Rural Ireland getting a "Drink-Link".... lucky feckers!

malinheader

valoren wrote: »

How come nobody was enterprising and started to offer this service for a fee?

Obviously there was a business opportunity there to drive people to the back of beyonds.

Business Plan:

Get a loan for a minibus. Something like this.
https://www.carzone.ie/used-cars/ford/transit-minibus/used-2016-161-ford-transit-minibus-46-limerick-fpa-1305195957788313953?SOURCE_ID=SOURCE_ID_FPA_FROM_FEAT_LIST

It's a 17 seater, so you'll work say 5 nights a week.
You charge €15 a head to drop people home. That's 255 for one full occupancy run.
You do 2 runs a night. So you make 510 for one evenings work.
At a low occupancy of half volume, you still make 255 for one nights work.

One year income is gross 132k at full capacity. Half that for low end, so 66k.

If successful, you go to the Bank and have them 'backing brave' to finance a fleet of mini buses, you hire drivers, you create jobs and you make money.

But instead, we do all of the above but get the government to pay for it.

17 people 5 nights a week.15 euro a head. 132k a year.It's rural Ireland not Beverley hills.

Akrasia

Graces7 wrote: »

So don't let petrol run so low you panic, and use your card and get cashback

City folk! No idea...

I thought there was a petrol station in kilkee so didn't stop in Kilrush, got to kilkee and realised there was nowhere open (the agricultural coop was closed on weekends) and figured there should be at least one petrol station in the entire peninsula but turns out there wasn't. I managed to get back to kilrush after I went to loop head but i was surprised that such a large area including a town and a number of villages had no petrol station.

That was the point I was making, people from the cities don't realise how isolated some parts of rural ireland are. Taxis don't always exist and people can live miles down a country lane away from a shop or a pub. A public bus service is something they've only seen on the telly (if you can get RTE where you are, there might be a mountain blocking the signal). I think a scheme like this could be a wonderful addition to help reduce isolation and loneliness amongst people in rural ireland.

Graces7

Akrasia wrote: »

I thought there was a petrol station in kilkee so didn't stop in Kilrush, got to kilkee and realised there was nowhere open (the agricultural coop was closed on weekends) and figured there should be at least one petrol station in the entire peninsula but turns out there wasn't. I managed to get back to kilrush after I went to loop head but i was surprised that such a large area including a town and a number of villages had no petrol station.

That was the point I was making, people from the cities don't realise how isolated some parts of rural ireland are. Taxis don't always exist and people can live miles down a country lane away from a shop or a pub. A public bus service is something they've only seen on the telly (if you can get RTE where you are, there might be a mountain blocking the signal). I think a scheme like this could be a wonderful addition to help reduce isolation and loneliness amongst people in rural ireland.

I hear you and this is common in rural areas. Ring of Kerry even. And unless you know your way round eg the Mizen Head/Goleen
And we are used to this. So what you would experience as lonely and isolated is not how we see and know it. For us it is the norm, and we are fine with it And folk do help each other out, quietly and without organisation.

You are seeing it with city/town eyes

An old farmer who loved near me once wanted peace; he had a couple of locals he would see. But he got fed up of "do gooders" at his door so he put large NO ENTRY signs up.

It is a different way of life. And one that is treasured.

Snickers Man

NickNickleby wrote: »

I've given up using the local bus for going into town on a Saturday night, after standing at the bus stop while the phone app told me that two buses had come and gone. They had alright, but they took a shortcut and avoided about 3km of the route - I saw this happen, they turned left rather than right at the roundabout beside the bus stop.

But of course no glitches like this will occur in our rural drink link scheme. No sir. With Minister Ross at the controls these clapped out Hiace vans and Ford Transits will operate like a Japanese Bullet Train, synchronised to the second and working around the clock. Any time you want a drink in that delightful little boozer at the top of the Galtee Mountains, you will be a five minute wait away from being whisked up to your favourite bar stool in complete safety.

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE ****ING COFFEE PEOPLE!!!!

THIS IS NEVER GOING TO WORK.

Or at least not satisfactorily. And it won't address the far bigger problem in Ireland of alcohol abuse as opposed to road safety.

I don't care what any pants-wetting easily triggered millennial snowflake thinks: there is nothing wrong with driving home after a couple (ie two) pints. I did it myself quite safely and legally for about 20 years. Then the powers that be decided that people speeding home after a gallon of beer wasn't the problem; no, it was the responsible ones who guarded their intake that had to be targeted, those who had one or maybe two pints after work and then drove home with due care and attention.

