Can't walk on country roads anymore

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118602263#Comment_118602263

Personally though i both cycle and walk i think roads should be for principally for cars and vehicles that use white diesel... agriculture vehicles obstructing traffic driven by school children in summer... then we have the lycra crowd in convoy obstructing traffic again... i cycle myself but mostly alone as i think groups dangerous... i be all for organized events where there is advance notice... i would under no circumstances walk on the road unless i ran out of fuel... anyway i know loads of areas i can walk safely so i would not be endangering tax-paying motorists like me and possibly have my family get big bill to bury me...

magicbastarder

pedestrians are endangering tax-paying motorists. i'd get on to joe duffy about that...

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118602514#Comment_118602514

that eejit... i wonder is he on here...

Easten

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118602263#Comment_118602263

Mad man like comments. It's not possible to prove your so called hypothesis as all the data is not available. Spouting cover all numbers like pedestrian death on the roads is out of context when you do not include all the factors.

<Mod snip> If you believe your own figures let the middle aged man be walking on the Country roads around me for himself; it will balance the figures

Hurrache

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118602494#Comment_118602494

You should probably never leave your house in fairness, anything could happen to you.

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118602654#Comment_118602654

I,m ok i have a 70s Land Rover with big spots above the roof. even the Gardai pull over for me.. respect...

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118602263#Comment_118602263

You are also ignoring many changes over the years.

Motorway construction has taken a lot of traffic away from the old national primary routes and have made travel amongst some of our cities safer.

The massive reduction in drink driving has also reduced the numbers killed.

However, it can reasonably be argued that with less people walking or cycling on our roads then it is no surprise to see a reduction in fatalities of walkers and cyclists. Now why are less people walking and cycling alongnour roads...?

Large bottle small glass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118603159#Comment_118603159

Do you think less drink driving has mad the roads safer or more dangerous for vulnerable road users?

Ditto for penalty points, NCT, Garda forensic unit, conviction of dangerous drivers etc,

When 640 people died on the roads in a single year how many do you think we're convicted for it? Zero.

Like construction deaths the fear of going to jail has altered behaviours and made sites safer and the roads safer.

You are arguing against staggering numbers with close to zero data with nothing but hunches.

The good old days ..

Macy0161

There's still no fear of getting done for dangerous driving, and there's a litany of soft sentences for killing vulnerable road users, if it ever makes court. Gardai are extremely reluctant to act on dashcam or bike cam footage.

I posted data for commuting, and children going to school. Are you ignoring it because it doesn't suit your false narrative?

Large bottle small glass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118604130#Comment_118604130

No I've dealt with that if you read my posts.

A 50% reduction in kids walking/cycling to school doesn't explain a reduction in deaths to 20%of peak in spite of vastly increased car journey.

Cycling as modal share in Dublin is consistently rising alongside decreased death rates.

Not enough people are convicted but criminal prosecutions for dangerous driving happen all the time. People are currently in jail for killing people on the road. In the good old days with 5 times are death rate there was no prosecutions.

"No fear" is clearly horsesh1t in comparison to your mystical good old days.

I don't have a false narrative, I punching gapping holes in your sh1tty hypothesis.

magicbastarder

Cycling as modal share in Dublin is consistently rising alongside decreased death rates.

but the thread is not about dublin, no?

there has been a 50% reduction in kids walking or cycling to school, but (and i am possibly to blame for this as it may have been me who raised that topic), this could be a 100% reduction in the roads we're talking about. i.e. if say only 10% of the original figure was relevant to those roads, it'd be a very minor factor in the newer figure even if it dropped to 0.

in essence, it's going to be very difficult to draw conclusions from the stats unless we know how the proportion of people walking or cycling on country roads has changed. deaths are down 80%, the number of people walking could also be down that much.

Large bottle small glass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118604760#Comment_118604760

But people are drawing firm conclusions that they are more dangerous and providing next to no data to back it up?

It's not my hypothesis, I'm just asking questions. The prevailing answer is anecdotes and feelings in spite of drastic reductions.

Similar positive reductions have been achieved in lots of industrys, in particular construction.

We are way less tolerant (agriculture aside) as a society of accidental death.

20/30 years ago you could drink drive at will in a defective car with very little fear of being caught.

Being a vulnerable road user is on busy roads is pretty unpleasant for me, but nobody has produced anything to show it is more dangerous than the good old days.

At peak close to 200 vulnerable road users in a single year died, yet people are arguing things are worse now. That's a hypothesis which needs pretty meaty stats to be taken seriously.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118605720#Comment_118605720

your interpretation of the data is meaningless. So anecdotes is what we have to go on. You can’t just say “hers some data”. It has to be interpreted to assess causality, and you haven’t done so

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118605720#Comment_118605720

There's only one possible way to make your posts interesting. And that's by reading them as if you have a lisp.

Thread killer. Boring, not dealing with the issue, splitting hairs to prove you're right no matter what.

magicbastarder

your "It's not my hypothesis, I'm just asking questions." was preceded by this:

"No fear" is clearly horsesh1t in comparison to your mystical good old days.

I don't have a false narrative, I punching gapping holes in your sh1tty hypothesis.

we don't know how many people were walking on country roads 30 years ago. we don't even know now.

we (probably) don't know how many people were KSIed on country roads 30 years ago. the data for now would be hard to get, i suspect. yes, fatalities have fallen massively, but we don't know what factor people simply being out walking less on country roads now plays in that.

for all i know, a significant number of those fatalities 30 or 40 years ago were ould lads walking home from the pub being mown down by their ould lad drinking buddies driving home from the pub. but to a very large extent, the point is moot if people are avoiding walking today because the occasional motorist behaves like a clown. my parents in law live on a narrow single file road in north county dublin, and they still see occasional lunatics on it (one of which ended in a rather amusing situation involving an irate parent when my FIL stopped one of the speeders and told him in no uncertain terms that if he saw him speeding again, he'd have trouble finding his car key)

Large bottle small glass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118607881#Comment_118607881

I wish I could post interesting stuff like your contribution on electric cars. Lol

Large bottle small glass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118608032#Comment_118608032

No fear was in response to "no fear" of being prosecuted today in comparison to the good old days?

