Dangerous Driving

little lady

Is it just me or do others think that people on the roads don’t understand or don’t want to understand the dangers of driving. I heard on the news this morning that a 24 year old was killed in a single vehicle accident, which to me says drinking, or speeding or both. I know something else could have happened but more than likely not.

Why do people blatantly ignore the dangers of the road, no one is asking them to drive at a snails pace but just to slow down a bit and take care, for their own sake and the sake of others

dr.bollocko

Why do people blatantly ignore the dangers of not just posting a goddamn thread where it belongs?
RANTY RANT RANT!

seamus

By and large, the vast majority of young people die on the roads because of a combination of inexperience and overconfidence. The overconfidence causes them to drive outside of their abilities, and the inexperience means that they fail to properly deal with the consequences of their overconfidence.

Young people will always die in greater numbers on the roads. This is an immutable fact the world over. All we can do is try and minimise that number.

You can't teach people the dangers of the road. This is something which can only be learned by experience. All we can do is prepare new drivers as best we can to deal with a new danger when they experience it on the road. We don't do this at present.

I don't believe that trying to send a "slow down" message will make a massive difference to deaths on regional roads. In most accidents, speed is a factor, which basically means that if the driver was going more slowly, it may not have happened. But that's obvious. It doesn't mean that the driver was breaking the speed limit when they crashed. It takes experience to learn that although the sign says 100km/h, that doesn't mean you will be able to control your vehicle on the road at 100km/h.

zuutroy

done to death.....

cournioni

Slow drivers are just as dangerous.

Wishbone Ash

little lady wrote:

a 24 year old was killed in a single vehicle accident, which to me says drinking, or speeding or both

Suicide is increasingly believed to be a cause of many single vehicle accidents involving young men.

zuutroy wrote:

done to death.....

Yup. Lock it up.

Mitch Connor

seamus wrote:

Young people will always die in greater numbers on the roads. This is an immutable fact the world over. All we can do is try and minimise that number.

according to the statistics, people around 30yo are more likely to die in a car crash then people around 20.

little lady

I do apologise for both posting in the wrong forum and for posting something that has been discussed several times before.

I just think it is such a waste of life for no good reason.

Be my guest to close the thread if you wish.

zuutroy

Tauren wrote:

according to the statistics, people around 30yo are more likely to die in a car crash then people around 20.

What statistics are these? Sounds odd.

What you never hear is that road safety IS improving dramatically. Since the 70's the number of road death per year is almost halved despite the number of km's driven skyrocketing, and that we have the 7th or so best record in the EU.

gyppo

Tauren wrote:

according to the statistics, people around 30yo are more likely to die in a car crash then people around 20.

Have you a source for this? - I'd like to see it.

Mitch Connor

gyppo wrote:

Have you a source for this? - I'd like to see it.

my info is from the a road stats report issued by the government - although i do admit it is a few years old at this point. I linked it in another thread a while back. I'll have anoher look for it now, but it could take a while!

Mitch Connor

Tauren wrote:

my info is from the a road stats report issued by the government - although i do admit it is a few years old at this point. I linked it in another thread a while back. I'll have anoher look for it now, but it could take a while!

found it: http://www.nra.ie/PublicationsResources/DownloadableDocumentation/RoadSafety/file,1948,en.pdf

On page 22, it lists accidents and death by age group.

Looking at it again though, i am wrong. 25-34 age group is the largest percentage of injuries and deaths (26.3%) - but if you combine the 18-20 and 20-24 age groups, while the overall percentage of involvement is lower (20.8%) the number of deaths is higher (35 compared to 27)

Also, it should be pointed out that the 25-34 age group takes in 10 years of drivers, while 18-24 on accounts for 7, which could also account for the difference in overall percentage.

Sorry for giving false information, I had incorrectly 'remembered' what i had read previously. At least i still pointed it out though!

peasant

zuutroy wrote:

What you never hear is that road safety IS improving dramatically. Since the 70's the number of road death per year is almost halved despite the number of km's driven skyrocketing, and that we have the 7th or so best record in the EU.

