The state of comments online about road traffic deaths and cycling

magicbastarder

Phil.x wrote: »

https://mol.im/a/8973709

presented without comment?
or even a hint as to what the article was about.

anyway, i think the journalist's ire is somewhat misplaced. or else he doesn't understand the implications of what he's writing about.

edit: i am loathe to describe someone who works for the mail as a 'journalist'.

breezy1985

Agree please warn people before we go giving that Nazi rag clicks

magicbastarder

to summarise, so people don't have to click on a daily mail link which is kinda disguised - the daily mail have a shock horror story citing this estimate that every £5000 spent on cycling infrastructure adds one commuting cyclist to cyclist numbers:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X2030215X

or else, shock horror! - infrastructure is expensive.

the widening of the M50 cost about a billion and i think increased its capacity by about 50,000 daily motorists. or €20,000 *per motorist* added to the road.

let's say they did that level of investment for cyclists, taking the above spend; a billion spent on cycling would add - by the study they cite without critique - nearly 200,000 cyclists. i.e. fantastic value for money, compared to building infrastructure for motorists.

Spook_ie

magicbastarder wrote: »

to summarise, so people don't have to click on a daily mail link which is kinda disguised - the daily mail have a shock horror story citing this estimate that every £5000 spent on cycling infrastructure adds one commuting cyclist to cyclist numbers:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X2030215X

or else, shock horror! - infrastructure is expensive.

the widening of the M50 cost about a billion and i think increased its capacity by about 50,000 daily motorists. or €20,000 *per motorist* added to the road.

let's say they did that level of investment for cyclists, taking the above spend; a billion spent on cycling would add - by the study they cite without critique - nearly 200,000 cyclists. i.e. fantastic value for money, compared to building infrastructure for motorists.

https://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/charlie-weston-the-amount-of-tax-paid-by-motorists-is-unfair-and-it-is-high-time-it-was-reduced-37017911.html

The total tax take from motorists has been rising steadily in recent years. It now stands at over €5.4bn a year, according to Dail replies received by Fianna Fail spokesman Michael McGrath.

How typical though as a cyclist to neglect (as usual) the taxation that motorists pay, wonder what we should spend the other €4.5 billion on, maybe some cycle lanes for the cyclists to moan about (as usual)

a_squirrelman

Spook_ie wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/charlie-weston-the-amount-of-tax-paid-by-motorists-is-unfair-and-it-is-high-time-it-was-reduced-37017911.html


How typical though as a cyclist to neglect (as usual) the taxation that motorists pay, wonder what we should spend the other €4.5 billion on, maybe some cycle lanes for the cyclists to moan about (as usual)

You know loads of cyclists are motorists as well right?

breezy1985

Spook_ie wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/charlie-weston-the-amount-of-tax-paid-by-motorists-is-unfair-and-it-is-high-time-it-was-reduced-37017911.html


How typical though as a cyclist to neglect (as usual) the taxation that motorists pay, wonder what we should spend the other €4.5 billion on, maybe some cycle lanes for the cyclists to moan about (as usual)

I will follow up the usual tax moan with the usual motor tax isn't the only income source for road projects. The EU and income tax play a large part too

AndrewJRenko

Spook_ie wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/charlie-weston-the-amount-of-tax-paid-by-motorists-is-unfair-and-it-is-high-time-it-was-reduced-37017911.html


How typical though as a cyclist to neglect (as usual) the taxation that motorists pay, wonder what we should spend the other €4.5 billion on, maybe some cycle lanes for the cyclists to moan about (as usual)

Charlie knows how to play to the gallery, for sure. Pity he forgot to cover the other side of the income and expenditure account, and cover the total damage to the environment caused by motorists, the cost of the motorist's share of the 1500 premature deaths each year, the costs of the obesity, diabetes, hypertension, coronary heart disease, cancer and more that arise from our car-bound lifestyle.

