Luas hopping, Dutch gold drinking Shane Ross goes after motorists licences again.

AndrewJRenko

mickdw wrote: »

Talk about making a comment that demonstrates your complete lack of understanding of the rural situation.
When I say one service morning and evening. That's it and with limited stops between my town and the bigger town it connects.
To compare this to a dublin bus service is idiotic. How many combinations of bus routes could you use if you needed to get to any of the stops you listed there? There are multiple options. How many buses go through parnel Sq per hour that will allow you to link up in some way with other routes.
They are multiple options at any given time to get to any part of the city and you won't have to cycle 6 miles either in Dublin to arrive at that bus stop.
No, I certainly have not forgotten about cycling. I cycle 20 km daily but it's not a replacement for a transport service.

I don't think you really understand the suburbs. There are two other bus services that service Whitechurch Estate. One route has one service a day, M-F, nothing at weekends. The other route has about one service an hour, that's for an estate with a couple of thousand people living there.

Now compare that to your resident numbers and services per day.

I do agree with you that cycling is not a replacement for a transport service. Cycling IS a transport service.

work

There is not a single reason to speed other than coming up with silly scenarios you can avoid.
Speed kills......All other arguments have no basis.
what is the problem with massive fines for law breakers?,?????? Win Win save lives , make lots of revenue, get idiots off the road or to behave!
I have been driving around a lot of Wicklow this weekend and the roads are surrounded by amazing country. I saw very few cyclists and at lease 5 people doing insane dangerous speeds. The fines for them should be massive and if they loose their livlihood better than their lives or much worse someone else's.
Let's get real on speed and poor driving It doesn't matter where you drive, stop the stupid excuses, obey the rules or get off the roads, I don't see how anything else hold water.

mickdw

Its not a viable transport solution for me anyway!
Now to go back to the buses you mentioned. Its now 2 routes with one of them hourly - that's a big step from a morning and evening bus you claimed previous.
How far would someone in the area you mentioned have to walk to access addition bus routes / options?


As for population numbers, I think you may be surprised. The single morning / Evening bus I refer to serves an area with many thousand people. The bus itself does not be overly full as its a useless service, at the time unsuitable for workers and is only really suitable for pensioners going for a day out and tourists.

The facts don't lie. You simply cannot live here without a car while many in Dublin suburbs do.

Turnipman

work wrote: »

There is not a single reason to speed other than coming up with silly scenarios you can avoid.
Speed kills......All other arguments have no basis.
what is the problem with massive fines for law breakers?,?????? Win Win save lives , make lots of revenue, get idiots off the road or to behave!
I have been driving around a lot of Wicklow this weekend and the roads are surrounded by amazing country. I saw very few cyclists and at lease 5 people doing insane dangerous speeds. The fines for them should be massive and if they loose their livlihood better than their lives or much worse someone else's.
Let's get real on speed and poor driving It doesn't matter where you drive, stop the stupid excuses, obey the rules or get off the roads, I don't see how anything else hold water.

Hi Shane! :P

RayCun

If you absolutely need a car, for work or just for transport, then you should be very, very careful not to do anything that would jeopardize your licence.

AndrewJRenko

mickdw wrote: »

Its not a viable transport solution for me anyway!
Now to go back to the buses you mentioned. Its now 2 routes with one of them hourly - that's a big step from a morning and evening bus you claimed previous.
How far would someone in the area you mentioned have to walk to access addition bus routes / options?


As for population numbers, I think you may be surprised. The single morning / Evening bus I refer to serves an area with many thousand people. The bus itself does not be overly full as its a useless service, at the time unsuitable for workers and is only really suitable for pensioners going for a day out and tourists.

The facts don't lie. You simply cannot live here without a car while many in Dublin suburbs do.

Surprise me then, where is this area with several thousand people and one bus per day? And tell me again how there is absolutely no-one living there without a car - no older person who doesn't drive any more, no person with a disability who is unable to drive, no-one who has lost their licence or lost their car in the recession?

But really, is it a surprise that public transport services are focused on places with higher population density? If you were in change of the public transport budget, what would you do differently?