I call BS.

If this Drink Link operates at all it will be on weekends only, there will be maybe one or two runs to each pub over the course of a night. Once you're in, you will have to stay in until the closing time return bus shows up to take you home. Even then it is unlikely to be a door to door delivery so you will have to stagger along to your place of abode, likely a country lane, at about midnight and as you will have been locked in for several hours you will have probably imbibed so much as to be a danger to yourself.

And that's the problem. Not everybody wants to go to the pub to get pissed all the time. Often times one might want to pop in to meet someone for a quick chat, which could be accomplished over one or two drinks, or after work for a similar amount. These sort of trips will NOT be facilitated by any conceivable "rural drink link". These will only facilitate those prepared to stay all night at the bar drinking their heads off.

Ah, but, you might say. What about the cultural events that take place in pubs? Surely they are forums for social activities like live music, poetry slams, comedy nights, quizzes etc etc. Well yes. They could be. But when Guinness tried to support just such activity with their Arthur's Day idea a few years ago, the great and the good wagged their fingers about "encouraging drinking" to such an extent that it was closed down.

Here's a way to reduce the amount of dangerous drink affected driving and over indulgence in binging at one fell swoop: How about treating adults like they were ****ing adults? Acknowledging that drinking is a perfectly natural and long standing human activity? Realising that a modicum of alcohol does NOT impair driving to a dangerous level and that awareness that one might have had a drink or two would actually encourage a driver to be more cautious than usual?

But no. That doesn't meet the conditions of the dogmatists who just LOVE being able to tell people what they can do, or more properly what they CAN'T do and blame any dissent on the selfishly financially interested (publicans and manufactures) or the shamelessly self promoting (the Healy Raes).

Well this D4 resident graduate, occasional latte drinker and abstemious drink driver thinks this new measure is ridiculous, that the over stringent drink drive limits that have necessitated it are unnecessary and counter productive and that the Healy Raes, while normally taking up positions usually favoured by pond life are actually right on this one.

Never ever get drunk and drive. (Driving home carefully after a pint or two is fine)

Mrsmum

YFlyer wrote: »

It's impossible to work out the percentage of each sub group that are involved in accidents.

Just wondering why can we not have really precise statistics telling us exactly what caused each accident. What's stopping record keeping being specific to the nth degree ? Otherwise we could be bringing in rules to fix non-existent problems and ignoring real causes of accidents.

Also someone said country dwellers are highly subsidized. Re water for instance - do they not currently pay for water in the country when we get it for free in cities ?

Akrasia

Graces7 wrote: »

I hear you and this is common in rural areas. Ring of Kerry even. And unless you know your way round eg the Mizen Head/Goleen
And we are used to this. So what you would experience as lonely and isolated is not how we see and know it. For us it is the norm, and we are fine with it And folk do help each other out, quietly and without organisation.

You are seeing it with city/town eyes

An old farmer who loved near me once wanted peace; he had a couple of locals he would see. But he got fed up of "do gooders" at his door so he put large NO ENTRY signs up.

It is a different way of life. And one that is treasured.

Ah come on, nobody's forcing anyone onto a bus going to bingo. This is to do with drink driving and transport. People used to (and still do) 'chance it' knowing they probably wouldn't meet a garda checkpoint.

Then there are the elderly who can't drive anymore or maybe are widowed and have no-one to drive them home after a few drinks meeting their friends in the pub.

Its only a pilot anyway. If nobody uses it it will be withdrawn

lawred2

I bet the Healy Raes have an auld bus lying around to take up one of these contracts..

Billy86

Snickers Man wrote: »

Or at least not satisfactorily. And it won't address the far bigger problem in Ireland of alcohol abuse as opposed to road safety.

Alcohol consumption rates have been on the decline for around 20 years in Ireland, down by 25-30% on the levels they were at the turn of the century. I'm not sure whether that's the "pants-wetting easily triggered millennial snowflakes" as you put it offsetting alcohol dependent older generations' historically unhealthy relationship with alcohol or if it is an inter-generational thing, but it has come down significantly and that is beyond dispute.

Your point about 2 pints before driving being OK also falls a bit flat when roads in Ireland in 2017 were at their safest levels since they started recording them in 1959.