Speed limit for foreign drivers

peasant

BehindTheScenes wrote: »

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.

Pretty much the whole road infrastructure would have to be changed.

Signs have to be re-posted and correctly positioned for the other side of the road (simple turning around won't do)

All traffic lights would have to be re- positioned

All road markings such as stop markers, lane markers, directional arrows etc would have to be deleted and re-painted

One way road systems may have to be changed

a lot of slip roads, on/off ramps on dual carriageways and motorways would need re-aligning

All of this would have to happen over night (literally ONE NIGHT !) as a gradual changeover is not possible.

With the current amount of infrastructure in place and current traffic volumes
THIS IS SIMPLY IMPOSSIBLE


That's what the "big deal" is

Yer man might as well suggest that from now on we should drive on waterways only, as waterways have a very good safety record :D:D

AckwelFoley

This is a stupid idea that will never be passed into law.

End of.

eoin5

snyper wrote: »

This is a stupid idea that will never be passed into law.

End of.

True, but it does say something about those who say it. Drunks in a bar would be about on par with the seanad.

Manic Moran

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.

After driving an LHD car around Ireland for several years, my only real problem in overtaking was the fact that the Fiesta had a pathetic 1.1 litre engine, and it would take me forever and an age to crank up enough speed to overtake an articulated lorry. Which meant that there were very few straight stretches of road long enough in the country for me to try it.

NTM

Liam Byrne

If we DID swap sides, would we be back on here next year after some senator proposed banning English, Australian and Chinese drivers ?

pebbles21

what kind of [EMAIL="tw@t"]tw@t[/EMAIL] is that senator ??????did he just stay up all night thinking what ridiculous idea can i come up with that will get me on the radio telly and in the papers !!!!or is he just gone senile ????

oscarBravo

I mentioned this to my Danish girlfriend, and she nearly had a conniption. It's a ridiculous idea.

The idea of changing to driving on the right might have had some merit in the sixties (when Sweden did it), but it's quite simply infeasible now. There's really no point even discussing it.

TJJP

Perhaps we should just police the laws we already have properly.

In any event, how exactly are we supposed to manage 'foreign' drivers. Passport checks? It seems the Gardai can't manage as it is.

eoin5

TJJP wrote: »

Perhaps we should just police the laws we already have properly.

In any event, how exactly are we supposed to manage 'foreign' drivers. Passport checks? It seems the Gardai can't manage as it is.

Maybe if we mark them with like a Star of David or something like that? Why dont we impose curfews too, cant have them driving at night can we!

It gets more rediculous the more I think about it

Fratton Fred

eoin5 wrote: »

Maybe if we mark them with like a Star of David or something like that? Why dont we impose curfews too, cant have them driving at night can we!

It gets more rediculous the more I think about it

Make all foreigners tow a caravan and drive at night, in fact, make all caravan drivers drive at night.:D

topper75

murphaph wrote: »

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

If the governments of those nations feel they could improve road safety by imposing such a restriction on me in a right-hand drive vehicle, then that is TOTALLY their prerogrative. I am a guest in their country and have to go by their rules. The politically correct movement seems to have no respect for national sovereignty.

topper75

TJJP wrote: »

Perhaps we should just police the laws we already have properly.

In any event, how exactly are we supposed to manage 'foreign' drivers. Passport checks? It seems the Gardai can't manage as it is.

Licence.

Using your logic - we can't implement any new laws until the Gardai have managed to police all existing ones to perfection? You seem to be suggesting there is not need for a legislature at all and that politicians are wasting time trying to address the road deaths.

topper75

PSI: Las Vegas wrote: »

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?


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.



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?

If such stats are collected, they are not published. However, simple empirical evidence such as listening to RTA news stories involving the word 'foreign national' are enough to conclude that their involvement is disproportionate to the 10% or so of the population that they are porported to constitute these days. RTE did a tragic 'scrolling list' of the dead as part of their news show there recently when the numbers of RTAs were getting out of hand, to bring home to people how bad it was. So many names in the list were foreign it was shocking. It was like they were trying to wipe themselves out. Tragic. People are concerned about their driving habits and concerned about being involved in an incident with them due to poor or non-existant insurance coverage.

It is not Cassidy's role nor the role of any other Irish politician to manage what is going on in their countries of origin. Dunno why you raise this point.

Irish driving system has a lot of catching up to do - you are right. I believe this proposal of Cassidy could be part of the improvement. I don't think Irish drivers are the worst by any means - go drive in Southern Europe for instance.

Of course same should go for French, Spanish, Americans and Germans. Singling out nations who drive on the right and not others would be a racist policy.

What happens Irish drivers abroad in RHD vehicles or otherwise is totally the prerogative in the governments of those countries. I have no choice but to accept whatever restriction they might place on me as a guest in their territory.