There's a reason why other countries are paying cyclists to cycle.

magicbastarder

Spook_ie wrote: »

How typical though as a cyclist to neglect (as usual) the taxation that motorists pay

i'm a motorist too.

breezy1985

How about we make a deal.
All motor tax will go to roads but nothing else and in exchange all the public infrastructure money and EU money goes to pedestrians and cyclists and we'll see how long it takes before the motorists come back crying.

Also all the road signage clogging up public paths gets moved on to the roads and cars actually stay off public paths

SeanW

breezy1985 wrote: »

How about we make a deal.
All motor tax will go to roads but nothing else and in exchange all the public infrastructure money and EU money goes to pedestrians and cyclists and we'll see how long it takes before the motorists come back crying.

I was unaware that motorists who paid motoring related taxes were automatically exempt from paying any other forms of general taxation as well. Unless such a rule has been made that I am not aware of, it's safe to say motorists pay their fair share, that is even if motoring related taxes don't pay for road needs.

breezy1985 wrote: »

Agree please warn people before we go giving that Nazi rag clicks

Perhaps you read the Daily Mail more than myself, but I don't recall them publishing an article calling for Jews, gays, Slavs etc. to be gassed in concentration camps ... or an invasion of Poland, or a policy of Lebensraum. Though I'm sure (like a lot of other claims that have been made in this thread :rolleyes:) that you have evidence that the Daily Mail adheres to core tenets of fascism or World War II era national socialism.

Spook_ie

a_squirrelman wrote: »

You know loads of cyclists are motorists as well right?

magicbastarder wrote: »

i'm a motorist too.

And your motoring taxes are a welcome addition to the 5.5 billion that motorists pay, now how exactly does that square with the £5000 per cyclist? or perhaps you think that because you're a motorist and a cyclist that it means you can spend the taxation twice?

a_squirrelman

Spook_ie wrote: »

And your motoring taxes are a welcome addition to the 5.5 billion that motorists pay, now how exactly does that square with the £5000 per cyclist? or perhaps you think that because you're a motorist and a cyclist that it means you can spend the taxation twice?

I obviously don't get your issue, or perhaps I missed it earlier. Infrastructure costs money, so you don't think any money should be spent on cycling?

magicbastarder

i would prefer my taxes are spent on infrastructure which leads to less gridlock/air pollution/greater efficiency etc.

anyway, unlike many punters, i accept that motor tax is a tax, not a fee, and that it doesn't necessarily need to be spent on the activity it was levied on. that'd be a weird way to run a country.

AndrewJRenko

Interesting data on costs of motoring and cycling.

https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1331124600449626112?s=19

Duckjob

https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/tax-breaks-bike-commuters-european-trend

There's a reason governments of countries in mainland Europe are now investing heavily in proper cycle infrastructure and actually going so far as giving people per km tax breaks to cycle to work.

It's not some altruistic act on the part of those governments - they understand that it's an incredibly sound investment, otherwise they wouldn't do it.

SeanW

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Interesting data on costs of motoring and cycling.

https://twitter.com/BrentToderian/status/1331124600449626112?s=19

So if the government raises VRT, (or fuel duty, or road/"motor" tax) by €1,000 per year, that means the cost to society has risen by €9200 per year? By that calculation, the cost to society as determined by taxes levied on Irish motorists is €49.68 billion (motoring taxes net €5.4 billion per year) and that's just from what people spend on motoring related taxes. If you include the portion of Irish motorist expenditure that is not taxation (hypothetically let's guesstimate that tax takes up 1/3 of a motorists expenditure) then that means - according to your twitter post - that motoring costs the Irish people €149.04 billion per year. All of that with absolutely zero benefits to the people from personal mobility, the delivery of goods etc.

(€5.4 * 3 * 9.2 = €149.04)

I would love to see the details for how your study can prove that motoring costs the Irish people anything like that ... all with no benefits to society for such an inordinate sum.

