Tom cracks the Whip. Double penalty points on Bank Holidays

javaboy

E92 wrote: »

@javaboy: putting the thing to vote would have made no difference. THey were going on holidays, whether the opposition wasted the time on it or not. This is all a storm in a teacup. Comes up every single year at this time, then goes away once Paddy's day is over and life moves on.

I know but they could put it on record that the opposition are willing to do some work and the government want their jolliers. It mightn't be entirely true but it would sound better.

I know this Paddy's day thing comes up every year but the Dáil sits for a ridiculously low number of days each year.

Letter in today's Irish Times:

Madam, - It is revealed that it costs approximately €500,000 for Government ministers to leave Ireland for the St Patrick's Day celebrations. I feel this is excellent value.

I wonder what it would cost for them to go for good?

E92

A lot of people are moaning about FF and Gaybo etc.

Where were ye all last May when ye could have done something useful, and voted for FG/Lab, basically ABFF/PD?

Too late for this now. You reap what you sow.

But you doubt you'll make up for this by voting no to lisbon or against FF in the local elections, and then put that shower back into Government again at the next general election.

javaboy

E92 wrote: »

A lot of people are moaning about FF and Gaybo etc.

Where were ye all last May when ye could have done something useful, and voted for FG/Lab, basically ABFF/PD?

Too late for this now. You reap what you sow.

I rocked the vote! Voted in Dublin West and got Joanie B(Lab) and Leo V(FG) in the door. I also gave a pity vote to Roderic O'Gorman (GP) because I felt sorry for him. He was never gonna get in though. At least I can look at my constituency and say it's not Freaky Foot territory

On the Gaybo thing. I think people are a little harsh on Gaybo. He's alienated me with some of his comments about young male disease but he is only a figurehead and he is well intentioned. One thing you have to admit is that he has got road safety on the agenda.

bruce wayne

my comment was more of a reflection that most of the reported accidents from Donegal are of the single car type, accidents resulting in deaths where the car has colided with a wall or a tree at an early hour of the morning, I suspect caused by a number of factors including very poor roads, little or no lighting and not matching your speed to these conditions.

prospect

Funnily enough I voted FF 1 & 2, but I voted on a local level and the only two candidates worth anything were both FF.

But unfortunately, the dick responsible for the roads in my area is not FF....

MCMLXXXIII

So basically what I'm getting out of this is that it's better to speed during regular times, than on bank holidays. It's like Ireland is on sale! Come one, come all - 30% off all traffic points, as long as it's not a holiday! Rummage through muddy roads and fly through unsafe junctions! Don't worry if a sign is covered by foliage - you still won't get that point!



...sale ends next bank holiday.



Éire Wholesalers
(A wholly owned subsidiary of the Constitutional Monarchy of New South Wales)

Guy:Incognito

Seeing as everyone is usually so quick to say "look at the Uk (etc) , thats how we shoudl do it" when it's something they think is right, not sure if it's been said already but appareetly this i something they do in parts of Australia with much sucess.


People are also just focussing on the speeding but the fact is that for some reason people seem to use bank holidays as excuses to drink drive and/or speed resulting in killing themselves more often than regular weekends.

Oh and all the radio stations run (usually at the end of the news) a few words n slowing down ad taking care on bank holiday weekends, do to say nothign is said is just wrong. Either way, we're all adults, I dotn think we need Bertie coming out on the Friday of every bank holiday weekend telling us to be carefuil. If thats what it takes to get you to be responsible on the roads then you shoudlnt be driving.

JHMEG

The people get the government they deserve.

But this is a becoming too much of a nanny state, with the powers that be interefering with democracy itself.

You get extra points if you contest and fail. Is contesting an offence? It must be as we get punished for it.. how fair is that?

Latest thing I heard is that the HSE will not spend any money on "advertising" on Newstalk because they don't like the way one of their broadcasters is treating the Minister and her associates.
a) It's the taxpayer's fuppin money, not the HSE's
b) It's not advertising, it's information. Are Newstalk listeners not entitled to hear it
c) Once the state starts interfering with the press we're all screwed...

This country is going down the plughole.

Stephen

Totally off-topic: JHMEG that 1.8 road tax figure in your sig is actually €529 this year :eek:

MCMLXXXIII

Stekelly wrote: »

...People are also just focussing on the speeding but the fact is that for some reason people seem to use bank holidays as excuses to drink drive and/or speed resulting in killing themselves more often than regular weekends....

