Speed limit for foreign drivers

ifconfig

My goodness. I just saw a news item which said that Donie Cassidy
has proposed that Ireland consider imposing an 80km/h restriction on
"foreign" drivers. He also proposed consideration of reversing the
side of the road for driving as a longer term measure (?!)

Here is the link
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0207/roadsafety.html

Unless he's decided to ditch his handsome hairpiece in favour
of a steely grey look I assume the photo to the right of this
story is a mistake as it bears no resemblence to the star
senator from the Midlands.

-ifc

eoin5

Is this what the Seanad spends its time doing, ignorant discussions and impossible suggestions? I'm glad were keeping these people on the payroll...

sovtek

Because ye Irish are known for your impeccable driving skills!

topper75

So what do we do? Let the current slaughter continue?

He is talking on foot of the Laois crash at the weekend and he has more than a point.

Fratton Fred

topper75 wrote: »

So what do we do? Let the current slaughter continue?

He is talking on foot of the Laois crash at the weekend and he has more than a point.

Maybe we should just ban all foreign nationals, that way we would not only cut road deaths by 1% we would also cut crime by 1.5%. In fact, why not ban all men from driving, they account for over 50% of fatal crashes so that will have a massive impact.

(These numbers are purely made up by the way)

DoubleJoe7

topper75 wrote: »

So what do we do? Let the current slaughter continue?

He is talking on foot of the Laois crash at the weekend and he has more than a point.

Yes, a knee jerk reaction to one incident. Foreign Nationals do not count for a disproportionate amount of accidents in this country.

BehindTheScenes

In fairness there is a reasonable point there imo. Think about it, if you're driving a left hand drive car. So you want to overtake a lorry, your by yourself and you have to pull out to the point that you can see what is coming at you. The car you're travelling in would have to come out half way for you to get a decent view. It's an accident waiting to happen. Slap a speed limit on, just to slow things down and give people that bit longer to think.

The_Minister

DoubleJoe7 wrote: »

Yes, a knee jerk reaction to one incident. Foreign Nationals do not count for a disproportionate amount of accidents in this country.

IIRC, they do actually.
/goes to dig for figures.

purple'n'gold

Talk about banning foreign drivers in this country, or having them observe a different speed limit than Irish drivers is ridiculous, and changing over to driving on the other side of the road is ridiculous to the point of insanity. But banning left hand drive cars from the country except in exceptional circumstances would have some merit.

GuanYin

I agree.

While we're applying our impressive logic, we need to ban the spanish. More Irish people die annually in Spain than any other country (10 times more than the next highest - Germany). So it stands to reason that Spanish people cause Irish deaths. right?

Also, Irish drivers shouldn't be allowed drive in other countries. They all (almost every other country) drive on the wrong side of the road, so we shouldn't drive there.

This my friends is a masterclass in generalised biggotry. There are people in the south every bit as bad as the Orange men up north in the height of the troubles, they just don't realise it.

jmayo

Anyone that believes that we can have different speed limits depending on licensing is an idiot.
First it was proposed by some gobdaw politican that learners should not go above 80kph. Great if we had good open roads with overtaking lanes every 5 ks and not half a million learners.
Then a Green wanted something similar except this time it wuld be for elderly drivers living in rural areas. Of course no thought as to what defines elderly or rural.
Now we have a bewigged polictican wanting it for foreign drivers.
How would it be defined: you drive on foreign license or you are only visiting or your car is foreign reged or car is lhd ?
Would it apply to British or Northern Irish drivers or maybe only to our Northern protestant unionist drivers ?

Do these people just open their mouths without ever engaging their brains ?
Why not really go all out and force us all to drive a 50bhp car ?

Do these people ever think about what impacts these stupid ideas would have on our roads ?
More people would be probably killed in stupid overtaking maneouvers becuase they were stuck behind drivers doing 75-80 on open national roads where the normal speed limit was 100.

Anyway you can bring in laws till the cows come home to cover every possible situation, but unless they are enforced they are not worth the paper they are written on.

Purple you would have to immiately add two groups exempt to this exclusion of lhd vehicles: trucks and campervans/motorhomes.
Of course the tourist industry would have something to say about it.

ambman

This made me laugh

Change to driving on the other side of the road:eek: Does he not think there is enough crashes on the roads as it is. Imagine the fun there would be if we had to change the side of the road we drive on. And as for people coming to live and drive in our country then they learn by our rules not we change our rules to Accommodate them:mad::mad:

To think he is getting paid to think of ****e like that lmfao

bartholomewbinn

ambman wrote: »

This made me laugh

Change to driving on the other side of the road:eek: Does he not think there is enough crashes on the roads as it is. Imagine the fun there would be if we had to change the side of the road we drive on. And as for people coming to live and drive in our country then they learn by our rules not we change our rules to Accommodate them:mad::mad:

To think he is getting paid to think of ****e like that lmfao

But to be perfectly honest, how on earth can one take a guy who wears a dodgy rug seriously?

jmayo

bartholomewbinn wrote: »

But to be perfectly honest, how on earth can one take a guy who wears a dodgy rug seriously?

