What would you do to improve driving and road safety in Ireland?

Zascar

Imagine you were elected into government and you were put in charge of everything to do with the roads. Your task is to do anything you can to reduce road deaths, reduce the amount of accidents and generally improve the quality of driving on our roads, what would you do?
There is so much coverage about road safety, speeding and drink driving, but really I think that as a country we are just terrible drivers compared to other nations. If it was up to me I would do the following.:

- The driving test / learning to drive needs a compete overhaul. Needs to be far more thorough and practical. Everyone should have to retake their text every 10 or maybe even five years. The amount of old grannies on the roads who passed their text 40 years ago and have no real idea of the rules of the road is atrocious.
- Education is the key. If we educated everyone to be far better drivers, we would have a lot less accidents and deaths. Everyone should be at the standard of the “Advanced Driving Test”, know how to control a car in an accident situation and generally know the limits of their vehicle.
- The Gardai should become “Road Police” and constantly be on the lookout for any bad driving and pull over the person, explain what they did wrong and possibly give a small fine etc. If they obviously show a lack of ability they should be forced to take more driving lessons or take their test again.
- This could be taken one step further and a phone line should be set up so you can report bad drivers. Very quickly the really bad ones would get lots of complaints and they should be forced to get up to a certain standard or get off the roads.
- Speed cameras/traps in accident black spots only, or places where it is obviously unsafe to drive quickly.
- It should become more acceptable to let bad drivers know they are in the wrong. Flashing or even beeping at people in the incorrect lane on a morotway should not be seen as rude. A very slow driver should be taken off the road as they are simply not competent to be on the roads. Bad drivers actually Cause accidents when others do stupid things to get past them. This needs to be eliminated.

I just think we should forget this “Scare people into safer driving” and instead properly educate everyone to be better drivers, that is what will increase safety and decrease deaths. Speeding is not the only cause of accidents, its going faster than the ability of the car and the driver that causes problems. I also think that underpowered cars are pure dangerous. I drive a powerful car – 220bhp. If I find myself in a tight situation I have the ability to accelerate out of it, and I also have very powerful brakes so my stopping distance is considerably shorter than the average car. I drver a 1 Litre car the other day and honestly felt unsafe driving it due to the lack of power and terrible brakes. You can’t tell people not to drive Micra’s, but they should be aware how their driving can be affected.


In other countries (Germany I think) you have to have a minimum of 40 hours of instructor led training before you are allowed to drive at all. They take their driving a lot more seriosuly and even take better care of their cars! It really shows. We need to take more of an approach like this.

Why the government can't take steps like this to improve driving is beyond me, instead blamestorming on speeding and young drivers, and tryong to collect as much money as possible from cherry picking speeding in areas where it should not be an issue.

So there is my rant. What do you think?

RobAMerc

Proper driver ed - in school from an early age.

People in Ireland have the lowest motoring knowledge of any nation I have ever been to - and it seems hilariously acceptable to claim we know fook all about cars or driving yet hit the road and proceed to brake every speed limit we find.

A proper driving test - not just fookin about the town for a few minutes checking if a person has their foot on the clutch or not.

To apply for the driving test you should have completed a minimum number of hours with a registered instructor having completed basic training in a number of situations and conditions.

richie_rvf

Agree with driver education, too many drivers out there who 'think' they are doing the right thing.

Not too sure about being able to tell other drivers if they are doing something wrong - should be up to the authorities and not individuals.

Agree on retesting, maybe a random selection process, like jury duty, you never know when you will be called to resit - keep you on your toes??

Richie.

prospect

Employ a Minister for Transport who can see beyond the bullsh1t frame of mind that thinks that everything can be blamed on Speed, Alcohol and Young Male Drivers..

Better Education
Better Enforcement of current laws
Better and more rigorous NCT
Better placed speed traps
More serious punishment for repeat offenders
Better roads
Better signage
Better road maintenance
Improved junctions

To name but a few.

Alun

I agree. It's time to scrap this outdated idea that any old tom dick or harry with (or in the case of Ireland, probably without) a driving licence is capable of teaching someone to drive properly, and institute a system such as they have in Germany where the only way to learn is through a proper driving school, in a driving school car with dual controls.

peasant

Driver training, definetely.

Minimum hours under proper instruction in dual control cars before you sit your test ...a real test and retraining for anyone that exceeds a certain number of penalty points.

But the roads themselves also need some looking at.

Fix the potholes, get the signage correct, re-draw all the white and yellow lines, cats eyes and finally speed limits that reflect the state of the road and not what someone on the county council had for breakfast.

