Another Serious Car Crash

thebourke

do the RSA authority ever release figures on a yearly basis what causes the accidents?

BobMc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045819#Comment_121045819

dont think so

ARX

I was in Dalkey at the weekend and counted 54 illegally parked cars on Hyde Rd. The Dalkey Lobster Festival was in progress: there were at least eight Gardai in attendance and each end of Castle St was blocked off by a Garda car.

Did any of those Gardai think of having a walk around the area to check for illegal parking, given the large number of people present?

Is it any surprise that people drive so badly when the most easily detectable of offences is ignored by the Gardai when it's happening right under their noses? The State has long made it clear that you can do as you please in a car.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045819#Comment_121045819

They do...

https://www.rsa.ie/road-safety/statistics/road-traffic-collision-data

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045837#Comment_121045837

Sure stand outside almost any garda station and count the number of illegally parked cars which usually belong to the gardai themselves!

Randle P. McMurphy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045765#Comment_121045765

124 deaths seems a big price to pay for convenience. I'd like to see all private cars phased out over time with an adequate public transport system introduced to replace them, but I know that will never happen. I'm also puzzled as to how so many cars are driving in to walls at such a force that most the occupants are being killed. Modern cars are built to be much safer in a crash, not to mention the compulsory seat belts front and back. There needs to be a proper investigation to what's going on and steps taken to address it.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045314#Comment_121045314

Almost certainly because we don't enforce those restrictive laws.

Hurrache

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045869#Comment_121045869

It's an unrealistic approach for so many reasons even if it could be done.

Deub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045461#Comment_121045461

I agree. Every single morning I go to the office I see the same 4 things: people passing red lights, people stopping on double yellow lines to go to shops or drop the kids, people stopping in yellow boxes and therefore, blocking traffic and people on the phone.

The only enforcement I see from time to time is speed vans (3-4 times/year). There is no fear of being fined so people pick up bad habits and eventually, there is always one day that is not like the others.

Oscar_Madison

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045769#Comment_121045769

Not obviously commenting on this particular incident (RIP to all), but I think sometimes, especially on the smaller country roads, not reading the road properly is the root cause, not speed. I think speed is the secondary cause.

Telling people to “slow down” just hasn’t worked - even if you’re not exceeding the speed limit, you may well be driving too fast for the road conditions- tight bends, unexpected behaviour etc etc

Id like to see more emphasis placed on “reading the road” and “anticipating problems”- if you do that, you might take less risks and reduce speed at certain points .

Saying “speed is the cause” is sometimes just not helpful - yes an accident may not have occurred had the person not been going so fast but how do you encourage someone to “not go so fast”? Maybe encouraging them to “read the road” might help - most of us stick to the speed limit - those that want to speed will likely continue to speed- but maybe there’s a chance of less accidents if these people start to “read the road” a bit more.

bucketybuck

As somebody who runs outside a lot, the amount of people I see driving while looking down at their phone is absolutely frightening.

Its not a few people here and there, it is endemic, a constant stream of people piloting a vehicle while being completely unaware of what is in front of them. I'd have zero sympathy for any of them wrapped around a telegraph pole if there weren't innocent people in their way.

As to this incident, imagine waking up and finding your baby and your parents all dead, and you were the driver. I feel nauseous just thinking about it, I hope there is some support there for him or her.

TedBundysDriver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045869#Comment_121045869

Driving a car isn't a convenience for many, it's a necessity. If you think the people who are dying on these rural roads are getting a Luas running past their house any time soon you are living in the clouds.

Macy0161

Flashing for speed vans much less common now. However, even on this thread we can see part of the problem - is speeding not speeding, just because the motorist deems it to be safe or the wrong place for a speed van? Illegal parking being tolerated is all part of the roads culture that means the law doesn't really apply to them.

Use of technology - speed camera's, ANPR, portals for citizen uploads also free up the gardai to be out on the roads policing. How many incidents do we here of people without tax, insurance and licences? All could be caught by ANPR cameras.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045634#Comment_121045634

Yet, if you had dashcam footage and brought it to the station (given no way of uploading), would you be met with anything other than resistant?