Well if they kill themselves, then the extra points won't matter, will they?

Guy:Incognito

MCMLXXXIII wrote: »

Well if they kill themselves, then the extra points won't matter, will they?

No but as you can no doubt see with a tiny bit of research on your part that they dotn always just kill themselves. Theres a lot of passengers/people in other cars, diing over bank holiday weekends because of others stupidity.

I have no sympathy and dont particularly give a crap about peoiple who kill themsleves doing stupid things, it's when they start involving others (which could well include me or my family) that I have a probem.

D_murph

JHMEG wrote: »

You get extra points if you contest and fail. Is contesting an offence? It must be as we get punished for it.. how fair is that?

ive always said this myself actually. if you were up for murder you can appeal without fear of getting a longer sentence but speeding must be a greater offense than that apparently :rolleyes:.

i wonder (as another poster here mentioned already) if you get double points on a bank holiday and contest, do you get 8 instead of 4?

its the same old BS again anyway. "speed is the biggest factor in road deaths" drivel. yawn..........ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ :rolleyes:

javaboy

D_murph wrote: »

ive always said this myself actually. if you were up for murder you can appeal without fear of getting a longer sentence but speeding must be a greater offense than that apparently :rolleyes:.

i wonder (as another poster here mentioned already) if you get double points on a bank holiday and contest, do you get 8 instead of 4?

its the same old BS again anyway. "speed is the biggest factor in road deaths" drivel. yawn..........ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ :rolleyes:

I read another poster saying it's not that they are being doubled but that they are temporarily not allowing the 'discount' in points applied if the charge is not contested. Effectively they're being doubled for most people though.

I wonder is there a constitutional issue with being officiallydiscouraged from contesting your case? I know there is a major precedent for many crimes that leniency is shown at sentencing if a guilty plea is entered but the automatic official 'discount' for immediately giving in just seems a little fishy.

Guy:Incognito

D_murph wrote: »

its the same old BS again anyway. "speed is the biggest factor in road deaths" drivel. yawn..........ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ :rolleyes:

If they were just doubling it for speedign then thats what it'd be, but they arent. It's doubled for drink drivign etc aswell. The facts are there that deatsh go up on bank holiday weekends, slowign people down isnt goign to make that worse now is it.

meathstevie

Double on bank holidays...do I get half on Tuesday nights ??

Has anyone ever thought about the fact that there could be more inexperienced/incompetent drivers on the road during bankholidays as traffic volumes are significantly higher than on normal weekends ?

D_murph

Stekelly wrote: »

If they were just doubling it for speeding then thats what it'd be, but they arent. It's doubled for drink drivign etc as well. The facts are there that deaths go up on bank holiday weekends, slowing people down isnt goign to make that worse now is it.

[/quote]
Penalty points for speeding offences should be doubled on bank holiday weekends according to the Government chief whip, Tom Kitt.

The proposed policy mirrors existing legislation in New South Wales, Australia and would see the amount of penalty points received when speeding during bank holidays weekends double.

Mr Kitt said that under the proposals all other offences committed during bank holidays would not be doubled instead one extra penalty point would be added on to the offence.[/quote]



looks like double points just for speeding to me

i wasnt aware that drink driving was a penalty point offence. i always thought a ban was the penalty for that (and rightly so too)

i reckon that more drink driving checkpoints on BH weekends would go a longer way towards solving road deaths than yet another "blame speeding" campaign. they keep focusing on this too much and its obviously not working.

who would you rather be put off the road? a person that does 10kmh over the limits or that drives after 10 pints?

it cant be a coincidence that so many of these deaths are on back roads after pub hours and single car accidents IMO

ninty9er

Seriously off topic...sorry mods...but there's really no particular right place to expose these inacuracies.

Stephen wrote: »

Totally off-topic: JHMEG that 1.8 road tax figure in your sig is actually €529 this year :eek:

That's true

JHMEG wrote:

Beat VRT: move to the UK
An average 1.8L car uses 1300 litres of fuel a year (35mpg/10,000mls).
In Ireland this fuel costs €1560. In the UK this fuel costs €1807, or €247 more.
Road tax in Ireland is €484. Road tax in the UK is €166, or €318 less.
So don't start with the "yeah, but petrol is cheaper here" crap.. we're already burdened with VRT, Fianna Fail, a dire Health Service, tolls on every motorway...

