vegeta wrote:

Its just Irelands/this governments way of dealing with problems. How about a few phone polls and ask the country how they feel.

Stekelly wrote:

I love all the "bloody martin cullen" and "only in Ireland" knee jerk reactions. This isnt his idea, lots of other countries/american states have similar systems.

.

maidhc wrote:

Statistically:

Most road traffic accidents involve cars.

The obvious solution is to ban cars

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present a view from an immature person who should not be in control of a car.

People in this country have a lot to learn about growing up.

your back on the list btw.:)

Vegeta wrote:

To claim that age alone will make you safer is also rediculous

No but experience can only come with age, you can be old and inexperience, you cannot be young and experienced (obviously this is relative to the task). lest you have some sort of beam to inject your brain with everything you need to know.

Stark

Stekelly wrote:

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present a view from an immature person who should not be in control of a car.

Okay

a) Why did you quote yourself as an example of the above?
b) How do the other two posters' opinions imply that they should not be allowed behind the wheel of a car?

maidhc

fdisk wrote:

How about the drinking age ? most 17 year olds think it's unfair - how about we get rid of that, and then while we're at it, how about the age of consent? Why stop there? my 7 year old son could start paying his way working in a mine, so lets get rid of the age laws there too.

The issue here is proportionality. As I said above, the ideal solution is to ban cars and drivers, but this is patently unworkable, because it is disproportionate. Thus as a society we accept people will die, but this is a price we are willing to pay for a convenient form of transport. Like it or not, but the reality is we value our cars over the 400 people that die + x thousand that get injured. (Nothing odd here; the US for example placed a higher value on a free europe than it did on the many thousands of its own citizens killed in D day landings.)

While certain restrictions may be placed on the ability to drive, the "right" cannot be given and taken at the pleasure of any one person or group of people. Saying that driving is a privilege is only true to a point, like social welfare, taxes, and all other forms of government it must be distributed and apportioned in accordance with constitutional justice.

Article 40.1 of the Constitution does give some rudimentary protections, and the courts have developed the concept of the "over inclusive classification". The idea being that if a legislative measure goes further than necessary to achieve a given goal then it is disproportionate and thus unconstitutional. I would suggest that Cullen’s idea falls into this trap.

Thus to conclude, because a finely honed piece of legislation is impossible doesn't mean a blunderbuss can be used to solve a perceived problem. It cannot.

Guy:Incognito

Stark wrote:

Okay

a) Why did you quote yourself as an example of the above?
b) How do the other two posters' opinions imply that they should not be allowed behind the wheel of a car?

a) because I clearly stated that people are knee jerkign and saying "bloody irish government with their stupid ideas" when it's not the idea of the irish govenment as it has been used elswhere, which is where they got the idea.

b) Because it shows he is immature. Immature people with flippant attitudes to laws (not saying the poster in particular has a flippant attitude) should not be allowed trundle around in large lumps of metal capable of hitting something/someone at 140mph. I guarentee your attitude would change if someone yu know/are related too was killed by a 17 year old provisional licensed driver doing 90mph round a bend.

Would you be confident if a voice came over the intercom just before taking off in a plane and annouced that he was a 17 year old who had never flown before but passed a 40 question theory test and reckoned he could give it a bash?

maidhc

Stekelly wrote:

b) Because it shows he is immature. Immature people with flippant attitudes to laws (not saying the poster in particular has a flippant attitude) should not be allowed trundle around in large lumps of metal capable of hitting something/someone at 140mph. I guarentee your attitude would change if someone yu know/are related too was killed by a 17 year old provisional licensed driver doing 90mph round a bend.

If you are referring to me, I can tell you I am related to a 63 year old who was killed overtaking a truck in Wicklow. His fault entirely, and was the safest driver in the world.

I also happen to have a masters degree in law and am a trainee solicitor so I can assure you my attitude to law is anything but flippant.

Guy:Incognito

maidhc wrote:

If you are referring to me, I can tell you I am related to a 63 year old who was killed overtaking a truck in Wicklow. His fault entirely, and was the safest driver in the world.

I also happen to have a masters degree in law and am a trainee solicitor so I can assure you my attitude to law is anything but flippant.

Maybe it's just the maturity that needs work so.

maidhc

Stekelly wrote:

Maybe it's just the maturity that needs work so.

Indeed.

Stark

Stekelly, it says on your profile that you're from Tallaght. Using your massive leaps of logic, I could assume that you were a scumbag and therefore unfit to drive. You wouldn't disagree with me if you knew someone who was killed by someone from Tallaght.

It's great to be able to make these claims with nothing else to back them up isn't it?

And when did the "provisional licence" issue come into it? We never said that provisionally licenced drivers shouldn't have driving restrictions. Only that the law be applied equally to young and old alike.

Guy:Incognito

Stark wrote:

Stekelly, it says on your profile that you're from Tallaght. Using your massive leaps of logic, I could assume that you were a scumbag and therefore unfit to drive. You wouldn't disagree with me if you knew someone who was killed by someone from Tallaght.

It's great to be able to make these claims with nothing else to back them up isn't it?

And when did the "provisional licence" issue come into it? We never said that provisionally licenced drivers shouldn't have driving restrictions. Only that the law be applied equally to young and old alike.

If I did happen to be a scumbag, how would that impare my ability to drive. Is there any statistics that say that people from tallaght and/or scumbags, crash more often?

Stark

Are there any statistics to show that people who quote the constitution crash more often? Because that's all you seem to be going upon when you say maidhc is unfit to be in control of a car. The guy posted one of the most informed posts to this thread, and you simply rubbished it with nothing more than "omg, that is so immature".

Guy:Incognito

Stark wrote:

Is there any statistics to show that people who quote the constitution crash more often? Because that's all you seem to be going upon when you say maidhc is unfit to be in control of a car.

No I said he was immature and that immature people should at least be restricted when in control of what amounts to a lethal weapon. Generally, a lot of young people tend to be a bit immature, hence the restriction.

_Kaiser_

Stekelly wrote:

No I said he was immature and that immature people should at least be restricted when in control of what amounts to a lethal weapon. Generally, a lot of young people tend to be a bit immature, hence the restriction.

I think that you missed the point he was making:

maidhc wrote:

Statistically:

Most road traffic accidents involve cars.

The obvious solution is to ban cars

I took this to mean (in light of his subsequent point) that no situation is as black and white as this proposed curfew would have us believe. Reality is somewhere in between.