BobMc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045845#Comment_121045845

Doesn'tt really reveal any details of what causes individual accidents though just figures on them, its the root cause and report on an individual cause is required so people can unfortunately learn from others

RickBlaine

I'm not commenting in this specific accident but Irish driving in general. As a driver, I see some crazy maneuvers, dangerous overtaking, constant red light jumping, or cars whizzing past me even though I'm at the speed limit. As a passenger or pedestrian, I constantly see people on their phones. On a busy road, I could see every second or third person looking down at their phone. I posted in another thread last week that I saw someone on the M50 with both hands off the steering wheel and looking down texting at 100kph.

I think there is a massive "sure, I'll be ok" or "sure, it'll never happen to me" attitude among Irish drivers when it comes to the dangers of breaking the rules of the road.

ARX

I tried to overtake a slow-moving tractor and I got rear-ended by the car behind me. Can I sue the tractor driver? (msn.com)

"When I attempted to overtake at one point, I had to brake suddenly and pull back into my lane sharply due to an on coming car. This caused the car behind to rear-end me, causing significant damage — and one of my kids has a whiplash injury.

I am being blamed for causing this accident when it was clearly this farmer’s fault. I have his number plate."

In other words:

"I lacked the competence to plan and execute an overtake, but attempted to overtake into oncoming traffic with my kids in the car. Then the moron behind me crashed into me. But yeah, it was totally the fault of the guy in front of me".

Hurrache

Jesus, so they complain the tractor was slow moving and yet they still couldn't judge it was safe and clear to overtake and want someone else to pay for their mistake. Moron.

StrawbsM

The quality of the roads being driven on is also dire in many regions and that includes the N roads.

What I’ve also noticed on R and back roads is when they do resurface them, they take off a minimal layer and pour on top of that but by doing so they reduce the width of the road. Would it be that hard to scrape back the grass/overgrown sides and reinstate the existing width?

I also would question the thought process when planning some of the slip roads off a 100km road. Way too short.

Thoughts with the families that have suffered tragedies in the last week. Rest in peace.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045566#Comment_121045566

The same kind of medical testing that is done for pilots. The same kind of medical testing that is required for drivers over 75 or with certain medical conditions. If these medical events are happening as frequently as posters here suggest, we need to take serious action to reduce the chances of these happening in the future.

There was one (singular) fatality relating to a cyclist / pedestrian collision in recent years. I didn't see any Coronor's Inquest report into that incident, which is a bit strange.

ednwireland

actually i think this is very true a lot of stuff seems to be swept under the carpet by the you're been insensitive call.

we don't seem to learn anything from these crashes. occasionally you here ythe guards saying it was excessive speed but I know plenty of roads that will cause you problems well under the speed limit.

were cars modified, loads of cars with lowered suspension undersized tyres on oversize wheels etc etc

like the OP says I don't think I've ever seen a report o any of these incidents unless there's a criminal case against the driver.

timmyntc

Fixed in place, average speed cameras on problem stretches of road. Tracks you once on the way in, once on way out, and works out your average speed in that section.

It works wonders on the continent. There is no valid reason to be against them other than thinking you have a God given right to speed.

IlovemybrickFC

i was hit by a car the the other day - his fault, he was rushing to work - his words - and my damage is worse yet he insisted on calling his parents who then called the Gardai and we were stuck by the side of the road for three hours for nothing.

Some people on the road are entitled fools - but most of us just need our cars to get to work, childcare etc and obey all the rules. Those who don't should be penalised.

Condolences to the loved ones of the deceased. Awful to happen.

Large bottle small glass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045981#Comment_121045981

That sounds very sensible, have you tried to see a GP or cardiologist lately or any other consultant?

Multiple the medical hours in pilot testing by the whole driving population and let me know how are health service would cope.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045913#Comment_121045913

That's a great argument for restricting planning permissions for one-off housing.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046018#Comment_121046018

How many hours in medical responses to emergencies, operations, rehab will be saved?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045994#Comment_121045994

You were hit by a driver of a car, unless we allow autonomous vehicles here.

