Bertie opens mouth and places foot

sovtek

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2006/0717/3521604471HM1ROADS.html
OK so it's not the most original subject line.
So Bertie's basically saying maybe all these deaths will make people drive better.
Arrogant SOB....it's quite obvious to me that blaming the victims and people's crap driving for all the road deaths is a sure way of avoiding blame for yet another failure of this government. Oh yeah lets put a tv presenter in charge of road safety.
If they would spend some of those surplus millions on improving the roads here (instead of wasting it on PR stunts with Gay) then road deaths would more than llikely come down.
It's cynical and dangerous...

I almost totally disagree with you sovtek.

The people who cause accidents by wreckless driving are not the fault of politicians.
Politicians CAN take some blame for not enforcing the rules enough but,most of the responsibility is on wreckless careless no good drivers.

My local town is reputed to be the one with the most road ramps in Ireland.
They were put in to stop the young lads in souped up cars roaring up urban roads at 60mph.

Whats happened? They've gone outside the town and are now roaring up my road at 80 or 90 mph sometimes and they dont give a damn.
They think they will live forever.

One of them recently in the dead of night tore up the road at reputedly 100mph at 3 in the morning with the headlights off.
There was a head on collision where both the "chicken" driver his passenger and a number of innocent people in the other car were killed stone dead.

Several times I've noted drivers texting while driving.
Now with the hundreds of thousands of cars on the road, you would want martial law on Irelands roads to catch some of these eejits.

Ph3n0m

Even if money was spent on road, etc - we would still the flux of "racer" motorists - who think they will live forever or that they own the road.

A major problem is some people think their licence gives them free reign to treat the roads as their own personal speedways.

No matter how "perfect" a road is, if you are driving around with your damn headlights off, or speeding or whatever you will end up in or causing an accident.

Liber8or

He probably has the right attitude, tbh.

What more can he do?

People dont give a **** about Penalty Points, they dont care about how much they drink before driving.

Boy racers (due to good economy) are able to afford bigger and faster cars while still paying the insurance.

Garda recruitment is on a high at the moment, with so many in training.

Garda Traffic Corps are out there doing their job, i personally as a witness see at least one group of them everytime im driving.

There are plenty of Speed Sign Posts and Signs warning drivers of dangerous areas, etc.

It comes down the Irish psyche. People dont understand the impact and consequences of their actions until it is directly on them. In short : "People dont give a ****".

If they are late and need to get to work, they will drive faster. If they dont want to pay a Taxi fee of 20 Euro and instead get a couple of more pints they will drive.

All the government can do is keep piling up the pressure with more and more Gardai on the roads and tougher penalties. It will keep going and going until some Civil Rights person starts attacking the government for going too far on Driving Laws... :rolleyes:

Its up to the people of this country to change their ways, all well and good blaming a government that does nothing. But at least they are doing SOMETHING about it.

Diogenes

Earthman wrote:

Several times I've noted drivers texting while driving.
Now with the hundreds of thousands of cars on the road, you would want martial law on Irelands roads to catch some of these eejits.

Just on an aside I remember working with someone, years ago, who turned to me

"I nearly crashed the car today, I was sending a text and got distracted, and nearly veered into oncoming traffic, they ought to make texting while driving illegal"

To which the only response that I feel is adequate "Do they have to legislate for every bit of common sense?"

I really think if this is the sort of things we're seeing people do while driving we need to have remedal drivers education, I mean everything needs to made clear, make the rules of the road a phone book if you have to, so people cannot say "What you mean I shouldn't drive witha a dog in my lap?" (This I've seen)

Keyzer

They should make it so if you are caught breaking driving laws you are heavily fined and I dont mean €200. Make €1500 for the first offence, €3000 for the next and lose your licence for 6 months plus name and shame etc. People dont pay attention to the ads or the pleas from people to drive safely so make it so they'll be hit where it really hurts.
All proceeds should then be used to improve roads.

