Time to disband the RSA?

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

limklad

Th whole RSA ads needs an attitude revamp not disbandment.

There is more than reckless young drinking male drivers. There everybody else poor driving. All their ads about drink driving is towards young men.

• There dangerous women drivers with kids on the phone, pulling out in front of oncoming cars on the road.
• They are women drivers who put their kids in danger by not paying attention on the road, but instead be giving out to them or other passengers or on the phone while driving taking their attention from the road.
• There the idiot drivers who drive half way on hard shoulders on main road swerving over and back.
• There drivers of all ages who constantly vary their speed without any cause when they are driving on wide near perfect straight roads going from 100kph to 40kph for no reasons.
• They are those who are been overtaking, they speed up causing a danger on the overtaking vehicle.
• They are drivers who cause tail backs and then cause traffic chaos in towns and villages as they bring that traffic with them.
• Women who encourage/demand their men to drive at night when they cannot find a taxi to go home after a night out. Personally, I want the same penalty points and fines to be added to passengers driver licence who get into cars where the driver has been drinking. This will have a major impact and will reduce drink driving, just as passenger can be fined for not wearing a seat belt. Passengers need to take more responsibility for their bad decisions making as well as the drivers for theirs. Safety is everybody issue, not just the drivers.

This morning on the TodayFM news.
http://audioserver.todayfm.com/audio/bk200710_8.mp3 (31mins 11 seconds in)
They read out that a survey found that 1 in 3 men do do not feel safe as passengers when their female partner/girlfriend is driving. That they tend to keep their hand on the hand brake or gripping/cling to their seat.

1. They said their other half are not paying attention (lack of concentration) to the road
2. Braking too late
3. They "flick the accelerator" rather than drive at a constant speed.
4. driving on rumble strips or over the continuous white line, or other road markings.
5. Driving too close to other cars.

The RSA also need to get the fact that enforcement of current rules are not been done as been done in other countries.
Speed is not the main killer of Drivers, it is ARROGANCE and IGNORANCE or other users of the road and to themselves.
The Motorway is proof of that, good quality roads and overtaking lanes to pass out bad/poor drivers. It is on bad back roads or towns where most accidents are caused, people not paying attention to their driving and to other road users.

The RSA and the government need to get the Fact and the POINT, that many Irish drivers "DO NOT KNOW THE RULES OF THE ROAD" properly or do not care for it.

um7y1h83ge06nx

Gophur wrote: »

Gay Byrne is only a very small part of the RSA. It's convenient for some to pick on his comments and use it as a way of criticising the RSA. One would be much better off going through the RSA website and seeing what they actually do.

Noel Brett is doing a good job. I disagree with the way they are tackling the issue of excessive speed (not necessarily breaking speed limits), but, on the whole, the RSA are doing a good job.

As for Gaybo? He's in his 70's, he's a motoring enthusiast, albeit it for vintage motorbikes, but he, as a road-user, is as entitled to his opinion as any 20 year old. I wouldn't recommend getting too het up about anything he says, he carries little influence.

The thing is that as the public face of the RSA he should be completely congruent with the rest of the organisation. If after listening to Gay Byrne and you need to go to the RSA website to see what their organisation is about, then he's doing a poor job.

If the leader of one of our political parties was making statements that weren't congruent with his/her parties values and aims, they would be hauled aside pretty quickly by their chairman.

Viper_JB

Gophur wrote: »

Gay Byrne is only a very small part of the RSA. It's convenient for some to pick on his comments and use it as a way of criticising the RSA. One would be much better off going through the RSA website and seeing what they actually do.

He's their public spokes person...he's all the majority of people see or hear when it comes to the RSA....

again you're blaming younger drivers for all the problems on the road, you expect them to goto the website and read through the RSA's justification for their massive expenditure taking all that into account the next time they hit the roads? if not...and they don't listen to the ads...and they are apperently the biggest hazard on the roads and by your admission then what function to the RSA provide?

and if we're going to generalise here I find that older drivers who are set in their ways are far less lightly to listen to people when being advised on how to drive safely.

sentient_6

While making a few phone calls recently about doing the RoSPA advanced driving test one guy i got through to randomly told me Gay Byrne holds the RoSPA gold standard. (wow i was so impressed ) but if he as tested fair & square it at least means his driving is fairly impeccable. I'm not defending him being part of the RSA at all, just mentioning a point to those who wonder where he gets off.

biko

As I see it two things are responsible for most fatal collisions: drink and speeding. I don't really see a way to combat inexperience/overconfidence because young guys are often "full of themselves" (I know I was, but was never in a crash).