Stark

Saw a Facebook post the other day regarding the introduction of variable speed limits on the M50 (A measure designed to improve traffic flow and ultimately allow people to get where they want to go more quickly). After reading the long thread of comments with people nearly unanimously up in arms ("war on motorists", "cyclists again", "how are deliveries supposed to be made on time", etc.), I've come to the conclusion that you are dealing with people of very low intelligence and no amount of education or convincing is going to work.

Pinch Flat

Stark wrote: »

Saw a Facebook post the other day regarding the introduction of variable speed limits on the M50 (A measure designed to improve traffic flow and ultimately allow people to get where they want to go more quickly). After reading the long thread of comments with people nearly unanimously up in arms ("war on motorists", "cyclists again", "how are deliveries supposed to be made on time", etc.), I've come to the conclusion that you are dealing with people of very low intelligence and no amount of education or convincing is going to work.

yeah motorist's logic can be weird ok. The roads are generally grid locked around Dublin by - you've guessed it - other motorists. I've never seen a post of FB "held up by the 1000's of cars in front of me on my way to work this morning". Usually it's is a hyperbolic over reaction to a few cyclists on a Sunday while someone's popping out for the Sunday papers a few hundred meters from their home "I was held up for almost 10km behind a bunch of lyra clad fools, travelling 7 abreast and having a good chat. And they don't even pay "road tax".

Thelonious Monk

https://www.thejournal.ie/clancy-amendment-5277149-Nov2020

So many commenters seem to be of the opinion that it's ok to drive without a licence. This is what you're up against.

My favourite one, it's actually scary

Between 2014 – 2017 there were 35 fatalities in road accidents involving unaccompanied leaner drivers, but over the same period in total there were 703 fatalities, so clearly the figures don’t support the demonising unaccompanied learner drivers.

Ah sure it's only 35 people killed by people who weren't on the road legally.

magicbastarder

if you were to stop a car at random, what are the chances the driver is an unaccompanied learner?
i.e. is it greater or less than the 5% the fatality figures show?

Pinch Flat

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

https://www.thejournal.ie/clancy-amendment-5277149-Nov2020

So many commenters seem to be of the opinion that it's ok to drive without a licence. This is what you're up against.

My favourite one, it's actually scary

Ah sure it's only 35 people killed by people who weren't on the road legally.

I'm having a debate with some tool on FB who thinks it perfectly OK to drive with out motor tax or insurance or a valid NCT. Quote (his reply to a car being seized by gardai on a FB story):

"The person might be out of work because this so called government has closedown a lot of places to work and it’s not that easy to be coming up with money never mind Xmas is around the corner give them the benefit of the doubt."

The mind boggles

breezy1985

Pinch Flat wrote: »

I'm having a debate with some tool on FB who thinks it perfectly OK to drive with out motor tax or insurance or a valid NCT. Quote (his reply to a car being seized by gardai on a FB story):

"The person might be out of work because this so called government has closedown a lot of places to work and it’s not that easy to be coming up with money never mind Xmas is around the corner give them the benefit of the doubt."

The mind boggles

As soon as the term "so called government" is used I'd give up on them

Thelonious Monk

breezy1985 wrote: »

As soon as the term "so called government" is used I'd give up on them

They usually try and blame the Greens too

AndrewJRenko

SeanW wrote: »

So if the government raises VRT, (or fuel duty, or road/"motor" tax) by €1,000 per year, that means the cost to society has risen by €9200 per year? By that calculation, the cost to society as determined by taxes levied on Irish motorists is €49.68 billion (motoring taxes net €5.4 billion per year) and that's just from what people spend on motoring related taxes. If you include the portion of Irish motorist expenditure that is not taxation (hypothetically let's guesstimate that tax takes up 1/3 of a motorists expenditure) then that means - according to your twitter post - that motoring costs the Irish people €149.04 billion per year. All of that with absolutely zero benefits to the people from personal mobility, the delivery of goods etc.