In fairness, even if the roads were amazing, there were 24 hours of ads showing the terrible effect drink driving/speeding etc. have it would still go on.
I'm not absolving Bertie but in my opinion its 80% in the hands of the driver.

seamus

The problem with any system is that corruption will creep in when there's no perceived checks. It's an unfortunate side of human nature. Even with all the driver training in the world, a certain % will go out there and drive like they own the road. Another small amount will realise that the chance of them being caught is minimal, and will use that to make infringments which benefit them. As these two groups begin to affect others' driving, everyone realises that these guys aren't being caught, so they won't be caught, and the bad driving creeps across the entire population. Then the new drivers come in and get trained into this mindset.

No matter how much the politicians try to say, you can't tell people to drive correctly. It doesn't work like that. The only people who'll listen are the ones who already present the smallest risk. The large risk ones will ignore the warnings or will assume the warnings don't apply to them.

Increase the visibility of the Gardai, increase the possibility to get caught for breaking the law, and you'll see the standard of driving shoot up through the roof. When I'm driving, I should be made to think that there's at least a 50:50 chance of a Garda being around the next corner. Currently I can go hundreds of miles without seeing a single squad car.

People will die on the roads, it's unavoidable. People will drive badly, it's unavoidable. All we can is limit the two of these. Besides, we're not that bad. In European terms we're nowhere near the worst.

layke

Our roads are bollo**s. Government projections of building our road network was way off costing a hell of a lot more then anticiapted.. (another e-voting machine job).

I figure, in the old days say 80's and 90's you could go as fast as you like around the west of Ireland and arrive home safe. Where as today, you are far far more likely to meet another car on your journey. Every accident I hear of these days involves a head on collission where vehicle meets vehicle at 4am on some dingy road with no lights.

Just an FYI on the boy racer point above. You don't need to buy a Subaru to reach 100mph. You can just about do that in a 1.1L except you have crappy little tyres and with 3 other people in the car you have too much weight. Your actually better of having something like an EVO with fantastic brakes, handeling and will not fold up like a peice of tinfoil when you crash. So what, you can accellerate much faster, still a safer car by far.

seamus

layke wrote:

Just an FYI on the boy racer point above. You don't need to buy a Subaru to reach 100mph. You can just about do that in a 1.1L except you have crappy little tyres and with 3 other people in the car you have too much weight. Your actually better of having something like an EVO with fantastic brakes, handeling and will not fold up like a peice of tinfoil when you crash. So what, you can accellerate much faster, still a safer car by far.

While in theory that's dead right, in actuality it doesn't quite work like that. Larger, more solid and more powerful vehicles give the illusion of safety, and can cause less experienced drivers to drive beyond their limits because they feel the car can handle it. While I don't have any actual stats to back it up, the insurance companies don't rape you for insuring an Evo (instead of say, a Fiesta) just because they feel like it.

95% of accidents involve driver error. No amount of advanced braking systems, roll cages or side impact protection will improve that figure.

Calina

sovtek wrote:

If they would spend some of those surplus millions on improving the roads here (instead of wasting it on PR stunts with Gay) then road deaths would more than llikely come down.
It's cynical and dangerous...

The condition of the road had nothing to do with the force with which I had to apply the brakes to avoid a head on collision on Saturday. It had everything to do with the generalised level of stupidity of another driver overtaking without actually checking that there wasn't an oncoming car.

Road deaths would also come down if people didn't do stupid things but that's far too much to ask in this country, it seems.

The French put in a load of cameras. It's about bloody time we did.

I read in one of the papers at the weekend that relative to other OECD countries Ireland has quite a low rate of accidents. Of course that will do little to abate media hysteria.

अधिनायक

layke wrote:

I figure, in the old days say 80's and 90's you could go as fast as you like around the west of Ireland and arrive home safe. Where as today, you are far far more likely to meet another car on your journey

Well the statistics disagree. Average road deaths in the 80s were 485, in the 90s 441 and 385 this century. I don't want to go back there.