For instance young guys in a survey said they would take more risks after seeing the RSA ads (I'll see if I can find that survey) when the numbers show they are at fault:
In a response to the complaints, RSA chief Noel Brett said more than two thirds of female passengers killed between 1998 and 2009 were being driven by a male driver.
"At the risk of offending male sensitivities, women need to know that they are being killed through male-dominated driver errors such as speeding and drink-driving," Brett said.
"Unfortunately the facts speak for themselves," he continued. "Males are massively over-represented as the drivers involved in fatal collisions in Ireland, accounting for 80% of the drivers in fatal collisions, compared to 20% for female drivers."***

If we disband the RSA and put the money on GPS tracking devices installed on leaner cars and new drivers up to 5 years instead. Then an automated system for fining the speeders. Alternative restrict the power of cars for the first 5 years to 1 litre or 40kW.

More Garda on duty at night around pubs. Also on duty early Saturdays and Sundays to prevent second day drunks.

Personally, I want the same penalty points and fines to be added to passengers driver licence who get into cars where the driver has been drinking. This will have a major impact and will reduce drink driving, just as passenger can be fined for not wearing a seat belt. Passengers need to take more responsibility for their bad decisions making as well as the drivers for theirs. Safety is everybody issue, not just the drivers.

Good idea, if all passengers risk points they're less likely to get into the car.

sentient_6

In my opinion the only people still left drink driving in this country are the ones who've been doing it all there lives. For the most part i think the message has got through the 'younger generation'. Of course speed is a different story. But i also think everyone speeds though, its just if your relatively inexperienced behind the wheel you've more chance of loosing control of the car.

I think a few changes in the driving test wouldnt go astray. Why is it i didnt go above 60kph my whole test?! You should be taking out a main road, asked to overtake, perform an emergency stop etc etc.

gbee

Rosser wrote: »

That's a total fairy tale, where exactly did you see that, out the window of your Micra?

I can collaborate this phenomenon ~ it has come up a few times and the stories suggest it is the same driver moved around the country ~ where have we heard this before?

BeardyGit

Rosser wrote: »

That's a total fairy tale, where exactly did you see that, out the window of your Micra?

That statement and adjoining question goes to show two things:

1. You've not experienced something, so you think it doesn't happen. If a tree falls in the woods and there's nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound? Damn right it does. Many here on boards.ie have experienced the unmarked car driving up their holes looking for an easy ticket.

2. You've an apparent prejudice to folks who drive micras. That's just plain ignorance on your part. It hints that you might have the stinking kind of attitude that's responsible for a lot of the crap driving we all see each day.

I drive my wifes micra once in a while and it's incredible to see just how stupidly other drivers react to a Micra (for example - there are others that experience similar treatment I'm sure) on the roads. I don't hold anyone up. It accelerates up to speed just as fast as other reasonable drivers do when moving off from lights and the like, and holds a steady 120KPH on the motorway without trouble) but for some reason there are gob****es all around this country who just can't share roadspace with a micra.

That kind of stinking attitude and the often aggressive and sometimes downright dangerous carry on from other (almost exclusively male) drivers when in the vicinity of a micra has me looking around for another small car she'll be happy to drive.

What does that have to do with the RSA?

Well, the one thing the RSA just can't do is change peoples attitudes. Assholes with stupid and ill-formed opinions about the other motorists around them abound on the public roads. I've been that asshole of course, but experience and maturity mean my dickhead-behind-the-wheel alterego doesn't make as many appearances as he once did.

Did the RSA contribute? Did they ****! And they can't either. Assholes with asshole attitudes will hopefully gain enough experience in time to mellow out behind the wheel, hopefully without hurting anyone in the process. But the RSA won't have any part to play in that.