It could be so much better though:
- the provisional driving licence is a joke
- driver training is sub-standard
- instructor training is non existant
- road infrastructure is sub standard
- speed limits are haphazard and rarely safety related
- accident investigation is pretty much non-existant

....and the list goes on.

zuutroy

peasant wrote:

It could be so much better though:
- the provisional driving licence is a joke
- driver training is sub-standard
- instructor training is non existant
- road infrastructure is sub standard
- speed limits are haphazard and rarely safety related
- accident investigation is pretty much non-existant

....and the list goes on.

All true....but we were the Eastern Europe in terms of infrastructure and economy 20 years ago. They're coming around (albeit slowly).

peasant

When I said road infrastructure, I don't actually mean build more stretches of new, tolled motorways (well, some of that as well) but fill the potholes, put up proper signposts, maintain the white markings and cats eyes, keep the drains clear ....basic stuff like that.

gyppo

Tauren wrote:

Sorry for giving false information, I had incorrectly 'remembered' what i had read previously. At least i still pointed it out though!

No problem, thanks for the link anyway.

Anan1

Tauren wrote:

25-34 age group is the largest percentage of injuries and deaths (26.3%) - but if you combine the 18-20 and 20-24 age groups, while the overall percentage of involvement is lower (20.8%) the number of deaths is higher (35 compared to 27)

Also, it should be pointed out that the 25-34 age group takes in 10 years of drivers, while 18-24 on accounts for 7, which could also account for the difference in overall percentage.

You also need to remember that there are far more drivers out there in the 25-34 age group than in the 18-20 and 20-24 groupings. This is presumably why no 0-9 year olds died while driving cars.;)

unkel

Tauren wrote:

At least i still pointed it out though!

Indeed you did, thanks for sharing

That table states deaths, it doesn't state cause / blame. I wonder how the deaths stats per age are for single vehicle collisions. My guess is that younger drivers (18-24) are over represented there too. As Wishbone Ash pointed out, there are suicides in these figures as well

Another point to make is that it is quite plausible to presume that the average driver in the 25-34 year group does a higher annual mileage than the average driver in the 18-24 year group

ZiabR

PORNAPSTER wrote:

Slow drivers are just as dangerous.

Agree 100%. Slow drivers freak me... i mean they make people take chances and can cause crashes.

I think that as soon as you become 70 years of age you should have to re-sit your driving test again. Many people on the roads that are just too old and cannot drive.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

While I agree that you have a point about slow drivers, your suggestion against over 70s is absurd. Are you going to break the spirit of an active older person by telling them that they must give up what is probably their greatest means of independance? Rural dwellers would be confined to their homes instead of having their routine of morning mass, or going to town for the daily newspaper. Not all slow drivers are over 70 - far from it.
As for re-sitting their driving tests - there are plenty of 30somethings on the road who would certainly fail if they had to do a re-sit.

GTC

Over 70s cause plenty of accidents, and quite a frightening number of pedestrian deaths are caused by older people with poor reflexes. Anyone who advocates retests for over 70s is spot-on.

Of course, the test would have to be different for them. even if an registered instructor sat with them in the car for 20 minutes and decided they were fit/unfit, that would be better than doing nothing.

randomer

logik wrote:

Agree 100%. Slow drivers freak me... i mean they make people take chances and can cause crashes.

Can you define "slow drivers" for me?

I sometimes drive slowly, but I do not understand how I "make people take changes" and "cause crashes".

For example, if I am driving on a motorway I sometimes drive at between 75km/h and 100km/h. I drive in the left lane. How does this cause a problem?

ZiabR

randomer wrote:

Can you define "slow drivers" for me?

I sometimes drive slowly, but I do not understand how I "make people take changes" and "cause crashes".

For example, if I am driving on a motorway I sometimes drive at between 75km/h and 100km/h. I drive in the left lane. How does this cause a problem?

I am not talking about motorways, or roads with two lanes. There is no problem with these. My issue is with other roads where the limit is 100km or 80km and people are doing 70-50km respectivly. They seem totally oblivious to there surroundings and the fact that there is 5-10 cars stuck behind them.

ZiabR

Zayd Jolly Grater wrote:

While I agree that you have a point about slow drivers, your suggestion against over 70s is absurd. Are you going to break the spirit of an active older person by telling them that they must give up what is probably their greatest means of independance? Rural dwellers would be confined to their homes instead of having their routine of morning mass, or going to town for the daily newspaper. Not all slow drivers are over 70 - far from it.
As for re-sitting their driving tests - there are plenty of 30somethings on the road who would certainly fail if they had to do a re-sit.