Keyzer wrote:

They should make it so if you are caught breaking driving laws you are heavily fined and I dont mean €200. Make €1500 for the first offence, €3000 for the next and lose your licence for 6 months plus name and shame etc

Increasing the penalties for widely broken and poorly enforced laws has little effect on compliance. All you end up with is lucky dip policing where a few unfortunates are caught and punished unfairly for the sins of the others. People don't break laws when they think they'll be caught. If you don't think you'll be caught, the high but unlikely penalty is hardly going to influence you.

seamus wrote:

Increase the visibility of the Gardai, increase the possibility to get caught for breaking the law, and you'll see the standard of driving shoot up through the roof. When I'm driving, I should be made to think that there's at least a 50:50 chance of a Garda being around the next corner. Currently I can go hundreds of miles without seeing a single squad car.

Only automation can deliver the number of speed checks necessary for effective speed limit enforcement. This is in pipeline with the promised outsourced 12 million speed checks per year. Every car will get checked six times a year by a variety of cameras including mobile and hidden units. This will free up cops for random breath testing that will hopefully bring down this element of the problem. If it ever happens.

seamus wrote:

Besides, we're not that bad. In European terms we're nowhere near the worst.

With all due respect this is a terrible attitude. We could reduce our road deaths by more than 160 annually if we got our accident level down to that in the UK. Are you happy to stay where we are? Are you happy that we can find 1 or 2 billion for the NRA to build new roads annually but can't find a few million to run a functional testing system?

The pillars of road safety are engineering, education and enforcement and all of these are within the government's control. A change in attitude by drivers would follow from effective enforcement and from not allowing hundreds of thousands of untrained drivers on the roads.

We don't even test alcohol levels in all fatalities as a matter of course despite the fact that this would give us valuable information to decide where money should be spent to reduce road deaths most. How can anyone justify this kind of murderous stinginess?

Berties statement that 'The people who can do something about it, to be frank with you, are the people who are driving cars every day' indicates that he does not accept that state improvement to education and enforcement will reduce road deaths more than some kind of national epiphany where we all see the light and start driving sensibly. I find this frightening.

sovtek

Calina wrote:

The condition of the road had nothing to do with the force with which I had to apply the brakes to avoid a head on collision on Saturday. It had everything to do with the generalised level of stupidity of another driver overtaking without actually checking that there wasn't an oncoming car.

Road deaths would also come down if people didn't do stupid things but that's far too much to ask in this country, it seems.

The French put in a load of cameras. It's about bloody time we did.

...and it wouldn't have anything to do with the small, one lane each way...road on which you were traveling that made someone want to overtake?

Calina

sovtek wrote:

...and it wouldn't have anything to do with the small, one lane each way...road on which you were traveling that made someone want to overtake?

Actually, I was on much narrower roads during the weekend, but that's academic. A road doesn't make a driver want to overtake. A driver decides of his own volition to do so. If he was a good driver - which a lot of people in this country aren't, hence whinging about enforcement and driver training - he would have checked that nothing was coming towards him before he pulled out. And just in case you're wondering, he wasn't stuck frustrated behind a tractor or a bicycle.

Blaming the road in that case is actually idiotic. Drivers make decisions. Roads do not.

seamus

अधिनाय&#2325 wrote:

With all due respect this is a terrible attitude.

My point really is that the media are in overdrive about this one singular issue and they risk creating fatigue. It'll get to the point where people just don't care anymore. The media would have us believe that we have the worst rate on the planet, and they're using it as a stick to beat their least-favoured politicians with.
If instead they reported this issue without an agenda, they could actually be using the space on their pages for some good use.

Berties statement that 'The people who can do something about it, to be frank with you, are the people who are driving cars every day' indicates that he does not accept that state improvement to education and enforcement will reduce road deaths more than some kind of national epiphany where we all see the light and start driving sensibly. I find this frightening.

I concur.

sovtek

Calina wrote:

Actually, I was on much narrower roads during the weekend, but that's academic. A road doesn't make a driver want to overtake. A driver decides of his own volition to do so. If he was a good driver - which a lot of people in this country aren't, hence whinging about enforcement and driver training - he would have checked that nothing was coming towards him before he pulled out. And just in case you're wondering, he wasn't stuck frustrated behind a tractor or a bicycle.