Shefwedfan

drunkmonkey wrote: »

He's at it again from his public transport served high horse..

"It will be graduated, the more you break the speed limit the more you’ll be punished – there will be higher penalty points, certainly.”

"Motorists who break the speed limit could also find themselves banned from driving after just one offence."

http://www.thejournal.ie/graduated-speeding-laws-4163815-Aug2018/

So 1 offence and you could be off the road, again a disproportionate attack on people not served by the Luas or Dublin bus.

Don't speed


* Gets coat :P

work

Turnipman wrote: »

work wrote: »

There is not a single reason to speed other than coming up with silly scenarios you can avoid.
Speed kills......All other arguments have no basis.
what is the problem with massive fines for law breakers?,?????? Win Win save lives , make lots of revenue, get idiots off the road or to behave!
I have been driving around a lot of Wicklow this weekend and the roads are surrounded by amazing country. I saw very few cyclists and at lease 5 people doing insane dangerous speeds. The fines for them should be massive and if they loose their livlihood better than their lives or much worse someone else's.
Let's get real on speed and poor driving It doesn't matter where you drive, stop the stupid excuses, obey the rules or get off the roads, I don't see how anything else hold water.

Hi Shane! :P

God I wish you were right but he wouldn't touch the strength of rules, enforcement and fines that ARE required to save live and reduce life altering accidents. politicians walk a tight line of appearing strict but not really being strict for the popular vote

Pinch Flat

Been driving 30 years and never been an issue. Don’t speed and you can rest easy. It’s pretty straightforward.

Dravokivich

CJhaughey wrote: »

Because the 7400 hrs they are contracted for Plus the 100 or so for *survey* work pays well enough I suppose.
The government gets the cash and the private operator sticks the vans where they make money.

So why does it cost more to pay gosafe than is gotten in fines?

martingriff

drunkmonkey wrote: »

The point is we don't all have the same privilege when caught and lose our licence. His job as minister for transport should be to ensure we all have a functional public transport system that doesn't only work for Dubliners.

I'd think this is a great idea if I had Luas or Dublin bus near me, sure what about losing your licence I can just get the tram to work, might even have a few Dutch gold on the way home.

As someone who is from the countryside I support Shane Ross on this. Do you think those with public transport not just Dublin by the way think great I can still spewed if I loose my licence so what. As others have said there is a very easy way to not lose your licence DO NOT SPEED

Charles Babbage

This is a non thread. Even if you could lose your licence for one offence, that offence would be pitched at a level that would require very deliberate speeding and so is entirely avoidable. Gradation in offences makes sense, as part of this some points might be reduced so speeding a bit over the limit or NCT out for a few weeks might be only one or two points.

Eric Cartman

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

It should be salary based, a days salary as fine.

that just gives the lads on the dole more incentive to speed around like theres no tomorrow, this could only work if there was a lower limit.

soups05

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Or you could cycle for 20 minutes - have people forgotten that bikes exist?

shudder

but that would make me a "cyclist" uggghhhh.




but in reality, not an option for me am afraid due to the fact that I have a bad back and two crushed disks so the whole bending over the handlebars/bigger impact from bumps and potholes would leave me unable to move if I was having a bad day.

Plus at another stage I was attacked at home and had a broken jaw and damaged hands, the jaw healed (mostly) but I only recently had physio for the hands. Between sept last year and july this year my hands got slowly worse till it got to the point where I could not even drive, write or do anything useful with them. Thankfully they are well on the road to recovery now.

excuses aside, I am also too old and lazy to be on a bike these days. I was considering getting one recently with the lovely weather we were having, I used to genuinely love cycling when I was in my 20s, but some posters on boards were discussing bikes and a basic one is apparently 5/6 hundred euro ffs. My last car cost me 600 euro

(hhhmmm, rereading that to check spelling etc and two thing occur to me, 1 it was not the wife who beat me lol, 2 am 47 but i post like am 87 ffs. note to self, still young,still young, still young )

AndrewJRenko

soups05 wrote: »

but in reality, not an option for me am afraid due to the fact that I have a bad back and two crushed disks so the whole bending over the handlebars/bigger impact from bumps and potholes would leave me unable to move if I was having a bad day.