(€5.4 * 3 * 9.2 = €149.04)

I would love to see the details for how your study can prove that motoring costs the Irish people anything like that ... all with no benefits to society for such an inordinate sum.

So if you quadruple one figure then the other figures don't make sense? Yeah, I guess that's why you don't just quadruple figures at random.

They're not my figures and they're not Irish figures, but they raise some interesting questions.

How far do we go on the benefits calculation that you mention? Can we include the near halving of cancer rates for cyclists in the benefit side of the analysis?

Thelonious Monk

https://twitter.com/JamesCun2000/status/1334148765758992392

Scooterists on footpaths are a problem now too!

breezy1985

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

https://twitter.com/JamesCun2000/status/1334148765758992392

Scooterists on footpaths are a problem now too!

Did the van driver say something?

Also shocking number of cars driving on footpaths there

Stark

breezy1985 wrote: »

Did the van driver say something?

"Get off the footpath. Footpaths are driving and parking on, not riding scooters on".

magicbastarder

huh, i was talking to their boss a couple of years ago. they gave us a quote to replace the windows here.

AndrewJRenko

breezy1985 wrote: »

Did the van driver say something?

"Can't you just go round? A man's got a job to do."

breezy1985

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

"Can't you just go round? A man's got a job to do."

Stark wrote: »

"Get off the footpath. Footpaths are driving and parking on, not riding scooters on".

Thanks all I could hear were a few seconds of noise

Edit: Are ye pulling my leg cause even with really good headphones I heard nothing

magicbastarder

i know this will add nothing to the debate, but it is kinda funny.

https://twitter.com/theeyecollector/status/1334823776727527426

breezy1985

magicbastarder wrote: »

i know this will add nothing to the debate, but it is kinda funny.

https://twitter.com/theeyecollector/status/1334823776727527426

Very good

AndrewJRenko

breezy1985 wrote: »

Edit: Are ye pulling my leg cause even with really good headphones I heard nothing

Tom will explain all;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by3WOCDQlJY

Thelonious Monk

So if you ever want to murder teenage girls, just use a car and there will be no repercussions

https://www.thejournal.ie/mother-drove-at-teenagers-suspended-jailterm-5300808-Dec2020/

AndrewJRenko

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

So if you ever want to murder teenage girls, just use a car and there will be no repercussions

https://www.thejournal.ie/mother-drove-at-teenagers-suspended-jailterm-5300808-Dec2020/

"I'll go to jail for ya" she roared, but she gets a suspended sentance.

SeanW

Nah, it's OK, there are a wide variety of things you can do that will get you a suspended sentence in this country. In just the past few weeks, suspended sentences have been give out to kiddie fiddlers, scam artists, violent scumbags who attack nurses, wife beaters, animal abusers etc. just in the past few weeks. Concurrent sentencing is another joke in this country, but that's beside the point.

There is also a well documented phenomenon in the West of women, by virtue of their gender, receiving shorter or no sentences for the same crimes as men.

Yet even if the underlying implication was sound, i.e. that "motorists" have a license to commit crimes against "people", more often the reverse is true. That when when "people" commit crimes against "motorists" they are rarely if ever punished.

Like this pair of insurance scammers: https://www.thesun.ie/news/6279698/couple-car-accidents-court-empty-handed-minor-brush/
or this little scumbag cyclist:
https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/youth-filmed-cycling-bike-dublin-22782527

But hey, if you have evidence that it was the car, and not Irish sentencing guidelines, nor gender, that was the determining factor in giving her a suspended sentence, that would be good.

In fact, there's been a lot of questionable assertions on this thread that could use some evidence.

Thelonious Monk

Yeah Sean it's just another example of the real dangers on the roads/footpaths, yet we have Pat Kenny etc moaning about cyclists on footpaths all the time when they aren't a danger at all.

SeanW

Huh? How is this not just another example of a scumbag getting a free pass because of her gender and/or Ireland's broken justice system?