Blaming the road in that case is actually idiotic. Drivers make decisions. Roads do not.

I'm no idiot and I've been driving for almost 20 years. It's not idiotic to say that the condition of the road will certainly determine how people drive. I'm not saying that this person didn't make a bad decision but a winding road that's hard to overtake is going to make that scenario happen more often.
I hardly see the solution as leave the bad roads bad and just institute punitive measures against all of us.

Lambsbread

I think one of the areas where governemnt could help road safety is in relation to VRT. I was reading the Sunday Times yesterday and it was pointed out that any safety equipment that adds to the cost of the car is still subject to 30% VRT. This increases the cost of safety equipment (like airbags etc.) and therefore less people choose to buy it.

There is more that the goverenment can do, but there is still alot more drivers can do.

Calina

sovtek wrote:

I'm no idiot and I've been driving for almost 20 years. It's not idiotic to say that the condition of the road will certainly determine how people drive. I'm not saying that this person didn't make a bad decision but a winding road that's hard to overtake is going to make that scenario happen more often.
I hardly see the solution as leave the bad roads bad and just institute punitive measures against all of us.

The problem, as I see it, is that on this occasion, the road was a good road. The two lanes were both reasonably wide, it had been resurfaced sometime in the last year or two, there were no potholes, and the point where this happened, it was straight and was for a good kilometre either side of where he nearly collided with me. You actually cannot blame the condition of the road for his not looking to see if there was any oncoming traffic. There is no justification for that near miss. Unless, perhaps, you are suggesting that every road in the country is a dual carriageway?

It is not an either/or situation - either drivers wise up or we fix roads. Roads need to be maintained either which way, but that does not rob drivers of the responsibility take basic care such as checking for oncoming traffic before they attempt to overtake.

lostexpectation

we've had high deaths for yonks it doesnt' change much? it was stupid thing to say...

samb

Keyzer wrote:

They should make it so if you are caught breaking driving laws you are heavily fined and I dont mean €200. Make €1500 for the first offence, €3000 for the next and lose your licence for 6 months plus name and shame etc. People dont pay attention to the ads or the pleas from people to drive safely so make it so they'll be hit where it really hurts.
All proceeds should then be used to improve roads.

In fairness, even if the roads were amazing, there were 24 hours of ads showing the terrible effect drink driving/speeding etc. have it would still go on.
I'm not absolving Bertie but in my opinion its 80% in the hands of the driver.

Who should make it 1500 for first offence?? The Government-so you blame the government for not doing this(more). I'm a poor student and thought that my 80 euro fine for speeding was very small, can you imagine the attitude all these rich ^^*^8 in jeeps to the 80 euro fine, after they wiss pasted me at 130kph. In my experience they are worse than the little-boy-racers because they feel they 'command the road'.

sovtek

Calina wrote:

The problem, as I see it, is that on this occasion, the road was a good road. The two lanes were both reasonably wide, it had been resurfaced sometime in the last year or two, there were no potholes, and the point where this happened, it was straight and was for a good kilometre either side of where he nearly collided with me. You actually cannot blame the condition of the road for his not looking to see if there was any oncoming traffic. There is no justification for that near miss. Unless, perhaps, you are suggesting that every road in the country is a dual carriageway?

It is not an either/or situation - either drivers wise up or we fix roads. Roads need to be maintained either which way, but that does not rob drivers of the responsibility take basic care such as checking for oncoming traffic before they attempt to overtake.

I'm not saying it's either or. I said that the roads must be improved in Ireland before there is a significant reduction in traffic deaths. It's along with enforcement of traffic laws, proper driver instruction and licensing. My point originally that Bertie and friends only seem to be concentrating on blaming the public in general rather than taking responsibility for their lack of a solution.
You seem to be concentrating on a single incident that happened to you and then claiming that it had nothing to do with the road. Fair enough...but you are always going to have people that make mistakes. That doesn't change the fact that the roads here are dangerous.
Take a look at the likes of Germany. They have the Autobahn between major cities. People can drive as fast as they want...and it's still safer than here.
They also have better driving instruction and education.

sovtek

sovtek wrote:

I said that the roads must be improved in Ireland before there is a significant reduction in traffic deaths.