Plus at another stage I was attacked at home and had a broken jaw and damaged hands, the jaw healed (mostly) but I only recently had physio for the hands. Between sept last year and july this year my hands got slowly worse till it got to the point where I could not even drive, write or do anything useful with them. Thankfully they are well on the road to recovery now.

excuses aside, I am also too old and lazy to be on a bike these days. I was considering getting one recently with the lovely weather we were having, I used to genuinely love cycling when I was in my 20s, but some posters on boards were discussing bikes and a basic one is apparently 5/6 hundred euro ffs. My last car cost me 600 euro

Obviously, I don't know anything about your personal circumstances, but I do know that there are options for bikes out there that;

• Don't involve bending over
• Provide suspension to insulate against effects of bumps and potholes
• Can be bought for €100

These are not necessarily the same bike, mind you - I'm not saying that you can get a bike that will meet all three of these requirements. eBikes in particular have become very popular with older people and people with disabilities in other countries, and are starting to take hold here too. They can provide additional power to those who wouldn't have the power or stamina required, and can allow people to access cargo bikes for easy balance and improved storage.


But regardless of whether a bike will work for YOU personally, there is little doubt that it is a very realistic option for many journeys, up to 10km or 15 km with little difficulty or effort.

soups05

i agree completely for a local urban area bikes are great, but for longer distances, or shopping etc there is no match for a car.

but back on point, I don't see why this change is so hard to accept. Consider for a moment the reaction when it was proposed to give rural dwellers a licence to drink a few pints and drive home. using many of the same arguments found on this thread, no public transport etc.

that was met with howls of derision, and rightly so. but many here are saying "let me speed cos there are no buses" well sorta lol.

to me its the same thing. don't drink and drive, don't speed. don't cry if you get caught doing so and lose your licence.

Miike

I haven't read all the comments in this thread so sorry in advance if this has been said.

This legislation is a good thing for safety in my opinion but what I'd like to see is: 55 in 50 - Give me a shocker of a fine but no penalty points. Doing 60 in a 50 - Give me a belt of the book. The fact that people doing 80 or 100 in a 50 get the same as someone doing 55 in 50 is appalling, as I see it.

AndrewJRenko

soups05 wrote: »

i agree completely for a local urban area bikes are great, but for longer distances, or shopping etc there is no match for a car.

eBikes can extend the distances that bikes can comfortably do dramatically. And lots of people do lots of shopping by bikes:



https://twitter.com/search?f=images&vertical=default&q=%23shopbybike&src=typd


There was one lady in the UK who brought her IKEA bed home on a cargo bike. There's a guy in Dublin who delivers new bikes by cargo bikes.

soups05 wrote: »

but back on point, I don't see why this change is so hard to accept. Consider for a moment the reaction when it was proposed to give rural dwellers a licence to drink a few pints and drive home. using many of the same arguments found on this thread, no public transport etc.

that was met with howls of derision, and rightly so. but many here are saying "let me speed cos there are no buses" well sorta lol.

to me its the same thing. don't drink and drive, don't speed. don't cry if you get caught doing so and lose your licence.

Fully agree.

JC01

runawaybishop wrote: »

So they are in locations where people are constanty speeding? Sounds like a good spot for them.

Not all blackspots have suitable places to put the van. Where I live the speedvans are usually just up the road from a fatal blackspot on a straight section.

Did you intentionally ignore the part about the limit suddenly dropping off for a few hundred metres? You can literally see the sign where it goes back upto 80 before you pass the 50 sign. The vans there are not doing anything in the interest of "saving lives" they are there just to catch people out and obviously generate revenue from the resulting fines.

The most dangerous thing on that road is people who obviously don't know the road slamming on the brakes in a row of traffic, the presence of the ridiculous limit and the resulting vans is actually making a more dangerous situation than if the limit stayed at 80 and vans didn't operate there.

And yet some people on here Will beat the RSA speeding kills drum with no allowance for common sense.