Blind corners taken too fast, undertaking, tailgating and bad driving in adverse weather are the things people need to be reminded about, not this whole "He drives, she dies" tripe. The RSA need to take a good long look at themselves - They're currently a waste of time, taxpayers money and a source of irritation to the motoring community at large.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

dr.fuzzenstein

Gophur wrote: »

So, what would you propose? No Road Safety Authority?

Sexist Ads? Which ones, exactly? And is the message they contain, false?

It seems the target audience, the young f*ckwits who cannot drive without putting others' lives and health in danger, are upset about the messages being transmitted by the RSA.

The RSA are trying hard to promote road safety. Any road death is a road death too many. If it means slowing down young male drivers, then so be it. If it eventually means limiting young males drivers, then so be it.

You might not like the message but the facts are hard to ignore. Young male drivers are the single biggest danger on our roads. Young male drivers seem to fail to realise they actually have to share the roads with everyone else, they do not own a single cm of the roads.
Using them is a privilege, not a right.

As long as we have idiots causing mayhem, you will have the RSA messages.

He drives, She dies.
I'm 40 and when I hear that crap I usually get so annoyed I nearly crash, it's nothing but ignorant claptrap. And once I have cleaned the vomit of my dash I say to myself "next time put it on mute".
You really think some 17-25 year old guy will listen to that and go "Oh yeah, they're right, I really must slow down?"
It's seldom an ad is so bad I just put it on mute whenever it comes on, but I cannot physically listen to that sh*te.
If you're trying to get through to a target audience, this should be in the textbook as to how not to do it.
I mean, if you want someone to cooperate with you would you go over to him, grab him by the collar and go "hey you, arsehole, do this for me NOW!"
All you're going to get for that is a kick in the nuts.
The lesson here:
Don't shout at people or threaten them if you want them to work with you.
As for me, I will just keep ignoring the RSA, so far I have heard little that would ring a bell with me.

Gophur

dr.fuzzenstein wrote: »

.........
You really think some 17-25 year old guy will listen to that and go "Oh yeah, they're right, I really must slow down?"............

Have you ever listened to the ad? It's not aimed at the young male driver.

metzengerstein

yes do away with these b**tards

id rather see actual improvments in the roads ,proper saftey measures taken ,more police patroling roads and motorways ,then these ridiculous ads
telling us how to use roundabouts and motorways and blaming one sex for all the road accidents
if a propper system was put in f**king place like in in other euro countrys to teach people how to drive in the 1st place we wouldnt have this problem.
or lack of the problem .

rsa are a joke and the and the lazy hole government also :mad:

ShadowHearth

TheInquisitor wrote: »

Number of Staff in RSA 170

Wages and expenses for 2009 were 5,436000 and 351000 respectively

Average Wage of someone working for the RSA in 2009 was E31,976. Average expenses were E2064

They spent 1609000 on capital expenditure e.g. road signs etc

They spent 55,948,000 on current expenditure e.g. advertising.

Total expenditure for 2009 was 66,189,000.

There was a drop in deaths during this period of 59. So the question is what is the value of someone's life? Is it 1,121,847?

Here are the facts and the figures, took me a few min to break down from this document page 25 onwards

http://www.transport.ie/viewitem.asp?id=12421&lang=ENG&loc=1512

If the value of someone's life is less than the figure above then the RSA should be abolished. If its above it should be kept. However let me point out the law of diminishing returns will set in incredibly quickly. For instance there is no way the number of road deaths will drop by 59 again in a year .

So is someone's life worth more than 2,3,4,5 million? Maybe the RSA was a great temporary organisation to have to instill safety in Irish people, and that now is should be brought back into the transport department with a much smaller team and budget. I don't know and i'd hate to be the person that can make the decision as to the value of someone's life.

The only thing i know is there is a value...

Savage m8. That figure per person should be way bigger. All 59 so called saved lifes were not just theyr job. I doubt if it would be atleast 50%. I newer ever lisined for those safety adds, but i newer ever drink drive. Now a fella who does drink drive, he wount give a **** about those adds. He will just have a lought. So i gyess money wasted?

I would actuolly love to see poeple who actually admitted that one of those adds changed theyr habbits. Any biardsies?

Gophur

The factorising of the RSA expenditure into the number of lives saved is pathetic, TBH. Without the Road Safety efforts, who knows how many people would have been killed or injured? Would it be 200 higher? If that's the case then the cost needs to be divided by 259, not just 59.

