Journalism and Cycling 2: the difficult second album

Large bottle small glass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119167524#Comment_119167524

Rather than a conspiracy or any great strategy it is way more likely to be bureaucratic inertia.

Lots and lots of provincial court houses don't have a screen not to mind the people to play whatever footage is relevant in each case. There is no infrastructure in place so that all the DPP evidence can be emailed across to court office for each prosecution.

All that is simple stuff if it was for a Garda service who not exactly IT friendly, a massive variance in facilities across the various court service, each judge be his/her own little republic and a court service staff with varying levels of competence/interest.

At the height of the first wave of pandemic there was a push that all evidence which previously would have been paper; report, maps, drawing, etc etc would be all email into court and displayed on screen. It literally never happened. The court service is till remarkable paper based.

Macy0161

The majority would be dealt with via the central portal and FCPN. Most speeding convictions from camera's aren't appealed to court.

There is a massive reluctance/ lack of political will to use cameras in our Road policing. Unless it's a "real" crime, and then the first appeal is for camera footage, including from dashcam. Plenty of handwringing this morning, given the number of deaths on the roads - camera footage, and the threat of conviction, could be a real factor in changing behaviours.

magicbastarder

https://www.echolive.ie/corknews/arid-40889570.html

..

buffalo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119166271#Comment_119166271

Never mind about the UK, plenty of people here have submitted footage to AGS (along with a statement) and offenders have been issued FCPNs on that basis. Are all those offences now legally threatened?

Opposition is much more likely based around workload and culture than anything legal.

And don't forget good old "Privacy concerns"

magicbastarder

it's not just that people have been able to submit footage without issue, gardai will often put out a request for anyone who has footage which might assist an investigation to contact them.

Grassey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119168817#Comment_119168817

Jaaaayy-daaaaay-peeeeee-rurrrrrrrr

Macy0161

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119168882#Comment_119168882

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/0607/1303353-louth-rta/

Gardaí are appealing for any witnesses, particularly any road users who may have camera footage (including dash-cam) and were travelling on the N1 at Carrickarnan, Drumad, between midnight and 12:30am, to contact Dundalk Garda Station on 042 9388400, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda Station.

downtheroad

https://www.irishtimes.com/transport/2022/06/09/significant-surge-in-incidents-at-level-crossings-this-year-irish-rail-says/

The subheading specifically mentions cyclists "Footage of a cyclist getting caught in a barrier that was lowering released for on International Level Crossing Awareness Day".

54 incidents so far this year and the Irish Times highlights the one by a cyclist rather than any of the 53 others (although having watched the clip the cyclist is an idiot).

Happy International Level Crossing Awareness Day everyone.

Cetyl Palmitate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119179751#Comment_119179751

In their defence, the bike crash is by far the funniest of the clips shown

PaulieC

Iarnrid Eireann would have a lot less incidents if they didn't drop the gates five minutes before the trains arrive.

Squidgy Black

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119181140#Comment_119181140

Would they? Or would they not have more collisions with trains because of muppets driving into/between the gates when they’re lowered, considering a train needs a fair amount of time to brake.

PaulieC

Perhaps if you knew you won't be sitting needlessly at a closed level crossing that is closed for far too long you wouldn't be so keen to get across before the gates drop.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119181473#Comment_119181473

Based on the numerous examples around the world, no a shorter duration wouldn't make a difference.

An idiot will do idiotic things every day of the week

Squidgy Black

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119181473#Comment_119181473

But it’s not needlessly, they’re not just closing them early for the craic, it’s to give the trains ample time to brake in the case of someone being on the tracks etc.

If someone’s that thick to take the risk of breaking through the gates as they’re dropping, shaving 60 seconds or so off the time they have to wait isn’t going to change their mind.

PaulieC

I live within 2 miles of 5 of those crossings and I cross 1 at least once a day. The delay between closing and train coming varies between 1 and 5 minutes. That would imply that the shortes time is a safe time to close. You also see the gates remain closed up to a minute after tge train has passed. That's not for braking time.

CramCycle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119181548#Comment_119181548

If you are so concerned you should write into Iarnrod Eireann. They are actually a very safety conscious organisation at a ground level. The reasons are probably far more varied then brake distance etc. Having talked to a driver and an operations controller, the amount of near misses has resulted in the view screen of the track now blacks out as the train passes to stop trauma to the operator. I imagine the time after could be anything from confirmation that the train made it through to needing to confirm that the track is not a collision that an ambulance and the gardai to call out and so on.

PaulieC

Not concerned as such. It's a pain in the hole sometimes, but I was offering it as an explanation as to why some people might take the chance.

McGrath5

There was a thread a while back started by a South County Dublin motorist complaining that the DART trains should be waiting on motorists to cross the tracks and not the other way round. It boiled down to the fact that a train with up to 400 people on board should not have priority over a single occupancy vehicle, goes to show the motorist entitlement that exists out there.

CramCycle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119182650#Comment_119182650

And I get that to be honest but the truth is that accidents/near misses with trains are not so rare that they don't need to be overtly concerned with them. Youtube has hundreds of videos of people barely making it, if they slipped, tripped or whatever, it would not have been a near miss. It can appear overly stringent to those of us not on that side of things, and even more overly annoying to those of us who if we done it would be like hawks in our observation before we crossed. Regrettably, human behaviour has shown that many of us, if we are not lax as f*ck when a rule is relaxed, we become lax as f*ck very quickly. While most of us will have local versions of this, H&S rules imposed in a GAA club or a local pub/shop, on a grander scale, we revert to the easiest option as a group very quickly. 9/11 there was talk the airline industry would never recover, within a few months it was stronger than ever. I heard people talk about never going out again without a mask during Covid, or that we would never be the same again. I see these people now, only a few months later without a mask at all, I am sure they are not the only ones. For a species who is incredibly self aware, we aren't much different to other species where survival is as much dependent on numbers as common sense. I myself am a prime example, I race regularly, I have seen broken bones, near death experiences and worse. I still go back every week.

Life is a pain in the hole, that is what civilisation has brought us (feeling wise), but on the flip side, without it, on average (and like it or not as a species, this is the important thing), we would all have shorter lives and they would be more of a pain in the hole, most of us just can't grasp that (myself included).

Breezer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119183010#Comment_119183010

Do you have a link to that? If it wasn’t pure trolling, I’d be fascinated to read it!

Weepsie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119182650#Comment_119182650

It's an absolute bullshit reason though. They're the same people who blast through a red or cut into a bus lane. They don't give a **** and it's nothing to do with their time

magicbastarder

Not about cycling, but will chime with some folks here.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-40891547.html

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119169117#Comment_119169117

Interesting to see RTA in the URL and collision in the text. I wonder if someone corrected an earlier version.

Breezer

Claire Byrne will be discussing whether our cycle lanes are any use on RTE Radio 1 now.

From the point of view of parents cycling to school with small kids. Hopefully that’ll avoid the usual rubbish. Am I naive?

CramCycle

Yes, yes you are. You can use words like optimistic instead to make you feel better.

You were too pessimistic. I found the segment good, especially when they interviewed the Dutch ambassador we really do need to get our act together and implement proper cycling infrastructure. We couldn't go too far wrong by simply copying what the Dutch have managed to achieve.

cletus

https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2022/0614/1304740-george-gonzaga-bento-court/

In relation to the previous article on this

bazermc

Great news 👍

Hurrache

Don't want to see anyone so young dead, but it's a deserved verdict. It got beyond lawlessness in large swathes of the city centre, particularly during the lockdowns, with gangs running amok with impunity and it was inevitably going to lead to tragedy on one side or the other of the attacks.