TheBoyConor

Duckjob wrote: »

https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/tax-breaks-bike-commuters-european-trend

There's a reason governments of countries in mainland Europe are now investing heavily in proper cycle infrastructure and actually going so far as giving people per km tax breaks to cycle to work.

It's not some altruistic act on the part of those governments - they understand that it's an incredibly sound investment, otherwise they wouldn't do it.

All that would happen in Ireland is people will buy the tax rebated bikes (or lawnmowers invoiced as bikes) as they are already doing, then claim the milage cycling tax relief, all the while just continuing driving into work and chatting in the canteen to their colleagues what a grand little scam they have going on claiming bike milage and drving a car.

AndrewJRenko

SeanW wrote: »

Like this pair of insurance scammers: https://www.thesun.ie/news/6279698/couple-car-accidents-court-empty-handed-minor-brush/
or this little scumbag cyclist:
https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/youth-filmed-cycling-bike-dublin-22782527

But hey, if you have evidence that it was the car, and not Irish sentencing guidelines, nor gender, that was the determining factor in giving her a suspended sentence, that would be good.

In fact, there's been a lot of questionable assertions on this thread that could use some evidence.

Speaking of evidence, there has been a lot more cases in Court of crimes against motorists by motorists than crimes against motorists by cyclists.

SeanW

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Speaking of evidence, there has been a lot more cases in Court of crimes against motorists by motorists than crimes against motorists by cyclists.

You're probably right in as much as that little **** will probably never see the inside of a courtroom unless it's to push that or another fraudulent claim. Even then he likely won't see the inside of a courtroom because the insurance company will probably settle, helping increase Ireland's already absurd insurance rates.

But speaking of evidence, the cyclists on this thread have made or inferred a lot of questionable assertions. Evidence for any of them would be great:

1. The OP started with a claim that a fatality on Main Street, Charleville, Co. Cork was caused by "Irish planning" and had nothing to do with the fact that the "street" in question is also the main road between Ireland's 2nd and 3rd largest cities. The implication was that in a "proper" country with "proper" planning, street-road hybrids like the N20 would "work" and have a good safety record. No evidence was provided of course because street-road hybrids have bad safety records anywhere in the world that they are in service. And I know from personal experience that even if street-road hybrids don't get people killed, they do make the towns they go through unpleasant to live/work/shop in.
2. Here we had a claim that Ireland was a "socially immature country" with "deep seated insecurities" that cause whatever the hell you people are droning on about, which seems bizarre considering that Ireland is hardly the only country in the world where people drive cars but we are easily among the top 10 for road safety.
3. An unfounded accusation of murder. Zero evidence of mens rhea.
4. Accusations that the RSA pulls figures out of their rear-ends.
5. An unfounded accusation of Nazi-ism against a major newspaper. Zero evidence provided that they support gassing Jews, exterminating homosexuals, kidnapping mothers with two children and forcing her to choose which child is killed etc.
6. An implied claim that every euro an Irish motorist spends (much of which is in tax, insurance and other regulatory costs) costs "society" €9.2. No evidence provided for the Irish context.
7. A bizarre claim that owning a car gives someone a pass to attempt murder on Irish roads. Of course, zero evidence that it was that car that got her a suspended sentence, zero evidence that a suspended sentence for serious crime is unusual in this country, and zero evidence that the perp didn't get a free pass owing to her gender.

Most of the above claims not only were accompanied by zero evidence, but were either explicitly disprovable by the evidence, or not credible on the balance of probabilities. Of course, there's been so much specious nonsense, and borderline gaslighting that I've probably missed some in the above list.

magicbastarder

SeanW wrote: »

[*]An unfounded accusation of Nazi-ism against a major newspaper. Zero evidence provided that they support gassing Jews, exterminating homosexuals, kidnapping mothers with two children and forcing her to choose which child is killed etc.

genuine question, is this for real?

Thelonious Monk

Go take a lie down Sean, Happy Christmas.

Thelonious Monk

someone was arrested, must be drink driving, ignore this.