Have you analyised where the road deaths are happening before you made that statement and the quality of the roads where the deaths have occurred in particular? could you provide us with the examples that you have found so, that conclusively proves this theory?

It's along with enforcement of traffic laws, proper driver instruction and licensing. My point originally that Bertie and friends only seem to be concentrating on blaming the public in general rather than taking responsibility for their lack of a solution.

Well no politician in government is going to blame themselves,thats natural-no matter how perfect or bad the government.

You seem to be concentrating on a single incident that happened to you and then claiming that it had nothing to do with the road. Fair enough...but you are always going to have people that make mistakes. That doesn't change the fact that the roads here are dangerous.

Are the roads here any more dangerous than say in France or Germany? Are there no bendy roads there?I know we dont have as many autobahns etc but then this economy has only been wealthy and able to afford this in the last 10 years.You cannot expect Ireland to catch up with Europes 50 years of roadbuilding in just 10 years...less than that in fact,I'd say we've only had the money in the last 7 or 8 years-couple that with the lack of firms capable of doing the job which slows it down.By the way, theres a lot of road building going on so its happening.With current projects ongoing..in about 2 years I'll be able to drive from my home to Galway on almost exclusively dual carriageway,thats from Wicklow or 150 miles of motorway. 100 miles of this is already built,much of it in the last 5 years.As I say its all very well asking for new roads but theres a lot of catching up to do,after all this country was very poor for 60 years or more.

Take a look at the likes of Germany. They have the Autobahn between major cities. People can drive as fast as they want...and it's still safer than here.
They also have better driving instruction and education.

They definitely have better driving instructions.You cant get on the road at all iirc without it.
But what you are neglecting here is the vast difference between the german mindset and the Irish one.
Irish drivers on the whole are more cócky and arrogant than any driver I've came across on continental roads and I've driven them a lot.

New_Departure06

It isn't Bertie and Mary telling people to drive above the alcohol-limit, or to drive underage, or over the speed limit. There is a major issue of personal responsibility here and it's long past time this was admitted.

sovtek

Earthman wrote:

Have you analyised where the road deaths are happening before you made that statement and the quality of the roads where the deaths have occurred in particular? could you provide us with the examples that you have found so, that conclusively proves this theory?

If you have access to stats on where they occur I'd be happy to analyze it. So far all i can go by is the news. Every time I see pictures of accidents where people died its on some country road or on a major lane between major cities.

Well no politician in government is going to blame themselves,thats natural-no matter how perfect or bad the government.

Ah well Bertie's just doing what's expected of him...go on then.

Are the roads here any more dangerous than say in France or Germany?

Yes

Are there no bendy roads there?

Not as many

I know we dont have as many autobahns etc but then this economy has only been wealthy and able to afford this in the last 10 years.You cannot expect Ireland to catch up with Europes 50 years of roadbuilding in just 10 years...less than that in fact,I'd say we've only had the money in the last 7 or 8 years-couple that with the lack of firms capable of doing the job which slows it down.

So why not get the firms that did it over there over here? How long has the EU been pumping billions for just such infrastructure enhancement?

But what you are neglecting here is the vast difference between the german mindset and the Irish one.
Irish drivers on the whole are more cócky and arrogant than any driver I've came across on continental roads and I've driven them a lot.

Something that comes with better education and instruction, which I've already mentioned. Germans aren't somehow genetically superior to Irish.

sovtek

New_Departure06 wrote:

It isn't Bertie and Mary telling people to drive above the alcohol-limit, or to drive underage, or over the speed limit. There is a major issue of personal responsibility here and it's long past time this was admitted.

there's an issue of governmental responsibility as well and they've had years to do something. What they come up with now is a TV presenter overseeing road safety and to blame victims.

New_Departure06

sovtek wrote:

there's an issue of governmental responsibility as well and they've had years to do something. What they come up with now is a TV presenter overseeing road safety and to blame victims.