Hey that's all his own hair.
He paid for it himself

LostinBlanch

It's Donie Cassidy for Gods sake.

He has about as much credibility as Ned O'Keeffe did when he was calling for all cinemas to boycott showing the film Babe as it might be bad for the pig industry. or as much as Willie O'Dea on any issue IMO.

topper75

Is this thread debating the man or the proposal?

Who is 'bigoted' against who?

Road accidents are serious business and people's safety comes WAAAAAY before any of your nonsensical political correctness.

The stats show that Eastern European immigrants' involvement in road accidents is completely disproportionate to their numbers on this island.

Some people have a 'kneejerk reaction' to any sleight against non-nationals. Politicians, whoever they are or whatever they are paid, are mandated to protect people and that is what Cassidy was attempting to do. If you invite a guest to your house, does he/she automatically have all the same entitlements in the house as you? of course not you are the owner the guest usually respects that. I think these guest workers should be treated respectfully, but not have automatically all the rights that Irish people have. We have Irish licences and we are accustomed all our lives to driving on the left. To suggest that foreign drivers can just slot into our system in left-hand drive cars without any difficulty is simply ludicrous and detached from reality. I'd feel a lot safer if their speed was curtailed at least.

murphaph

topper75 wrote: »

Is this thread debating the man or the proposal?

Who is 'bigoted' against who?

Road accidents are serious business and people's safety comes WAAAAAY before any of your nonsensical political correctness.

The stats show that Eastern European immigrants' involvement in road accidents is completely disproportionate to their numbers on this island.

Some people have a 'kneejerk reaction' to any sleight against non-nationals. Politicians, whoever they are or whatever they are paid, are mandated to protect people and that is what Cassidy was attempting to do. If you invite a guest to your house, does he/she automatically have all the same entitlements in the house as you? of course not you are the owner the guest usually respects that. I think these guest workers should be treated respectfully, but not have automatically all the rights that Irish people have. We have Irish licences and we are accustomed all our lives to driving on the left. To suggest that foreign drivers can just slot into our system in left-hand drive cars without any difficulty is simply ludicrous and detached from reality. I'd feel a lot safer if their speed was curtailed at least.

Would you mind if the entirety of continental Europe was made a max 80km/h zone for you in your RHD car?

Also, you say we have irish licences but what about irish people who have foreign licences, should they be singled out? and what about irish people who availed of the amnesties and simply bought their licences wiythout test? Shouldn't they be treated at least as badly as a Pole who has passed his test in poland?

All a load of nonsense. If the 6 month registration rule was enforced rigidly then far fewer continentals would bring their motors here in the first place.

Fratton Fred

topper75 wrote: »

Is this thread debating the man or the proposal?

Who is 'bigoted' against who?

Road accidents are serious business and people's safety comes WAAAAAY before any of your nonsensical political correctness.

The stats show that Eastern European immigrants' involvement in road accidents is completely disproportionate to their numbers on this island.

Some people have a 'kneejerk reaction' to any sleight against non-nationals. Politicians, whoever they are or whatever they are paid, are mandated to protect people and that is what Cassidy was attempting to do. If you invite a guest to your house, does he/she automatically have all the same entitlements in the house as you? of course not you are the owner the guest usually respects that. I think these guest workers should be treated respectfully, but not have automatically all the rights that Irish people have. We have Irish licences and we are accustomed all our lives to driving on the left. To suggest that foreign drivers can just slot into our system in left-hand drive cars without any difficulty is simply ludicrous and detached from reality. I'd feel a lot safer if their speed was curtailed at least.

I'm foreign, I don't have an Irish driving licence, does this apply to me?

Fratton Fred

murphaph wrote: »

All a load of nonsense. If the 6 month registration rule was enforced rigidly then far fewer continentals would bring their motors here in the first place.

or they scrapped VRT.

peasant

BehindTheScenes wrote: »

In fairness there is a reasonable point there imo. Think about it, if you're driving a left hand drive car. So you want to overtake a lorry, your by yourself and you have to pull out to the point that you can see what is coming at you. The car you're travelling in would have to come out half way for you to get a decent view. It's an accident waiting to happen. Slap a speed limit on, just to slow things down and give people that bit longer to think.

all you need to do is stay further back and you can see all you need (at least enough to make sure that it's safe to pull out a bit to have a better view)

GuanYin

topper75 wrote: »

The stats show that Eastern European immigrants' involvement in road accidents is completely disproportionate to their numbers on this island.

You're saying that as fact.
Can you back that up with the stats? I'm not saying its not possible, but I'm not going to take your word for it.

For that matter, are the road deaths in the countries of origin of the accused higher than Ireland?

