Consequences of driving unaccompanied

Snakeblood

Stark wrote: »

So how do you feel about people who've been driving for years yet never bothered to do a test? Because to renew a provisional after your 2nd, you have to apply for a test once a year. Having a test date booked proves nothing.

I think they should do the test. Luckily, with the awesome thing I wrote, you can see how I want it to be phased in gradually, in a proportionate way. Much like the Road safety Authority Chief Executive, Noel Brett, speaking earlier this week.

Alanstrainor

Okay i'm not out to argue, but i'll just make this point.
The law is meant to be black and white, there should be no grey areas where one can say, he's okay, but he's not for what ever reason. The system was abused before, and i think it would be a giant step backwards to continue on with a "pick and choose" attitude as to who should be fined and who shouldn't.

Stark

snakeblood wrote:

I think they should do the test. Luckily, with the awesome thing I wrote, you can see how I want it to be phased in gradually, in a proportionate way. Much like the Road safety Authority Chief Executive, Noel Brett, speaking earlier this week.

Yes, but having a test letter doesn't actually prove intent to anyone doing license checks. Now if they had a test letter from last year and the Gardai were able to confirm that they hadn't been called for their test in the interim, then that be some cause for leniency. But I certainly wouldn't accept a letter from someone who only applied in the past week or so, and will probably skip their test or fail it and then simply apply to get another letter to carry around with them so the Gardai will let them off the hook.

Snakeblood

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Okay i'm not out to argue, but i'll just make this point.
The law is meant to be black and white, there should be no grey areas where one can say, he's okay, but he's not for what ever reason. The system was abused before, and i think it would be a giant step backwards to continue on with a "pick and choose" attitude as to who should be fined and who shouldn't.

The law was grey, and allowed to be so for years. I'm all for making it black and white, but it's not a simple matter to move to black and white when you have 335 thousand people who are moving to it. They'll get there, and it should happen instantly, but sadly, this is the real world, and things aren't that simple. The RSA and the gardai realise this.

If you want to argue that it should, then yeah it should move to that instantly. No argument.

It will get to a situation where people cannot continue as they have been doing, and that's a good thing. It's not going to happen as fast as overnight though.

Snakeblood

Stark wrote: »

Yes, but having a test letter doesn't actually prove intent to anyone doing license checks. Now if they had a test letter from last year and the Gardai were able to confirm that they hadn't been called for their test in the interim, then that be some cause for leniency. But I certainly wouldn't accept a letter from someone who only applied in the past week or so, and will probably skip their test or fail it and then simply apply to get another letter to carry around with them so the Gardai will let them off the hook.

What do you want me to say? People are going to try to get around things all the time. There was the woman who claimed her husband was having sex with her mother to get out of a drunk driving charge. Was she right to do it? No.

Is someone pretending to have a test that they will attend acting reasonably? No.

Would the guard throw the book at them if he let them away once and saw them again? Yeah. Should he? Yeah.

Is stopping every unaccompanied driver in a car with L plates that goes by and giving them a 1000 euro fine a practical solution? No. Gardai have better things to be doing, in some instances, where pulling in any car that may or may not have a provisional license driver in it. It's a massive time sink.

Should they stop unsafe drivers? yeah, because that's not a time sink at all.

Should there be a culture fostered where no one even thinks of driving without a full license or someone beside them? yeah.

Takes time to do though.

ardmacha

Is stopping every unaccompanied driver in a car with L plates that goes by and giving them a 1000 euro fine a practical solution?

What is impractical about it? If you stop the first 100 and fine them €1000, the rest will stop breaking the law.

Snakeblood

ardmacha wrote: »

What is impractical about it? If you stop the first 100 and fine them €1000, the rest will stop breaking the law.

On what do you base your opinion, seeing as neither the RSA nor the gardai think it'll work or they'd be doing that, and calling for that in the media?

Fighting Irish

Alanstrainor wrote: »

SHELL28
Banned for Trolling.
Come back to me in a week if you want access.

Any chance boards is ever going to get a banning system that auto unbans people once the week(or whatever time period) is up?