The RSA is absolutely necessary. As long as you have idiots on our roads, be they young dangerous drivers, old dangerous drivers, foreign dangerous drivers, or whatever, we need an RSA.


I still cannot see any suggestion, on this forum, as to an alternative to the current RSA, whose efforts are paying dividends, whatever way you calculate them.

Viper_JB

Gophur wrote: »

The factorising of the RSA expenditure into the number of lives saved is pathetic, TBH. Without the Road Safety efforts, who knows how many people would have been killed or injured? Would it be 200 higher? If that's the case then the cost needs to be divided by 259, not just 59.

The RSA is absolutely necessary. As long as you have idiots on our roads, be they young dangerous drivers, old dangerous drivers, foreign dangerous drivers, or whatever, we need an RSA.


I still cannot see any suggestion, on this forum, as to an alternative to the current RSA, whose efforts are paying dividends, whatever way you calculate them.

do you work for the RSA?

dr.fuzzenstein

Gophur wrote: »

Have you ever listened to the ad? It's not aimed at the young male driver.

That's just twice as much reason not to listen to it.

Slidey

I have a bigger problem with the RSA.

They are the people who are charged with overseeing DoE testing in this country. These tests are performed on vehicles that can exceed 40 tonne or carry over 50 people, yet the testing in this country is rife with inaccuracies, inconsistency and down right crookedness.

Sickens my hole. Then when they do conduct an audit they pull on me for not filling out my daily report sheets. A load of cock

metzengerstein

{qoute}The RSA is absolutely necessary. As long as you have idiots on our roads, be they young dangerous drivers, old dangerous drivers, foreign dangerous drivers, or whatever, we need an RSA.{qoute}




whats the point in them being there ,just to make ridiculous ads and campaigns that dont do s**t .

it doesnt bring the death toll down ,these ads infuriate people .look at the two threads already about this, just p***ed off people and nobody saying .oh i better change my driving now .

like i said they need to actually get the finger out ,and stop sitting behind their desk thinking of f**king slogans for their next ad

Gophur

metzengerstein wrote: »

whats the point in them being there ,just to make ridiculous ads and campaigns that dont do s**t .

.................

That's not their sole purpose.

metzengerstein wrote: »

.....................
it doesnt bring the death toll down ,these ads infuriate people .look at the two threads already about this, just p***ed off people and nobody saying .oh i better change my driving now .
.............................

Well then, the results speak for themselves, the accidents/deaths/injuries numbers have fallen dramatically.

As for the "infuriated" people? They need to get a life and not be so easily annoyed.

metzengerstein wrote: »

...................
like i said they need to actually get the finger out ,and stop sitting behind their desk thinking of f**king slogans for their next ad

Go on then, since you obviously know so much more than the professionals. What should they do?

Not target the most dangerous section of drivers?

Not have anti-speeding campaigns?

What?







There's none so deaf as those who do not want to hear! - eh?

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

metzengerstein

Go on then, since you obviously know so much more than the professionals. What should they do? ansered below

Not target the most dangerous section of drivers? theyve always targeted males ,but i dont think we are any more dangerous then women i do alot of driving and i see alot

Not have anti-speeding campaigns? why have ad campaigns when you could have actually doing something about it campaigns



what should they do ,they should make our roads more safe to drive on ,put a proper level of driving education out there and have more police patroling the roads actually make people care and mind what there doing and enforce the rules of the road ,adverts dont make this happen .there are alot of people on our roads that never even got lessons just went got a provisional and hopped in a car and off they go.

so how am i deaf like you said 'gophur' because id like to see a solution to it ,rather than pathetic sexist ads ,why point the finger when they could do something practical about it.

dr.fuzzenstein

Gophur wrote: »

That's not their sole purpose.
Well then, the results speak for themselves, the accidents/deaths/injuries numbers have fallen dramatically.
As for the "infuriated" people? They need to get a life and not be so easily annoyed.
Go on then, since you obviously know so much more than the professionals. What should they do?
Not target the most dangerous section of drivers?
Not have anti-speeding campaigns?
What?
There's none so deaf as those who do not want to hear! - eh?