Stephen

We need to upgrade more of our roads, many of our so-called primary routes are a complete joke. Take the N9 stretch between Carlow and Waterford for instance. Talk abot a death trap. Fortunately they are building a dual carriageway to replace this but there's plenty more where that came from.

layke

-Make it mandatory for anyone over 35 to redo their test. Thus removing those who have had cowboy licenses and obsolete licenses. Or perhaps introduce a mandatory refresher courses.

-Redo the woeful driving test. Make it include Motorways and driving various weather conditions.

-Finalize once and for all how to indicate on a roundabout. The rules of the road say one thing, other guards say another, the National road safety say another. I'd go with the UK model as our country does not have any law on how to take a roundabout.

-Put speed traps in places where they matter. E.G the motorway is clearly a revenue collection.

ballooba

1) Putting the espoused policies of the RSA into actual practice i.e Education, Engineering and Enforcement.

2) Cancelling all sensationalist and dramatic ad campaigns.

lightening

Wherever there is a death, put a brightly well marked speed camera with a sign "Black spot camera ahead" fifty meters ahead of it. Even call the camera after the victim.

Dublinstiofán

I agree with everything prospect mentioned above.

I'll propose three new laws for the laugh

SECTION 1
If Caught Speeding/driving dangerously
1) Warning
2) €2000 fine
3) If caught speeding more than twice in the same year you lose your baby finger and one consecutive finger on every occasion thereafter regardless of year.

SECTION 2
If you’re in a road traffic accident both parties are disqualified for a year unless one vehicle is stationary. In this case the stationary driver is off the hook.

SECTION 3
Drink driving 10 years automatic disqualification.


The point I’m making here is that even if these ludicrous laws I invented above were implemented there would still be f**king idiots on the roads to cause problems. Having a few "real" laws would just insure that they might think twice about it.

No matter what laws you implement there will always be idiots on their mobile phones and always be people in general that every time they go out on the road are a risk to themselves and everybody else.

Let’s face it, the problem guys and girls on the roads obviously don't care if they get caught speeding etc cause the laws are a joke at the moment.
Penalty points, it's pretty clear that these jokers don’t care about penalty points or they would have stopped already. Must have loads of money to pay the extra insurance costs if caught.

The only way to rid the roads of maniacs like this is to apply crazy laws such as the ones above, and that will never happen, so we might as well get used to it.

I guarantee that if my makie up laws above were to be implemented we would be the safest drivers in the world. If you have the power to take away something that people really need than they would stop all the ridiculousness on the road. I'm positive that people would prefer holding onto their baby finger than arriving 10 minutes earlier to their said destination.

And say you were disqualified for a year if you had an accident. This would stop every tom, dick and harry businessman/woman. Tearing home at 5 o'clock and start taking it easy as they know what would happen if they're careless. They loose the car and can't get to work.
Taking somebody’s car would cause a world of pain and I can tell ya that they would be bloody well behaved when they get back behind the wheel after spending a year on a Dublin Bus. Or it could be win win and they like the bus and never drive again, 1 less car on the road!:rolleyes:

And the speeding idiots would be clearly visible for all to see. The really stupid ones minus two or three fingers.

Jesus im on a crazy roll, ill keep going::p
One other idea would be empower the gardai.
Give every member of the force a Sledge hammer and take away their stupid PDA's for penalty points.

If they catch somebody doing something wrong they are allowed to pick a part of the car to destroy depending on their offence.
Say you run a red light.
The gard takes the Sledgehammer and takes both front driver doors out of it and the wing mirror for good measure and off on their merry way.

Person in the car then has to explain to their insurance company what happened. If they say they had an accident they are disqualified for a year.

So they say I ran a red light and this gard caught me and took my driver doors out of it....
Insurance company says: you can pay for it yourself, as it's your own fault. Panel beating for two doors would cost the same as a hefty fine by the gardai.
This would keep the panel beaters in business have jobs for full time mobile road cleaners all over Ireland, to pick up bits of doors and broken mirrors.
And most importantly you have the guarantee that there is absolutely 0% chance that that individual would ever run a red light again. (Which is something I see on very regular occasions at the moment, think people forget what red means these days)

Oh an I’m no angel behind the wheel myself I don't claim to be before I’m attacked. But I’m safe enough.

Aren’t you glad I’m not in charge:D

Trampas

People on Provisional Licence can only drive up to a 1.4 litre car and/or not over 70Bhp. Which ever is small.

Driving without insurance means a 10,000 fine and banned for 1 year at least.

Zero drink driving.

