Criminal skating rink state of Roads in the City

t63m

I collected an elderly relative this evening up in Lintown and to describe the skating ring state of the roads would be no exaggeration . This appears to be the situation right around town. I sincerely hope that anyone who has a skid causing damage and where they can establish that the council has gritted said road on a regular basis in previous years sues their a**** off.
Excuses of running out of grit are b******. One of the largest mine/suppliers of road grit in Europe is 5hrs drive up over the border and they are able to supply the whole of Europe.

Cabaal

I love the way when people skid they start blaming the council, your still the one behind the wheel so its also your fault and infact its pretty much your fault in the eyes of the insurance company,

Had the council had everyone in work on overtime pay and bought a load of grit at crazy prices and it hadn't been cold then people would have bitched about the waste of money, the council can't win basically.

As for saying its criminal? Overreaction to be honest

Lump

Cabaal wrote: »

I love the way when people skid they start blaming the council, your still the one behind the wheel so its also your fault and infact its pretty much your fault in the eyes of the insurance company,

Had the council had everyone in work on overtime pay and bought a load of grit at crazy prices and it hadn't been cold then people would have bitched about the waste of money, the council can't win basically.

As for saying its criminal? Overreaction to be honest

Well said!

t63m

While you may consider it an over reaction thats your opinion, but the law pertaining to this area is already on the books.
I'm not preaching but for your information the law pertaining to Duty of Care
is briefly-

Negligence:
(a) an omission to do something which a reasonable person would do, or (b) something which a prudent and reasonable person would not do. For example, if A acts carelessly in relation to B so as to cause foreseeable injury or damage to B, then A is obliged to compensate B for that injury or damage.

The three essential elements of Negligence:
A duty of care
Breach of duty.
Damages

Your comments on overtime, crazy grit prices are off point. there is little or no overtime this year and grit prices have not changed I have been informed.
What are we paying our road tax for?

se conman

You sort of vindicated the council in that everyone has a duty of care , i.e.no reasonable person should endanger themselves or others by attempting to drive in conditions that their vehicle or themselves are not capable of being in full control of.

t63m

se conman wrote: »

You sort of vindicated the council in that everyone has a duty of care , i.e.no reasonable person should endanger themselves or others by attempting to drive in conditions that their vehicle or themselves are not capable of being in full control of.

I see your point and indeed its very valid -however this could be argued around by the fact that a state of emergency has not been declared so therefore people need to go out their business. Roads that are normally gritted twice a day are now not being gritted at all. Some thoroughfares if at all -once only and at times where the gritting is of little or no use. Out in Castlecomer for example elderly people have been trapped up a hill side road since Christmas eve. Their 40 degree hill was always gritted. One of them is on dialysis. So what do you do?
The country can't go into lockdown when it does'nt need to especially in these economic times
Unfortunately in Ireland experience has shown that the only thing that has any effect on Government is legal action or the threat thereof.
The council have'nt mastered filling in potholes yet so clearing ice remains obviously beyond their abilities

Lump

What not write a letter of complaint?

se conman

I don't think legal action , or a threat of , works in Ireland.There is only one thing that does work , as I did last election , when one particular party called at my door.I looked at them in disgust told them "not a hope in hell" and shut the door.One guy tried to stop me and ended up with a very sore foot.I am not going off on a rant here , just saying , if they are not doing the job correctly or to our liking then we should not put them in office.

gunner11

write a strongly worded letter? , i dont think it is the councils you need to point the finger at.

if anyone hasnt noticed, local authority budgets have been severly slashed this year, and whatever can be cut is being cut. nobody could of forseen the length of the cold snap the country is in, so it wouldve been crazy to frontload scarce financial resources into the roads area of the budget at a loss of other key service areas (i.e. housing, water, wastewater etc). even though the number of people working in local authorities and their budgets have seen nothing but cuts since 2007, peoples expectations continue to be at the same level as the boom years.

So therefore, yes, councils cant win in this situation.

PCPhoto

OP .... were you able to do your journey without crashing into another vehicle and/or abandoning you car somewhere ? ...if so ...fair play !

was your journey necessary ? (could the elderly relative have gotten a taxi...or did the elderly relative HAVE to move from his/her position to wherever you drove them ?)

my point is that despite the many attempts by gardai and the media to post out the message that unless it is an extremely necessary journey...DONT DRIVE !!!

the roads are a hazard at the moment - the council knows it, the gardai know it ....for some reason "some" members of the public ignore it and think they can go out and everything will be alright ...its only a bit of ice sure !!! .