Alanstrainor

Fighting Irish wrote: »

Any chance boards is ever going to get a banning system that auto unbans people once the week(or whatever time period) is up?

Well i could have given an Infraction for 10 days, but i suspect i wont be hearing much from him hence the ban

sonicthebadger*

Snakeblood wrote: »

From the Irish Independent, July 2008:

However, Garda sources have indicated that members of the Garda Traffic Corps see the measure as time-consuming to enforce properly unless they have some way of carrying out road-side tests to verify the licence status of motorists.

...

Firstly, this is not an attack on Snakeblood or even the above post. Merely a suggestion to read between the lines because (drumroll please!)

The Indo is a rag.

There's a real simple way the Traffic Corps has of carrying out roadside tests on your licence, the technical term is "reading". Believe it or not the boys in blue have to be able to do the "reading" before they're given the nice coat with the shiny buttons.

If you don't have your licence on you they can decide to keep you on the side of the road while they find out who owns the car, who you are, and satisfy themselves that you will bring your licence to the station. That's if they don't give you a slap on the wrist for not having your licence on you in the first place as the law says you should. Since 1 January, 2003 you are required to carry your full driving licence with you at all times when driving in Ireland. (Source:http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/travel-and-recreation/motoring-1/driver-licensing/full_driving_licence)



Roadside tests... my left :eek:.

mathie

Snakeblood wrote: »

What do you want me to say? People are going to try to get around things all the time. There was the woman who claimed her husband was having sex with her mother to get out of a drunk driving charge. Was she right to do it? No.

Is someone pretending to have a test that they will attend acting reasonably? No.

Would the guard throw the book at them if he let them away once and saw them again? Yeah. Should he? Yeah.

Is stopping every unaccompanied driver in a car with L plates that goes by and giving them a 1000 euro fine a practical solution? No. Gardai have better things to be doing, in some instances, where pulling in any car that may or may not have a provisional license driver in it. It's a massive time sink.

Should they stop unsafe drivers? yeah, because that's not a time sink at all.

Should there be a culture fostered where no one even thinks of driving without a full license or someone beside them? yeah.

Takes time to do though.

I agree with a lot of that but in my experience the only way to get people in this country to change their bad habits is to hit them finacially.

Charging money for plastic bags. How many plastic bags do you see littering the streets these days? A lot less than before.

So if fining every L driver on the road who is breaking the law is what it takes for the message to get through then so be it.

M

dosed

i got stopped by the guards last week. they waved every car in front of me through the check point (wernt checking tax or anything), but saw me, a young driver in a crappy car with marks on th windows from years of L plates, and pulled me over to ask for a license.
i passed th test th other day so it was fine and dandy but i think thats they way they are going about it, using their intuition or whatever. dunno how effective it will be?

theredletter

Reviving an old thread here because I think it's very useful.

I've started driving only very recently (3 lessons) and bought a car after I got my Learner's Permit. I'm picking it up fairly quickly and have driven with the instructor to our nearest towns (prob 30 hour away) and did pretty well.

On the issue of driving unaccompanied I asked him what the story was. He said if you drive safely and are confident go for it (but that he didn't 'officially' say that). He told me out of all the years he's been driving only two were fined for driving unaccompanied in our area and it was because both were reckless drivers and were basically joy riding. They fined them for not have anyone accompanying them just to really teach them a lesson, but it seemed to be secondary.

I plan on driving unaccompanied after I've finished 8-10 lessons. I've put in a lot of work already and think I'll be fine at that point. I'm fairly level-headed and I'd only be driving very quiet country roads I know really well and will be avoiding towns until I've my full license.

At the end of the day I need it for work and no public transport goes there, so it's either I sit in and go on the dole or I drive extremely quiet country roads. Bit of a gamble, yes, but a necessary operation!

That said I feel terrible already for contemplating this because I usually go by the rules (which I think will make me an annoyingly careful driver). I just think that if transport is your issue for securing work the guards should be a bit more understanding in this economic climate. Either I take hundreds a month off the dole or I pay my taxes and possible fine for driving unaccompanied. Apart of the learning experience should be driving alone and I'm disappointed that it didn't make its way into the new course. It's a very important skill to have, as well.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.