Increase speed fines to co inline with how many kph over the limit. say €10 for every 1kph.

If you cause a car crash. You lose licence staight away as proves you can't drive.

Proper enforcement of rules of the road.

Comulsory training for all road users would be a good start.

ballooba

lightening wrote:

Wherever there is a death, put a brightly well marked speed camera with a sign "Black spot camera ahead" fifty meters ahead of it. Even call the camera after the victim.

Excuse my intolerance, but that is plain silly. What if, as is the case with the majority of fatal RTAs, speed was not a factor?

ednwireland

driver training defo
no unaccompanied drivers on provisional licenses (like the rest of europe)
enforce existing laws there are plenty of laws its enforcement that is the issue
fix the roads /signage including warning signs for bad bends which sneak up on you on many country roads
force the garsai to investigate all accidents to work out what really caused them - and publish the results
i.e they always come on saying excessive speed is a problem but what is excessive speed ? if people do 45mph into a corner that you can only do 30 mph on a 50 mph road and you crash but if it isnt signed as a bad bend ?

ballooba

ednwireland wrote:

force the garsai to investigate all accidents to work out what really caused them

Already done.

ednwireland wrote:

- and publish the results

Not done. The published statistics are even pretty limited.

Gatster

This seems like a start

MrPudding

ballooba wrote:

Excuse my intolerance, but that is plain silly. What if, as is the case with the majority of fatal RTAs, speed was not a factor?

Quit that crazy talk. Everyone know speed is the greatest evil in the country.

MrP

RIRI

Compulsary & continued training for all road users (cyclists & pedestrians included) along with retesting after around 10 years.

Zero tolerance for drink driving - banned for life if you're caught

Lifetime ban for driving with no insurance

1 years ban for every 10ks over the speed limit

Make the gardai visible in blackspots, rather than lurking behind a hedge trying to collect as much in fines as they can - make it their objective to make people slow down - like they do in the UK, have them up on ramps in all their dayglo glory as a visible reminder to slow down.

Improved public transport so that people have a choice whether or not to take their cars

and finally ... fix the roads.

scitpo

Nothing.
Irelands road safety is on par with other European countries. Any deviations from the norm are just a result of our massive system of hedged back roads and those are just a consequence of our history and settlement patterns.
Road deaths are falling as car numbers soar over the last ten years. A lot of this might be attributed to better, safer cars but who can really tell.

GTC

1) Introduce speeding fines as a fixed percentage of your wage that increases each time you are caught
2) Make using the overtaking lane on a motorway while not overtaking a single simple offence with the same fine system as above
3) Force judge's hands on the truly reckless drivers by introducing minimum sentencing and fines
4) Make the probation act inadmissible in Road Traffic Act violations
5) Equip the Gardaí with better cars, and better equipment to deal with the motorist.
6) transfer all senior officers out of the Traffic Corps and introduce rotating system of lower ranking Garda management of the unit

Rowley Birkin QC

Matt Cooper wrote an interesting piece in todays Examiner. Worth a read.

Basically saying that sentences and other punishment for drivers involved in fatal crashes need to be strenghtened. I see no reason why anyone found guilty of dangerous driving leading to a persons death or anyone guilty of serious drink (e.g. more that 1.5 times over limit) or drug driving should ever get their license back.

Let the punishment fit the crime.

ballooba

scitpo wrote:

Road deaths are falling as car numbers soar over the last ten years.

A fall in road deaths is not much consolation to those permanently disabled or disfigured.

sicruise

The quality of our roads is well below a standard I deem appropriate for safe driving. Parts of the south M50 feels like a rally course if you are sticking to the speed limit... but this is besides the point...

There is one road that really jumps out to me, the new Abbeyfeale "bypass" between Abbeyfeale and Castleisland. At the end of the climbing lane going west from Abbeyfeale there was approximately 20 meters before the road had a lane for a right turn, most Irish drivers just have to overtake at the end of a climbing lane so doing this would certainly result in a crash if someone in front decided they wanted to turn right. Within the first 2 months or thereabouts there were two crashes which resulted in fatalities. A few months later they did infact move the end of the climbing lane back a bit but a few months too late.

Basically what I am saying is standards should be put in place that reduce the chances of fatalities...

An example of one of these is barriers in between lanes preventing overtaking into oncoming traffic while alternating between 2/1 lane at 1 mile intervals. I have seen this successfully implemented near Cork.

BrianD3

scitpo wrote:

Nothing.
Irelands road safety is on par with other European countries. Any deviations from the norm are just a result of our massive system of hedged back roads and those are just a consequence of our history and settlement patterns.
Road deaths are falling as car numbers soar over the last ten years. A lot of this might be attributed to better, safer cars but who can really tell.