Yes but it's actually €221 in the UK at today's exchange rate (171g/km) and will be €266 and €273 in each of the following consecutive years, before being reviewed again. And did I mention the UK government will be taking an extra 2p from you for every litre of fuel from October so make that €247 more in fuel about €285 more from the y/e 31/10/09.

Of course in a nation with over 30million cars on its roads can well afford these concessions...taking that as average will be €6.63bn this year, €7.98bn next year and €8.19bn in 2010 and the good chancellor told us yesterday that he'll be borrwing today's equivalent of €62.3bn over the next 3 years to balance his books....yes moveing to the UK is exactly what you should do....and did I mention they pay council tax and a congestion charge to get into London. Of course they're all equivalents at today's exchange. could be more, could be less, but they're big increases in the figures for road tax over 2 years.

every country, (of course they're only now getting a 20% PAYE rate) has it's crosses to bear, parents receive but just take off the rose tinted glasses before you shoot yourself in the foot and move to the country that's getting into trouble just as the rest of the world is working its way out. Child benefit is €60 per month less for the fist child in the UK, €95 less for the second, and €132 less for each subsequent child. that's €5028 less per year for a family of 4 kids (over 6) or €9428 less if all 4 are under 6.

Add it all together and count your luck stars....well maybe not. But it's not all it's cracked up to be living in the UK.

RANT OVER

Guy:Incognito

D_Murph wrote: »

Penalty points for speeding offences should be doubled on bank holiday weekends according to the Government chief whip, Tom Kitt.

The proposed policy mirrors existing legislation in New South Wales, Australia and would see the amount of penalty points received when speeding during bank holidays weekends double.

Mr Kitt said that under the proposals all other offences committed during bank holidays would not be doubled instead one extra penalty point would be added on to the offence.



looks like double points just for speeding to me

i wasnt aware that drink driving was a penalty point offence. i always thought a ban was the penalty for that (and rightly so too)

i reckon that more drink driving checkpoints on BH weekends would go a longer way towards solving road deaths than yet another "blame speeding" campaign. they keep focusing on this too much and its obviously not working.

who would you rather be put off the road? a person that does 10kmh over the limits or that drives after 10 pints?

it cant be a coincidence that so many of these deaths are on back roads after pub hours and single car accidents IMO

Not sure but I heard the story earlier on the radio and they said it was for more than jsut speeding, and the old "10kmph" over the limit doesnt wash. As discussed on here many times, your speedo over reads to varying degrees so if you are doing say 130 on a motorway, theres a good chance you speedo is showing anythign up to 145-150, so you knwo you are speeding and are actually under the impression you are speeding by much more. Plus you woudl have to do that 6 times or 3 on bh ( at which stage you've proabably been speeding 30-40 times becasue only the very unfortunate get caught every time they speed), to get banned, so you are well aware of what you are doing

As I mentioned already, they have this in part sof Australia and apparently it works well.

ninty9er

D_murph wrote: »

i wasnt aware that drink driving was a penalty point offence. i always thought a ban was the penalty for that (and rightly so too)

i reckon that more drink driving checkpoints on BH weekends would go a longer way towards solving road deaths than yet another "blame speeding" campaign. they keep focusing on this too much and its obviously not working.

It'd be no harm to put 6 points on a licence re-instated after a ban for drink driving, meaning they're already halfway to another ban for a few years, it's up to the driver to cop on.

Checkpoints...definitely. I've been brethalysed twice this year and I've no qualms about it....drink and don't drive or drive and don't drink. On of my friends was pulled over at a checkpoint, clear, but the guy in front was arrested. If everyone had an "I know someone who knows a fella that lost his licence....." then drink driving might actually see a real collapse. I mean, is it ACTUALLY that difficult to go out and have one person in the group not drink. We had 3 designated drivers last weekend (we only needed 2) by mistake, but that didn't mean the 3rd went on a booze cruise in town when he could get a lift (as it turns out I had to head home with an injury so he was needed anyway).

JHMEG

ninty9er wrote: »

And did I mention the UK government will be taking an extra 2p from you for every litre of fuel from October so make that €247 more in fuel about €285 more from the y/e 31/10/09.

No, and you didn't mention maybe €10,000 in VRT either that the Irish govt will rob you of.

ninty9er wrote:

and did I mention a congestion charge to get into London.

No, and you didn't mention a public transport system that's the envy of the world either. OTOH, the Irish govt has delivered 2 disjointed tram lines and ONE new city centre train station, the first in over 100 years.

ninty9er wrote:

But it's not all it's cracked up to be living in the UK.