I think these guest workers should be treated respectfully, but not have automatically all the rights that Irish people have. We have Irish licences and we are accustomed all our lives to driving on the left.

Actually, alot of you don't actually have licences and irish drivers and the irish driving system is among the worst in the developed world imho.

To suggest that foreign drivers can just slot into our system in left-hand drive cars without any difficulty is simply ludicrous and detached from reality. I'd feel a lot safer if their speed was curtailed at least.

So the same for French, Spanish, Americans and Germans yeah?

for that matter, do you agree the the rights of Irish people should be restricted in exactly the same way when they go abroad?

ballooba

They should break out the humane killer for politicians who make proposals like this.

As for foreign drivers being involved in a disproportionate number of accidents. You would have to compare like for like on the demographics. There is likely to be a disproportionate number of young males in the mix.

LostinBlanch

ballooba wrote: »

They should break out the human killer for politicians who make proposals like this.

Surely you mean humane killer Ballooba?

BTW is that now official FG policy? :rolleyes: Leo Varadakar better watch what he says so. :eek:

SeanW

Most of this is nonsense, but I think there would be some use in restricting LHD vehicles - such as a ban or restriction on overtaking on single lane carraigeways.

Alun

SeanW wrote: »

Most of this is nonsense, but I think there would be some use in restricting LHD vehicles - such as a ban or restriction on overtaking on single lane carriageways.

Actually under certain circumstances, depending on the curvature of the road, you can sometimes get a better view for overtaking in a LHD car than in a RHD car. I drove over here and in the UK on holiday many times back when I lived on the continent, and never had any problems. You just have to be a bit more careful that's all.

I don't suppose you'd be too happy being restricted in the same way on your holidays in France, for example, would you?

MCMLXXXIII

BehindTheScenes wrote: »

In fairness there is a reasonable point there imo. Think about it, if you're driving a left hand drive car. So you want to overtake a lorry, your by yourself and you have to pull out to the point that you can see what is coming at you. The car you're travelling in would have to come out half way for you to get a decent view. It's an accident waiting to happen. Slap a speed limit on, just to slow things down and give people that bit longer to think.

Um...these drivers probably won't need to worry about overtaking if they are only allowed to go 80km. However, I do think the government needs to make up their minds on what side to drive on, and then only allow the proper right- or left-hand drive vehicles on the Island.

purplengold wrote: »

Talk about banning foreign drivers in this country, or having them observe a different speed limit than Irish drivers is ridiculous, and changing over to driving on the other side of the road is ridiculous to the point of insanity. But banning left hand drive cars from the country except in exceptional circumstances would have some merit.

^+1 (see comment above)

jmayo wrote: »

How would it be defined: you drive on foreign license or you are only visiting or your car is foreign reged or car is lhd ?
Would it apply to British or Northern Irish drivers or maybe only to our Northern protestant unionist drivers ?

Agreed. By "foreign" drivers, do you mean those from England? They are RHD. ...but so is Japan, and the Japanese seem A LOT more foreign than the Brits, even though they have the same driving systems. Also, can we consider Germans to be foreign? Of course. Does the government expect the same people that regularly drive 130mph on the Autobahn to come and do 50mph here?


Most are saying it's all hogwash, and I agree - it's too hard to enforce and will be a lot of work, and will kill a lot of tourism, but whatever Donie Cassidy is trying to do - it's probably working. Everyone is talking about it, everyone is arguing about it, and everyong is thinking about it.

peasant

MCMLXXXIII wrote: »

but whatever Donie Cassidy is trying to do - it's probably working. Everyone is talking about it, everyone is arguing about it, and everyong is thinking about it.

But that's just because of the entertainment value

Come on ...if there ever was such a thing as a brainfart ...this "proposal" is it

purple'n'gold

Is anyone, except the bewigged one, serious about us changing to driving on the right hand side of the road? There wouldn’t be enough cemeteries in the country to bury all the fatalities for the first 6 months. And why on earth even contemplate such nonsense?

CerebralCortex

FFS!!! Its bad enough when the natives go 80kph on 100kphstretches of road (and 80k in 50k zones, if you don't believe me drive from Limerick to Galway) never mind if its imposed.
Why do the government punish those who use there system? Its not like they provide us with a good alternative to driving.

BehindTheScenes

peasant wrote: »

all you need to do is stay further back and you can see all you need (at least enough to make sure that it's safe to pull out a bit to have a better view)

True but not everybody thinks with that logic.

I don't see what the big deal about switching to the other side of the road is. The quays used to run the opposite way to what it is now and people seem to have gotten on with it. The same applies to St. Stephens' Green.

purple'n'gold

BehindTheScenes wrote: »

True but not everybody thinks with that logic.

I don't see what the big deal about switching to the other side of the road is. The quays used to run the opposite way to what it is now and people seem to have gotten on with it. The same applies to St. Stephens' Green.

You are not seriously comparing driving on one way streets in Dublin (or any other city and town) to national primary and secondary roads?