Are you really arguing there was anything like the same attitude from police and DPP to killing people on the road 20-40 years ago?

greysides

Mod: As far as I can see this thread is going nowhere. Prove me wrong or it would be best closed before I have to dip into the tool kit.

John_Rambo

I've been yellow carded by my comments on the droning posts from some posters, that's fair enough but it's fairly obvious that some rural roads are considered too dangerous to walk on. I don't think that's acceptable, one poster has been told it's unacceptable to take a short walk home from the pub now! Others have said torches shined on the ground aren't good enough, others say that torches blind drivers, forcing them to knock down people.

I drive on rural roads that don't have good sight-lines with an acceptance that there's going to be a pedestrian, horse rider, ag-vehicle, farmer with a herd or cyclist around every corner. Is that not the norm anymore?

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118608089#Comment_118608089

oh, i'm not arguing that. it's undoubtedly a major factor in the significant fall in the deaths on the roads. but until we know for certain how much rural road pedestrian road deaths have changed, and couple that with how patterns of pedestrian use of rural roads have changed, we're arguing in the dark.

i suspect the major factor here is that rural roads undoubtedly see more traffic than they used to. and it only takes one bad driver in 20 to scare people off the roads.

Large bottle small glass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118608551#Comment_118608551

Exactly we are in the dark, we don't know if it's more dangerous or not than 1980 or 2000.

Lads are getting upset that I'm even questioning the hypothesis.

What had changed is our acceptance of death as a society. 15 years ago I acted for a man who was losing a worker per year on his sites in the 70s and 80s. That is inconceivable today.

I worked in an office where there was a very large file on stardust; again something inconceivable today. Although there is a fire disaster waiting for us.

As for anecdotes, my mother who walked the rural local roads for exercise in the 80s was seen as odd, no other mother in area did it. That has changed dramatically with lots of men and women running/walking now on the same roads.

In the time period discussed I have seen a significant increase in rural leisure cycling/walking/running and a decrease in utility cycling/walking

Taking exercise and an intolerance of avoidable death are markers of a more developed economy/society

More often than not on my rural cycles I'll encounter more walkers than cars. Typically I might meet 2-3 cars per hour.

Some select roads are way busier than the were, and unpleasant to use. I'm not sure my routes are any safer, but they are way more enjoyable.

Easten

How can you possibly say that a rural road with a speed limit of 80klm/h is safe? They are not and cars drive to the limit and above it. That's the crux of the problem; speed and drivers selfish attitude to others on the road.

It's also the county councils and road authorities, they know the limits are madness, they know the roads can't take all the extra traffic. They give planning for one off houses on these roads where there are no public transport services or even a place for two cars to pass. They give planning for forestry on narrow roads that are already heaving with cars and trucks from all the people living there.

We really have only ourselves to blame, we keep re-electing these same TDs and Councillors when they should have been kicked into touch long ago

Bass Reeves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118609242#Comment_118609242

Nothing is safe in this life. You could get killed inside in your own kitchen by slipping and hitting you head on the way down to the floor off a worktop or stove. However roads are much safer now than 20-30 years ago. I first moved to where I now live 30 years ago. Virtually nobody walked on country roads at the time as a passtime. Back then when I went out for a walk I used to have cars stopping offering me a lift. You would meet nobody except maybe a Sunday afternoon. Nowadays if I go for a walk I expect to meet at least 2-5 other people out walking along a 5km route. Nobody will offer you a lift.

There is more people on the roads and more cars.on the road. Most pedestrian's killed in roads are from dusk to dawn. The use of hi-vis clothing has reduced these facilities.

It would be interesting if Gardai at these accident scenes took data about whether the user had s hi-vis clothing, the type( vest or full jacket), if no HI-VIS what type of clothes ( how dark) visibility, footpaths or not, lighting or not.

On Hi-Vis there is a few issue. Sleeveless vests can be a bit of a disaster. While they are better than no HI-VIS they are not as good as a sleeved jacket. Most jackets have reflective strips on the sleeves. These flash off carlights as your arms move. Therefore they are more active than a sleeveless vest.

Just a little trick if you ever have to walk and have neither a lamp or a high vis. Pick up a drink can. The unpainted aluminium on the bottom of the can can work like a lamp when reflecting off a car light.

DBK1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118613802#Comment_118613802

It’s definitely the same around here. 20-30 years ago I could name the 3 or 4 people that you would see regularly walking the roads around here and you’d nearly know what time it was when you’d see them passing. Nowadays, In the 2 miles between the farmyard and the village, it wouldn’t be unusual to meet 6 or 8 different people walking at any time of the day and off the top of my head I could name at least 20 - 25 different people that walk it and there’s more I wouldn’t know at all. As far as I can see there was never as many people out walking the roads.

Macy0161

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118608089#Comment_118608089

No fear in the old days, no fear now - you left off the judiciary from the list. If there was a genuine change in attitude, we'd have ANPR, average speed camera's, far more speed cameras, portals to upload dashcam/ bikecam/ personcam footage* etc.

*Stuff other jurisdictions are doing now, our police force say will take 7 years at least!