Fratton Fred

topper75 wrote: »

If such stats are collected, they are not published. However, simple empirical evidence such as listening to RTA news stories involving the word 'foreign national' are enough to conclude that their involvement is disproportionate to the 10% or so of the population that they are porported to constitute these days. RTE did a tragic 'scrolling list' of the dead as part of their news show there recently when the numbers of RTAs were getting out of hand, to bring home to people how bad it was. So many names in the list were foreign it was shocking. It was like they were trying to wipe themselves out. Tragic. People are concerned about their driving habits and concerned about being involved in an incident with them due to poor or non-existant insurance coverage.

It is not Cassidy's role nor the role of any other Irish politician to manage what is going on in their countries of origin. Dunno why you raise this point.

Irish driving system has a lot of catching up to do - you are right. I believe this proposal of Cassidy could be part of the improvement. I don't think Irish drivers are the worst by any means - go drive in Southern Europe for instance.

Of course same should go for French, Spanish, Americans and Germans. Singling out nations who drive on the right and not others would be a racist policy.

What happens Irish drivers abroad in RHD vehicles or otherwise is totally the prerogative in the governments of those countries. I have no choice but to accept whatever restriction they might place on me as a guest in their territory.

The only big statistic I heard was the number of penalty points that could not be awarded because those caught offending had "Foreign Licences". don't confuse a foreign licence with a foreign national.

topper75

Fratton Fred wrote: »

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

For fairness sake - it would have to. You may well be the world's most careful driver and cope well with driving on the left, but the government has a responsibility to implement a system. Taking a test on Irish roads in a RHD car would give you full rights to 100kph again of course.

It would be a considerable inconvenience for you to be restricted to 80kph in the interim; but if lives are saved, it is worth it IMO.

Fratton Fred

topper75 wrote: »

For fairness sake - it would have to. You may well be the world's most careful driver and cope well with driving on the left, but the government has a responsibility to implement a system. Taking a test on Irish roads in a RHD car would give you full rights to 100kph again of course.

It would be a considerable inconvenience for you to be restricted to 80kph in the interim; but if lives are saved, it is worth it IMO.

I was being a bit facetious, I am British and hold a UK licence, but I read this morning that Donie will not include Brits in these proposals because we drive on the left.

I think around half the world actually drive on the left, will they all be included as well.

Like I said, not very well thought out.

peasant

topper75 wrote: »

It would be a considerable inconvenience for you to be restricted to 80kph in the interim; but if lives are saved, it is worth it IMO.

The thing is ...it's not just inconvenience to the affected driver.

If you slap a speed limit on a certain percentage of cars out there (be it for foreign licences, L-drivers, R-drivers or whatever) you are basically introducing mobile roadblocks to the road.

A lot of a accidents in this country happen exactly for that reason. Some "super safe" driver dawdling down a perfect road at 80, holding everybody up and frustrating them to the point where they start taking risks when overtaking.

To suggest that such a selective speed limit (applied to whoever) would improve road safety is ludicrous ...it would make it worse.

peasant

Here's an alternative suggestion that might actually work:

1) Finally give us the garda road presence and level of enforcement of existing laws that has been promised for so long

2) Introduce a law that forces all drivers of non-Irish reg. cars to carry proof of insurance. An international scheme for that, the "green insurance card" is already in existance for decades.
No proof of insurance, car gets confiscated.

3) Teach gardai to be able to recocnize and authenticate green insurance cards on the roadside.

4) Introduce a law that enables gardai to collect traffic fines from drivers of foreign reg. cars/ with non-Irish licences on the side of the road, include an extra fine of some hundred Euro for every point that should have been awarded, but couldn't due to the non-irish licence and cash it in right there and then.
Accompany the driver to the next hole in the wall, if needs be.


Nothing new btw ...it has been done like this on the continent for decades

ballooba

LostinBlanch wrote: »

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

Quiet you or I'll set Leo on you.:mad::D

Rural politicians keep coming out with these crazy road safety ideas that are anything but safe. It seems like a badge of honour for them or something. Fine Gael reps included.

jmayo

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Make all foreigners tow a caravan and drive at night, in fact, make all caravan drivers drive at night.:D

Nooooo oh :mad:
They are bad enough in daylight.

topper75 wrote: »

Licence.

Using your logic - we can't implement any new laws until the Gardai have managed to police all existing ones to perfection? You seem to be suggesting there is not need for a legislature at all and that politicians are wasting time trying to address the road deaths.

First politicans were mandated to protect us and now they are trying to address road deaths.
They come up with ideas (most of them idiotic becuase they have half a brain) because they feel it shows they are doing something about the road deaths.
It is all soundbites for the media.
"Look at me I care and I have come up with this great idea that will safe everyone."
Except it is usally a bloddy stupid idea, may only make matters worse and is probably totally unenforceable.

Perhaps some people would like the state to hire 180hp tractors with CVT and let them drive at 50kph to slow down the traffic :rolleyes:
Of course slow speed will mean no accidents ?
No, it will mean people getting more peed off sitting in convoy (becuase we have no dual lane overtaking sections on our roads) and trying to overtake when totally inappropriate and dangerous.