Yes that is true, but my point was not so much that they drive slow, more the fact that there reflexes become slower and they have hearing, vision and also arthritis problems "not saying all do". These are major problems and yes they can cause crashes.

randomer

logik wrote:

I am not talking about motorways, or roads with two lanes. There is no problem with these. My issue is with other roads where the limit is 100km or 80km and people are doing 70-50km respectivly. They seem totally oblivious to there surroundings and the fact that there is 5-10 cars stuck behind them.

On single lane roads, I often drive below the statutory limit, depending on the conditions and circumstances. Remember the speed limit is that - A limit, not a target.

ZiabR

randomer wrote:

On single lane roads, I often drive below the statutory limit, depending on the conditions and circumstances. Remember the speed limit is that - A limit, not a target.

Of course mate, i agree with you. If it were raining or the roads were in a bad way then i would never try to reach the speed limit. Even in the Irish Driving test you will get punished for driving too slow are you in turn are slowing up everyone else. I just think some people drive at very slow speed when compared to the road they are on and this in turn makes driver behind take chances to get past them.

Biro

Blaming 70+ year olds for the carnage is really missing the point. Granted the reflexes are much slower, but by and large the weekly trip to the shops isn't really going to save lives if it's cut out.
Besides, I would think that the road death number would be much more affected by takeing the 20 and below drivers off the road than it would be by taking the 70 and over drivers off the road. I'd actually bet money on that. But the public wouldn't like that suggestion.

pclancy

In reference to the overconfidence thing causing so many deaths...

Proper training is needed for events that you cannot plan for to happen but if you've experianced them before can have a much better chance of dealing with.

For example, You could go a whole year or more after starting driving before having to do an emergency stop in rain/fog, driving in snow or ice, proper overtaking technique, having cars pullout in front of you, knowing what to do when you car starts to skid....all these things should be taught by instruction or some kind of simulation system, you can never know how to deal with these things until it happens and it seems thats why there are so many deaths!

Pilots train hard for several events that they will probably never enounter but when it does, they are able to properly handle then (eg engine failures, fire, birdstrikes etc). Im not saying every driver should be made sit in a simulator for hours every six months but surely there could be training brought into the driving instruction curriculam, it could be taught in schools or even some government/AA/ISM/ issued guidlines on what to do?

It seems a little more work to make people better drivers would save so many lives....

gyppo

logik wrote:

I just think some people drive at very slow speed when compared to the road they are on and this in turn makes driver behind take chances to get past them.

I agree with you - its very frustrating to be behind someone going excessively slowly. However, it is the frustrated driver behind, who does take a chance, who is solely to blame in the event of an accident. Nothing should make a responsible driver take a chance, blaming accidents on those who were not going fast enough for other road users is a cop-out.

Funxy

pclancy wrote:

For example, You could go a whole year or more after starting driving before having to do an emergency stop in rain/fog, driving in snow or ice, proper overtaking technique, having cars pullout in front of you, knowing what to do when you car starts to skid....all these things should be taught by instruction or some kind of simulation system, you can never know how to deal with these things until it happens and it seems thats why there are so many deaths!

That's exactly what i want to see introduced! I would like if you had to attend an advanced driving course once every 2 years. There is no marking on it, you don't passs or fail you just need proof you have attened. I believe this would help no end

GreeBo

logik wrote:

Of course mate, i agree with you. If it were raining or the roads were in a bad way then i would never try to reach the speed limit. Even in the Irish Driving test you will get punished for driving too slow are you in turn are slowing up everyone else. I just think some people drive at very slow speed when compared to the road they are on and this in turn makes driver behind take chances to get past them.

What if the person is 70+, or driving a modifed car due to a disability and they are not comfortable driving at 80kph on a backroad?

Do we even have roads with 100kph that are only 1 lane in both directions and dont have overtaking sections? i.e 2 and 1 roads?

Define "too slow".

If by driving slowly I can "make" someone else in a car behind do something then I should be on the telly beside David Blane.