Time for a new campaign " She drives (into pothole) , He fixes puncture"

GTE

steve06 wrote: »

It's still down to education and driving style though, you don't have to put the foot to the floor when accelerating off the lights!

I never said you did.

Stainless_Steel

bbk wrote: »

I never said you did.

Think you implied that extra hp causes bad driving. That's the way I understood you anyway.

Samba

No i've never killed a woman, I've been involved in three crashes and a knock.

O.k, with the knock, I hold my hand up it entirely my fault and I hit a gir., I believe i was doing 15-20mph and no serious damage was done, the matter wasl settled out of Insurance.

In the first incident I was coming down the Killiney(?) road leading in to Dalkey, there is one big long steep hill, the lady behind the wheel literally had about 2 minutes to pull out before I arrived, she pulled out just as I came past the T Junction and I was sent flying over the roof of the car like superman, thankfully I was not seriously hurt even though my bike hit the side of her car doing about 30-35mph, had it not been for Jui Jitsu, I don't think I would have landed quite so smoothely.

My second accident had very similar circumstances, arriving at a T-Junction with a road riddled with speed bumps I would often try to avoid them by going as close to the curb as possible, this possibly saved my life, as at the exact moment I went past the T-Junction an old granny pulled out and rode along side me for 10 meters while I was beeping and screaming but she just kept getting closer and closer to me and the kirb until crunch, again I was relatively unscathed as I manged to jump off to saftey on to the path but the bikes on both occasions were toast.


Third was my biggest accident ever, which to this day I remember vividly.

I was in Brittany on the last day of my holiday, my cousin had just passed her full license (I should have been assured, as the test is very rigorous in France) but it had been a while since she had driven

She was driving a banger and I could tell she was not very comfortable behind the wheel. (Always buy travel insurance folks, I remember before leaving, I bought it by chance as I waited to collect my plane ticket in USIT because the following can happen!)

About 1km before what was the equivalent of an Irish dual carriageway, she stalled the engine and couldn't get it going again, so I got out to give it a push and off we went again, literally seconds before we merged I reminded myself to put my seat belt back on. (I don't think I would be typing this right now had I not)

When she merged on to the main road, she did so in 3rd or 4th gear, it's ironic but perhaps we had our accident because she was not driving fast enough.

I can recall glancing over my shoulder and seeing a Renault coming up behind us at a terrifying speed, at this point, I lunged my foot over to the accelerator pedal and slammed it down as hard as i could over her foot, she screamed WTF are you doing, moments later......BANG, then silence accompanied by further thud. (I later learned that the silence was us flying about 2 meteres in the air into a ditch).

I knew from the offset that ,while we were travelling too slow, the car that hit us was clearly speeding. It was being driven by a young female driver giving some hitch hiker a lift, maybe she was showing off to him.. I don't know her reasons for doing the speed she was but I never got a chance to ask, foolishly, my cousin jumped out and claimed full responsibility for the accident. Based on the skid marks we later got this changed to 50/50 liability.

I had a fractured lumbar vertebrae and compressed vertebrae I spent 3 months in a full upper body cast but I was damn lucky, the first thing the Doc said to me is you are lucky not to be in a wheel chair.

It spelt the end my Jui-Jitsu training, the following year I was due to train 5 nights a week to head off to the Olympics in Greece for the Pankration tournament.

C'est la vie, I hold no grudges about my accident but when I read the tripe that the RSA are continually publishing I can't help but reflect on my own personal driving experiences, which leads me to question the manner in which they derive their statistics.


I think i'm a good case for the launch a warning campaign against Men using the same roads as Women, as women are 75% more likely to cause a fatal accident than male drivers.

It's an Iron clad statistic based on my experiences.

I had a shot at representing Ireland in the Olympics, that was taken away from me by two Women drivers.

Sorry for the long post, I have many more musings from my time on the roads, oddly enough, most of them involve stories with female drivers, there are some with male drivers that i clearly recall but nothing comes close to my experiences with female drivers.

L1011

From my admittedly not entirely full knowledge of the law, the RSA has no ability to restrict the actions of insurance companies and as a state agency, is entirely banned from bringing in rules for one gender and not another. Any attempt to bring in Gaybo's demented dreaming will result in a court case and the RSA being smacked down very, very rapidly.

However, as a reassurance I'm still seriously considering swapping my Irish licence for a UK one! Although again, as its a full one, if they try to bring in restrictions for under 25s it'll likely be legally restricted to those who sit their test after a certain date.

Marlow

MYOB wrote: »

Although again, as its a full one, if they try to bring in restrictions for under 25s it'll likely be legally restricted to those who sit their test after a certain date.

That hits the nail on the head. It's exactly where the problem lies.

Doing exactly that, will fix nothing. It will leave whoever is the problem now with exactly the same situation and only maybe fix the situation with the next "generation" of drivers, if at all.