A hardcore Fianna Failer wouldn't believe anything else.

Guy:Incognito

JHMEG wrote: »

No, and you didn't mention maybe €10,000 in VRT either that the Irish govt will rob you of.


No, and you didn't mention a public transport system that's the envy of the world either. OTOH, the Irish govt has delivered 2 disjointed tram lines.


A hardcore Fianna Failer wouldn't believe anything else.

At the end of the day we're all deoing relitivly the same . Theres no shortage of people in the Uk moanign about having it hard. It really is all a case of "grass is greener". A certain percentage of every population moan about how ther country is **** and everywhere else is better. They cant all be right.

ninty9er

Stekelly wrote: »

It really is all a case of "grass is greener". A certain percentage of every population moan about how ther country is **** and everywhere else is better. They cant all be right.

Nail...head...hit the

JHMEG

Stekelly wrote: »

At the end of the day we're all deoing relitivly the same . Theres no shortage of people in the Uk moanign about having it hard. It really is all a case of "grass is greener". A certain percentage of every population moan about how ther country is **** and everywhere else is better. They cant all be right.

No, there is a pecking order of countries, with the likes of Switzerland (and till recently the US) at the top and basket case African and Asian countries at the bottom, and us somewhere in between.

Some countries are worse, some are better, but we're not all the same, and this aint Switzerland.

Steve

I heard on tha Raido (George Hook interviewing someone - missed the start) that the homework hadn't been done on this by the minister and would need changes to leglislation which could take a year to put through.
Apparently, current legislation does not empower the minister to change the amount of points at will.

Anyone else hear this?

@jhmeg, 99r - can yez have your side topic in another thread please, its hard enough to follow this one;)

Guy:Incognito

JHMEG wrote: »

No, there is a pecking order of countries, with the likes of Switzerland (and till recently the US) at the top and basket case African and Asian countries at the bottom, and us somewhere in between.

Some countries are worse, some are better, but we're not all the same, and this aint Switzerland.

I didnt mean all as in every country in the world. I meant us and the UK. The last bit was seperate, should have worded it better.

Guy:Incognito

stevec wrote: »

I heard on tha Raido (George Hook interviewing someone - missed the start) that the homework hadn't been done on this by the minister and would need changes to leglislation which could take a year to put through.
Apparently, current legislation does not empower the minister to change the amount of points at will.

I doubt he intended to have it ready for this weekend anyway, IT's only an idea being proposed.

Sandwich

Great idea Tom Kitt. Its the points not the few quid that make an impact on speeders and the bank holiday novelty value will raise the profile nicely. And should yield a good return, with speed checks being increased on these weekends, get maxmium impact per Garda hour. Nice one.



BTW.
Restores some faith in politicians when they really do something positive. To make an earlier post more precise : we get the government the majority of people deserve.

Steve

Stekelly wrote: »

I doubt he intended to have it ready for this weekend anyway, IT's only an idea being proposed.

I know, It's being bandied about in the media as if it will though.:rolleyes:
Probably the desired effect.:mad:

ninty9er

stevec wrote: »

I heard on tha Raido (George Hook interviewing someone - missed the start) that the homework hadn't been done on this by the minister and would need changes to leglislation which could take a year to put through.
Apparently, current legislation does not empower the minister to change the amount of points at will.

Anyone else hear this?

It could be have been done in a day if there was unanimous support in the Dáil and Seanad.

Spoken about by Brian Lenihan, Charlie Flanagan, (whoever Labour's Justice Spokesman is) by 11am, vote at 11:15, in the Seanad for 11:45; again discussed for an hour; voted on at 12pm and been on the President's desk for 2pm....presto...a new law. It's just not very workable targeting speeders only/in the main.

stevec wrote: »

@jhmeg, 99r - can yez have your side topic in another thread please, its hard enough to follow this one;)

I'm done on it....said my piece. Done. Dusted.

Steve

ninty9er wrote: »

It could be have been done in a day if there was unanimous support in the Dáil and Seanad.

Spoken about by Brian Lenihan, Charlie Flanagan, (whoever Labour's Justice Spokesman is) by 11am, vote at 11:15, in the Seanad for 11:45; again discussed for an hour; voted on at 12pm and been on the President's desk for 2pm....presto...a new law. It's just not very workable targeting speeders only/in the main.

IIRC thats only ever happend once, and it was to correct a fcuk up by Harney.