As for the idea of changing to driving on right, I think some people already do it, especially on dual carriageways and at roundabouts.
Hell even one of our elected representatives, a minister, trialled the idea on one our motorways

oh well , okay

1st post here but I had to get in on this one ........ Hi to all by the way ........

Not even going to get into the whole rights and wrongs of this argument but have however done a quick bit of research into this theory of foreign nationals causing a disproportionate amount of accidents ....

I found the RTE list quoted above with the names of all victims for the year 2006-2007 , now I've had to base my figures on whether or not peoples names "sound" foreign ( which isn't a great start I know ) but here's the results as I found them .

340 road deaths for the year -

37 Foreign national = 11% of total
114 aged between 17-25 = 33% of total
255 men = 75% of total

I've only worked on these figures quickly and haven't double checked anything so they may be slightly out but I'd bet they are pretty accurate .

ballooba

oh well , okay wrote: »

37 Foreign national = 11% of total
114 aged between 17-25 = 33% of total
255 men = 75% of total

I'd suggest that males aged 17 to 25 make up a disproportionate segment of the immigrant population compared to the overall population. OAPs don't migrate for work.

sovtek

I think maybe foreign nationals are maybe used to driving on proper roads instead of the squirrel trails you call roads here.
Where has all that money your government was given by the EU over the past 30 or so years gone?

oh well , okay

Ballooba ,

Sorry .... possibly should have read ....

37 foreign national = 11% of total
114 men aged between 17-25 ( Irish and foreign national included ) = 33%
255 men ( Irish and foreign national ) = 75%

One thing that did pop out at me while I was going through the figures was the fact that accidents involving foreign national seemd to involve multiple deaths where 2,3 or even 4 people died .

"Irish" accidents ( for the most part ) seemed to involve 1 death .

This would suggest that even though foreign nationals were involved in 11% of road deaths they were actually involved in a much smaller percentage of accidents .

I think the fact that they have been involved in higher casualty ( and therefore higher profile ) accidents is what may lead to the perception of them being involved in a disproportionate amount of accidents .

Again I've only had a quick peek at the figures

BehindTheScenes

Liam Byrne wrote: »

If we DID swap sides, would we be back on here next year after some senator proposed banning English, Australian and Chinese drivers ?

Ah sure there would be less countries to ban then.:D

TJJP wrote: »

Perhaps we should just police the laws we already have properly.

In any event, how exactly are we supposed to manage 'foreign' drivers. Passport checks? It seems the Gardai can't manage as it is.

Take a spin around and check out the foreign number plates on cars.

Oh well, ok thats a shocking amount of male deaths:eek:

About switching over to the other side of the road, it's been done before. You can take Stephens' Green and the Quays as a long term pilot.

Hotblack Desiato

peasant wrote: »

Signs have to be re-posted and correctly positioned for the other side of the road (simple turning around won't do)

All traffic lights would have to be re- positioned

All road markings such as stop markers, lane markers, directional arrows etc would have to be deleted and re-painted

One way road systems may have to be changed

a lot of slip roads, on/off ramps on dual carriageways and motorways would need re-aligning

All of this would have to happen over night (literally ONE NIGHT !) as a gradual changeover is not possible.

The Swedes did switch over in one night, but had already re-aligned ramps etc. Would be a bigger task today for sure, but not impossible.
Signs can be erected in their new positions and covered over until the big day. A lot of signs are wrongly positioned as it is, anyway.
You forgot that all buses would have to be converted, as the doors would be on the wrong side!
I'd still like to see it happen someday, if only to annoy the anti-EU brigade in the UK

NUTLEY BOY

Many of our roads are not engineered to run the other way around ! RH driving redesign would cost more money than we could waste on a health service.

What about the safety of foreign registered cars seeing as how they are not NCT checked here ?

I would not worry too much about criticising foreign nationals over their driving. I reckon that they have more to fear from the driving of the native Irish drivers....

If you had effective enforcement of road traffic laws for all drivers that would be a realistic start.

BTW how can policiticians putting out these reactive calls expect to be respected or taken seriously ? I am not referring to the Senator specifically but to quite a few of them in both houses who feel an imperative to have a "position" on everything.......:mad:

Lennoxschips

I've driven in Ireland in a continental car myself.

I had many more problems with lunatic Irish drivers than sitting on the wrong side of the car.

fly_agaric

ifconfig wrote: »

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

I know - lets crack down on the governmental slowcoaches - FF (& Friends).
A limit to the number of consultant reports the govt can commission before they make a decision on something...
A special ceiling on the number of years per generation that FiannaFailure (oooh thats a bit political;)!) can rule the country....:D

Funny thing is, I was reading "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" a few weeks ago and it suggests that one of the mistakes the US made during occupation of Iraq was thinking that BANG! - a pinhead in the "Coalition Provisional Authority" brainfarts a new law or decree and the Problem will be Solved! Our politicians behave similarly at times.