It's un-PC to say it but some of the victims are to blame. Personally I know someone who lived near me who had an unsavoury habit of crashing cars into a ditch down the road and his guardians kept buying him more vehicles only for him to repeat it again.

sovtek

sovtek wrote:

If you have access to stats on where they occur I'd be happy to analyze it. So far all i can go by is the news. Every time I see pictures of accidents where people died its on some country road or on a major lane between major cities.

Theres plenty of them on straight roads too sovtek.

Ah well Bertie's just doing what's expected of him...go on then.

Not what I said.
Show me any leader that regularally makes statements like"we're doing this wrong" otherwise It's just an example of looking for the unrealistic.

Yes

I'd contend that the drivers are more dangerous and not specefically the roads.

Not as many

Thats nonsense.Have a look at the highlights of the tour de France today[its on tg4 tonight iirc] for an example of their country non high way roads.

So why not get the firms that did it over there over here? How long has the EU been pumping billions for just such infrastructure enhancement?

Most of the larger ones wont come here sovtek believe it or not because the projects are too small and not worth their while.

Something that comes with better education and instruction, which I've already mentioned. Germans aren't somehow genetically superior to Irish.

Theres no need to be facetious.It's culture and not genetics.
You being american might not have been here long enough yet to realise this.
I dont know if you have kids here but wait untill one of them grows up to be a boy racer,then you see ha! *


( * sarcasm and not meant to be disrespectfull to those that have died on our roads)

अधिनायक

Things that could be done to improve driver education at no cost to the state:

• Require candidates to receive a minimum number of hours of instruction from a certified trainer: no cost
• No 2nd provisional issued without proof of certified instruction undertaken: no cost
• Make test longer and harder and eliminate waiting lists with extra testers. Increase test fee to cover costs. (test fee in Ireland €38, in Sweden €500): no cost
• Force test resits every 15 years: no cost
• Tax on insurance policies for 2nd provisional drivers: no cost

tba

seamus wrote:

When I'm driving, I should be made to think that there's at least a 50:50 chance of a Garda being around the next corner

But you do realise that there is a much better chance that their is another car around the corner right? Why can't that make you drive within the limits of safety.

There a few examples of people showing disinterest for their own safety and that of others in this thread

layke wrote:

in the old days say 80's and 90's you could go as fast as you like

layke wrote:

You can just about [reach 100mph] in a 1.1L

samb wrote:

after they wiss pasted me at 130kph

Do we not owe it to ourselves to drive in a manner that excludes driver error and ignorance from the equation. The assumumtion that we as a people need to be forced to not speed, not drink, nor sleep while we drive, implies we want a "Nanny State", the very thing that theses same elements would oppose in all areas except those of an inconvienient nature.

seamus

tba wrote:

But you do realise that there is a much better chance that their is another car around the corner right? Why can't that make you drive within the limits of safety.

Because people don't think like that. "What's around the next corner" is way I personally drive, but clearly most other people don't. As is plainly obvious, people generally cannot be trusted to make the right decisions for safety. If they think they'll end up caught by the Gardai though, it will make them think.

Do we not owe it to ourselves to drive in a manner that excludes driver error and ignorance from the equation. The assumumtion that we as a people need to be forced to not speed, not drink, nor sleep while we drive, implies we want a "Nanny State", the very thing that theses same elements would oppose in all areas except those of an inconvienient nature.

I'm as liberal as the next guy, but as you've guessed from my posts, yes I do think that we as a people sometimes need to be forced to do the right thing.
In this case, where ignorance or arrogance will result in death for other people, then I have no problem with a State that keeps an eye on us every step of the way.

अधिनायक

tba wrote:

The assumumtion that we as a people need to be forced to not speed, not drink, nor sleep while we drive, implies we want a "Nanny State", the very thing that theses same elements would oppose in all areas except those of an inconvienient nature.

A nanny state protects people from themselves, forces them to wear motorcycle helmets, bans extreme sports, closes pubs at night etc. A responsible state imposes limits on people's freedom to harm others. It's a fair asumption that we need to be forced not to speed and drink drive unless you believe it would be better to drop these laws and wait around for people to suddenly change.