PCPhoto

gunner11 wrote: »

write a strongly worded letter? , i dont think it is the councils you need to point the finger at.

if anyone hasnt noticed, local authority budgets have been severly slashed this year, and whatever can be cut is being cut. nobody could of forseen the length of the cold snap the country is in, so it wouldve been crazy to frontload scarce financial resources into the roads area of the budget at a loss of other key service areas (i.e. housing, water, wastewater etc). even though the number of people working in local authorities and their budgets have seen nothing but cuts since 2007, peoples expectations continue to be at the same level as the boom years.

So therefore, yes, councils cant win in this situation.

ever hear of global warming ....winters getting colder .... scientists have been screaming from the rooftops warning this ....every year !!! (people just dont listen)

which is worse...to spend money on something that might happen...or wait until it does happen and then worry about it. (one of the problems of this country...re-active instead of being pro-active.)

se conman

I do agree that the councils are in a lose - lose situtation but people have to take some responsibility themselves.With regard to old people stuck alone , where are the values that I for one was brought up with.Comunity spirit is in danger of becoming a thing of the past.

Ravage1616

se conman wrote: »

where are the values that I for one was brought up with.Comunity spirit is in danger of becoming a thing of the past.

Only community spirit i see in Kilkenny is if we get into the All Ireland!

catbear

As we know the cold snap is due to last for another week at least, I propose a Ice Conditions sticky on the Kilkenny Forum until conditions improve.

My first contribution is that the main roads are in good condition this morning, at least the ones I traveled. I was in graigenamanagh earlier and no problems getting to and back.

Someone on another thread on another forum suggested putting a pair of socks over your shoes to avoid slipping, I haven't tried it but it's supposed to work.

Winter tires are a legal requirement in some Nordic countries, thereby putting some responsibility on the traveller for their ability to deal with icy roads. Our cold snaps if they become more frequent may require us to make it law to have a set of winter tires for every car, are you reading this TC Tyres?

As for anthropomorphic climate change, the cold snap on the early 1740s lasted well over a whole winter. It was highly irregular and has never been explained. In proportion to the population, it was as devastating as the Famine a hundred later.

Also to consider what made Irish settlements change in the mid 6th century AD. This era saw the emergence of the crannog and smaller settlements, a downsizing to deal with what is believed to have been a major climate event.

There are plenty of examples throughout history of civilisations adapting to or being wiped out by climate change, but that type of fact based science doesn't give current governments the excuse to raise more taxes that will never to be accounted for.

Sorry for rant, if everyone else can do it!

t63m

Very interesting and informative post. You're a brave man to poke around in the wasps nest of climate change- good luck!

fabbydabby

This dude was a highly respected scientist, until he voiced his belief that global warming was not due to human influence.

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/69623/BBC-shunned-me-for-denying-climate-change

Like I said, I am still on the fence about this but it makes for interesting reading. Apparently these days, denying anthropogenic global warming is on par with denying the Holocaust. Not a very open minded or scientific approach, is it?

As with any random system, you have outliers for each of the extremes (i.e. in this case cold and warm), and living memory is far too short a time to establish a trend for a system as ancient and complex as how cold it is down at the parade, much less link it to climate change, (anthropogenic or otherwise). I agree with Catbear: Carbon tax is a fking scam, plain and simple.

Anyway, since when do the council grit estates?

t63m

fabbydabby wrote: »

This dude was a highly respected scientist, until he voiced his belief that global warming was not due to human influence.

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/69623/BBC-shunned-me-for-denying-climate-change

Like I said, I am still on the fence about this but it makes for interesting reading. Apparently these days, denying anthropogenic global warming is on par with denying the Holocaust. Not a very open minded or scientific approach, is it?

As with any random system, you have outliers for each of the extremes (i.e. in this case cold and warm), and living memory is far too short a time to establish a trend for a system as ancient and complex as how cold it is down at the parade, much less link it to climate change, (anthropogenic or otherwise). I agree with Catbear: Carbon tax is a fking scam, plain and simple.

Anyway, since when do the council grit estates?