It would be much better to clean up in the mess of the licenses, that were given without any test and fix the roads and signage. Then we'd have far less problems.

/M

Solitaire

Marlow wrote:

It would be much better to clean up in the mess of the licenses, that were given without any test and fix the roads and signage. Then we'd have far less problems.

[FFTD]
But... that would cost money! If we keep the roads broken and put up all the wrong signs and ensure half the drivers don't have a clue then they'll all crash and die, and we can blame them rather than the other way around. Then we can use it as an excuse to milk the Penalty Points system as both a giant cash-cow and a great fear weapon to keep all the dirty peasants in line! And to think the Yanks went to all the trouble of manufacturing a War Of Terror!
[/FFTD]

Orange69

A case of "she drives he dies" in the examiner today... :eek: Love how they emphasize "1.5 Litre" like its some kind of turbo charged supercar

http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/families-vent-anger-at-driver-during-crash-inquest-99550.html

GARDAÍ at an inquest were forced to separate a young woman from the families of two talented sportsmen who died after she lost control of her car.

Theresa Dingivan had been driving on a provisional licence for just over two months when she lost control of her 1.5 litre Honda Civic on a country road in Cork on August 5, 2007.

Two of her back seat passengers, who hadn’t been wearing seat belts, were thrown from the car.

Michael Murphy, 22, who played GAA and soccer for clubs in his home village of Castlelyons, died instantly. His friend, James Sexton, 19, who played schoolboy soccer with the Republic of Ireland and was a member of the Cork City U-21 team, died a few minutes later.

At the inquest in Mallow, Patrick O’Riordan, solicitor, representing the families of the two men, questioned why Ms Dingivan, from Pearse Square, Fermoy, hadn’t apologised to the Murphy and Sexton families. Coroner Dr Michael Kennedy ruled such a question was not appropriate at an inquest.

The inquest was adjourned a short time later and during the interval Ms Dingivan was approached by TV3 for a comment. She said she was sorry for what happened and wished she could turn back the clock.

When the inquest resumed 15 minutes later, Mr O’Riordan informed the coroner what had happened.

Dr Kennedy said it would have been a different matter if Ms Dingivan had spoken to any witnesses during the recess, but he nevertheless thought her actions inappropriate.

After the jury returneda verdict of death by misadventure, Ms Dingivan’s mother, Denise, turned towards the grieving families and started to offer apologies for what had happened.

Some members of the distraught Murphy family started to shout her down and asked why it had taken so long for any apology to be issued. Michael Murphy’s mother, Mary, broke into tears and had to be comforted by relatives. The Sexton family remained silent.

At this stage gardaí moved in to ensure the families left the building separately. They first escorted the Dingivan family out and when they had left the area, the Murphy and Sexton families followed.

Last November, a jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court found Theresa Dingivan not guilty of dangerous driving causing death.

Read more: http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/families-vent-anger-at-driver-during-crash-inquest-99550.html#ixzz0PLheEHUJ

Seth Brundle

Orange69 wrote: »

A case of "she drives he dies" in the examiner today...

...or a case of she was an inexperienced driver and the lads in the back were too stupid to put on their seatbelts.
Personally she is only partly responsible for their deaths, they are more at fault!

GTE

Think you implied that extra hp causes bad driving. That's the way I understood you anyway.

I said that in various forms but I never said everyone goes foot to the floor from lights all the time.

Orange69 wrote: »

A case of "she drives he dies" in the examiner today... :eek: Love how they emphasize "1.5 Litre" like its some kind of turbo charged supercar

http://www.examiner.ie/ireland/families-vent-anger-at-driver-during-crash-inquest-99550.html

I saw that in the news yesterday, but no one has made the connection between that and the campaign talked about here. Maybe someone did on the radio. It would be interesting to hear reactions from the powers at be in the RSA about it.

Has anyone who has sent emails complaining gotten a meaningful response yet?

cpoh1

kbannon wrote: »

...or a case of she was an inexperienced driver and the lads in the back were too stupid to put on their seatbelts.
Personally she is only partly responsible for their deaths, they are more at fault!

Personally I would say its 40% the governments fault for not providing adequate training in place for young inexperienced drivers and not putting procedures in place to ensure learner drivers are kept off the road unless fully supervised. Technically they have but there a culture of indifference to this rule right from the top, through the gardai who enforce it right down to the people who abuse it. The government are responsible for this rot.

The lady driver was 40% at fault, for getting in the car unaccompanied and without adequate training and for driving beyond the limits of her ability causing the crash.

The lads 20% for being stupid enough to get in a car with an unqualified driver and not wearing seatbelts.

A very sad case overall and makes a mockery of this campaign of "he drives she dies"

GTE

Nice post. This story is highlighting accountability for both genders now. Whether the RSA changes their stance on it or not is one thing, but if they do its sad that it would take something like that story for them to get their logical hats on.