Good point. Ireland has one of the largest road networks in Europe relative to the size of the country. And the vast majority of our network is single lane road of varying quality. I'd be interesetd to see what percentage of our network is M-way or dual carriageway compared to the UK.

MrPudding

RIRI wrote:

Zero tolerance for drink driving - banned for life if you're caught

Firstly, I am no fan of drink driving....but I think this is a bit silly. Do any of the countries with better road safety records than us have such a draconian punishment for a first offense of any type? Additionally, I think it might be quite dangerous. Picture the 40 year old professional who will lose his job if he can’t drive. He is pissed up and driving his car when he sees a checkpoint. He is looking at losing his license and his job. He has already shown poor judgement by getting into the car in the first place…….

RIRI wrote:

Lifetime ban for driving with no insurance

Driving without insurance is a bad thing, but a lifetime ban? I would expect that people that drive without insurance might be quite likely to break other rules, so there may be some merit from that point of view, but it seems a bit severe for something that does not directly effect road safety.

RIRI wrote:

1 years ban for every 10ks over the speed limit

Idiotic.

RIRI wrote:

Make the gardai visible in blackspots, rather than lurking behind a hedge trying to collect as much in fines as they can - make it their objective to make people slow down - like they do in the UK, have them up on ramps in all their dayglo glory as a visible reminder to slow down.

Waste of money. Put a highly visible and well advertised camera in the blackspots. Get the gardai out on the road.

RIRI wrote:

and finally ... fix the roads.

That would help alright.

Here is my idea.

Try enforcing the laws we already have.

One of my favourite examples of this is driving in bus lanes. People do not break the law assuming they will be caught. They will weigh up the pros and cons and come to a decisions. What is the punishment if I get caught? What are the chances of me getting caught? What do I gain by breaking the law? At the moment the punishment is kind of irrelevant as the chance of getting caught is so slim. So to use the bus lane example, there are a few threads on here about driving in bus lanes. A number of posters say they do it on a regular basic and even if they get caught occasionally they don’t mind as they think the time they save is worth the €60 fine. And lets face it, €60 is not a lot to pay a couple of times a year when you consider how much time you would save. MrArrogant Driver, whose time is much more valuable than everyone else’s will pay this gladly, buslane on the way to work and buslane on the way home….bargain. Now, lets imagine that every single time you illegally used a bus lane you received a €60 fine. Now MrArrogant Driver is paying €120 per day for the privilege. Do you think he will stop? The punishment is the same, not very much, but the advantage is gone because you will get caught.

I we had our existing laws enforced I believe the difference would be massive.

After enforcement I think it needs to be education. This is not just how to drive, but also the attitude you should have towards driving and to other road users. A lot drivers in Ireland have no consideration for others. We need a serious attitude adjustment in Ireland.

MrP

Alun

sicruise wrote:

The quality of our roads is well below a standard I deem appropriate for safe driving. Parts of the south M50 feels like a rally course if you are sticking to the speed limit... but this is besides the point...

If you really feel unsafe driving on the southern part (or any part for that matter) of the M50 at the speed limit, then maybe you should seriously reconsider whether you should be driving or not.

sicruise

Alun wrote:

If you really feel unsafe driving on the southern part (or any part for that matter) of the M50 at the speed limit, then maybe you should seriously reconsider whether you should be driving or not.

Constructive comment, thank you.

scitpo

ballooba wrote:

A fall in road deaths is not much consolation to those permanently disabled or disfigured.

And you are never going to get zero deaths or injuries unless you ban cars and then we might as well go back to living in caves. You can actually put a value on a persons life you know.

BrianD3

Also: number of trucks on our roads. Many fatal collisions in Ireland involve a truck in collision with a car. It's the same all over Europe but perhaps we are worse than the average for truck-car fatalities. It would be interesting to see stats on
-number of trucks on the road here compared to the UK
-amount of rail and road freight here compared to the UK
-number of fatal collisions involving a truck here compared to the UK

Now I'm not having a go at truckers just stating the view that the more trucks there are on the road, the more likely there are to be fatalities among motorists. This may be overlooked in all the talk about driver training, garda enforcement etc. as factors in road deaths.

biko

Investigate and take the best from drivers education in US, Germany and Sweden. Stop L drivers, either you have a proper full licence on none at all.

120 kph dual carriageways between all major cities.

Remove seatbelts and put a big spike in the centre of the steering wheel that stops five inches from the drivers chest