Agreed carbon tax is just another stealth tax

as to gritting estates- on legal handover over estates from the developer (another issue here if anyone cares to start a thread) the council takes responsibility for road safety
The issue is not of "Anyway, since when do the council grit estates?"
they are legally and financially through our road tax obliged to do so.
What I fail to understand are the apologist views of many posters on the issue unless?

femur61

Isn't it up to the estates to look after their own affairs not the council.

t63m

femur61 wrote: »

Isn't it up to the estates to look after their own affairs not the council.

??? Is this a serious question? A road in a estate is a road the same as any other road paid for by yours and my road tax and governed by the laws of the land relating to any other road.ie you cant drink drive on an estate and claim its not a road. Neither are estate dwellers expected to slop out their toilets.
The issue here is that the council will do what little they can get away with and the more people that roll over and let them do that enables them to do little or nothing. As I said earlier the only circumstances where you will see immediate action is if there has been an accident and the accident has been reported either thru the gardai or the Fire service( they also at times are called on road disruption more specifically flooding or debris). Once this has happened the area is flagged and if further accidents occur and no remedial actions have been taken then we are into the area of negligence.

Stephen

We don't pay "road tax" - we pay motor tax. The money from it is not ringfenced for road-related stuff. Given the low levels of traffic through estates, gritting them would be a total waste of money when there's actual roads out there still not gritted.

While I'm no lover of the local authorities system in Ireland, I don't blame them for the current situation. Their budgets have been slashed.

Cabaal

Stephen wrote: »

We don't pay "road tax" - we pay motor tax. The money from it is not ringfenced for road-related stuff.

100% correct yet people still continue to think we pay road tax :rolleyes:
You renew your MOTOR TAX at motortax.ie NOT roadtax.ie this is a very good hint of what your actually paying

t63m

Stephen wrote: »

We don't pay "road tax" - we pay motor tax. The money from it is not ringfenced for road-related stuff.

And therein lies another great Irish fiasco symptomatic of the state we are now in. The tax should be spent on the roads the arteries of commerce.
Instead we have Tweedledum and Tweedlewee running the show with a lot of people apparently still buying tickets to see them.
"
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel"

Lord ButterSlip

fabbydabby wrote: »

This dude was a highly respected scientist, until he voiced his belief that global warming was not due to human influence.

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/69623/BBC-shunned-me-for-denying-climate-change

What a shame people like DB in that article are shunned for disagreeing with the norm it is these people that balance the views on TV. The Beeb needs this.

t63m wrote: »

Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel

Was that the McGuiness' campaign slogan?

fabbydabby

Cabaal wrote: »

You renew your MOTOR TAX at motortax.ie NOT roadtax.ie this is a very good hint of what your actually paying

If I paid higher motor tax on my car due to its higher CO2 emission band then why would I have to pay carbon tax on the petrol? Is this not already paid?

Anyway, I am still under the old system paying fk all on a small engine size even though it's emission-tastic.

Fabby 1
The Man 0

femur61

Lord ButterSlip wrote: »

Was that the McGuiness' campaign slogan?

ha-ha

catbear

I think his slogan was "Vote for me, I'm affable!"

Lord ButterSlip

Isnt it a good idea that donegal Co Co let people take the grit and do it themselves in estates back roads etc (As this is said every unmentionable in the area gets in his van and goes and gets free grit and starts selling it to old people at ridiculess prices) but still is/could this be done here?

fabbydabby

I would certainly like to think so, but the oldies around here don't have much money these days

road_high

Lord ButterSlip wrote: »

Isnt it a good idea that donegal Co Co let people take the grit and do it themselves in estates back roads etc (As this is said every unmentionable in the area gets in his van and goes and gets free grit and starts selling it to old people at ridiculess prices) but still is/could this be done here?

Kilkenny county council doing something like this?? What a bloody laugh
....iniatiative is never a word I associate with them.

Captain Havoc

mfitzy wrote: »

Kilkenny county council doing something like this?? What a bloody laugh
....iniatiative is never a word I associate with them.

Maybe it's too cold in Donegal to be leaning on shovels

Nightwish

I must give credit where its due. Since the snow started yesterday, the gritting was done very promptly along the ring road. They are ok to drive on now. However people are definitely driving too fast on it and tailgating. Please keep well behind the car in front!