Yes, you need to raise awareness about speeding and drink driving. For that we have some nice, shiny ads on telly
You will also need to train people to drive properly in the first place. Driver training must include motorway, night and adverser weather condition. Keeping learners of the safest roads in the country is FCUKING INSANE! Not happening
Get rid of slow, insane, drugged up (painkillers), deaf, blind and incapable drivers. Not happening
Have the Gards stop people for stupid and slow driving instead of just (Tax, Insurance, Graaaand), not happening
So far for the RSA 1 out of 4, fail.
Everyone says the RSA is paying for themselves by preventing 2-3 deaths, why don't they really make an effort and save dozens more?
I say they're not saving lives, they're killing people by inaction!

bmw535d

all cars in Ireland should be limited to 120kph. they should not pass the nct unless the limiter is in place, meaning all cars would have it in 4 years.

dr.fuzzenstein

bmw535d wrote: »

all cars in Ireland should be limited to 120kph. they should not pass the nct unless the limiter is in place, meaning all cars would have it in 4 years.

Well thank God there's a crackpot idea that will never see the light of day.

jayok

bmw535d wrote: »

all cars in Ireland should be limited to 120kph. they should not pass the nct unless the limiter is in place, meaning all cars would have it in 4 years.

You need to think about this some more. Limiting to 120 kph doesn't physically prevent someone from speeding through a 50 kph zone at the said 120. Equally taking a sharp bend at 120 would still be a possibility.

You see, speed itself, isn't an issue, its inappropriate speed for the road, conditions, environment, etc is.

paddydriver

At least if their disbanded it might free up some youtube bandwidth - they seem to spend a lot of time on there looking for yung fella's doing stupid things in their glanza's....:rolleyes:

eoinl4529

TheInquisitor wrote: »

Number of Staff in RSA 170

Wages and expenses for 2009 were 5,436000 and 351000 respectively

Average Wage of someone working for the RSA in 2009 was E31,976. Average expenses were E2064

They spent 1609000 on capital expenditure e.g. road signs etc

They spent 55,948,000 on current expenditure e.g. advertising.

Total expenditure for 2009 was 66,189,000.

There was a drop in deaths during this period of 59. So the question is what is the value of someone's life? Is it 1,121,847?

Here are the facts and the figures, took me a few min to break down from this document page 25 onwards

http://www.transport.ie/viewitem.asp?id=12421&lang=ENG&loc=1512

If the value of someone's life is less than the figure above then the RSA should be abolished. If its above it should be kept. However let me point out the law of diminishing returns will set in incredibly quickly. For instance there is no way the number of road deaths will drop by 59 again in a year .

So is someone's life worth more than 2,3,4,5 million? Maybe the RSA was a great temporary organisation to have to instill safety in Irish people, and that now is should be brought back into the transport department with a much smaller team and budget. I don't know and i'd hate to be the person that can make the decision as to the value of someone's life.

The only thing i know is there is a value...

we can all agree there has been a drop in deaths but isnt there a drop in the ammount of people on the roads these days??
since the recession there have been way fewer trucks on the roads than during the recession. many people lost theyre jobs so they do not travel to work in the mornings and evenings. there are very few cars on the roads during the day and afternoon.
this also leads to a fewer ammount of crashes and fewer road deaths.

limklad

eoinl4529 wrote: »

we can all agree there has been a drop in deaths but isnt there a drop in the ammount of people on the roads these days??
since the recession there have been way fewer trucks on the roads than during the recession. many people lost theyre jobs so they do not travel to work in the mornings and evenings. there are very few cars on the roads during the day and afternoon.
this also leads to a fewer ammount of crashes and fewer road deaths.

Not only that, but people are travelling less, less of a hurry to get places and watching their pockets, buying more fuel efficient and safer cars with the scrappage scheme by removing more older vehicles from the road.

Conor_M1990

biko wrote: »

. Alternative restrict the power of cars for the first 5 years to 1 litre or 40kW.

More Garda on duty at night around pubs. Also on duty early Saturdays and Sundays to prevent second day drunks.

Just read that there most 1 litre cars are death traps imo there made of tin the power of the car has nothing to do with it road safety imo its to do with attitude.

I agree there but then knowing this country the rural publicans and Fianna fail will kick up a big huff and puff about it