AmpMan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046024#Comment_121046024

We wouldn't build any housing if that was the case.

Every housing estate in every town has more cars than houses

Large bottle small glass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046039#Comment_121046039

Huge but what you are suggesting is impossible with current resources

rogber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045765#Comment_121045765

Would be interesting to know in how many fatal accidents a man was at the wheel. Any statistics on this?

howiya

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046062#Comment_121046062

Not where I got my numbers from - source https://www.garda.ie/en/roads-policing/statistics/roads-policing-fatalities-to-date-for-2023/

I presume the RSA publish more detailed data

wildwillow

Passengers can be very distracting, children or adults. Also I find many older people don’t want to wear a seat belt in the back seat.

I have to consciously alter my driving when leaving a motorway and completing the journey on rural roads. Some of which have a speed limit of 80 km where a car has to pull in to meet another. The limit is often seen as a target.

rogber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046088#Comment_121046088

This I find truly bizarre. Two-lane roads with good viewing in Dublin often have a speed limit of 60, then fairly narrow country roads with numerous twists and bends and hedges blocking the view have speed limit of 80. Makes zero sense

TedBundysDriver

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045939#Comment_121045939

As a coach driver i'd estimate every second person on the road uses their phone whilst driving. The crazy thing is it's not using the phone as in one hand on the wheel with the phone to the ear, it's texting.or checking social media with the phone on the lap or in the hand etc... I remember years ago being aghast seeing a lad watching the film Sicario on his phone as we crawled along in rush hour traffic, now it's so common place i don't even give it a second thought.

Until proper consequences are brought in and enforced for this type of behaviour then this stuff won't stop. I'm not talking a few penalty points im talking taking of cars and crushing, massive multi thousand euro fines or just revoking licences altogether. But of course there are no votes in that.

RavenBea17b

The driving behaviours of a significant amount of drivers here is Ireland is truly shocking. You've only got to drive on a motorway and see the dreadful behaviour. Merging onto a motorway or dual carriageway - no signalling, or driving the length of the entry lane at full pelt, not taking into consideration traffic already on the road, who may not be able to edge to another lane. Driving practically up the back of a car in front, to the point of if stopping, an accident is going to happen at some point. I was driving during the recent storm Betty near Drogheda on the motorway - many cars were not slowing down to suit the road and weather conditions.

French friends also commented on how drivers behave here, they'd hired a car and said the motorway behaviours were bad, but rural roads were really scary as the speeds and undertaking/ overtaking in places shocked them.

There will always be things that we cant help, including sudden illness, mechanical failure such as tyre blow out, but responsibility also has to be apportioned to the human element for behaviours.

We do not know what happened in this latest tragedy - I can only say that a family and community are forever changed in such a dreadful way. RIP to them all and for the survivors, their families, the first responders, I hope they get the help that they need. For such a dedicated bunch of men and women, they need all the aid we can give them.

mailforkev

Of the 124 who died on the roads so far this year, only 71 were in cars (44 drivers), with 17 on motorbikes, so 88 total.

No consolation to those who lost loved ones, but that's pretty low considering the number of road journeys taken, general poor standard of driving and total lack of enforcement.

GSBellew

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045869#Comment_121045869

Not going to work in Rural Ireland too easily, nice idea for cities and larger urban areas.

Not referring to this incident in any way, but on your point as to why people are having crashes with such force etc, modern cars can lure people into a false sense of security, all the electronic protections and driving aids can only do so much but people may not realise just how much they are saving them from themselves as they drive along, when it does genuinely go wrong no amount of electronics can defy physics, difference is it has probably gone wrong at a higher speed than would have been the case years ago.

Not that I believe that getting rid of these systems is a solution, nor is just complaining about speeding, education and driver training for all drivers, old and new is required.

Someone mentioned earlier driver training and teaching people about skidding / worn tyres etc which is probably a good point, skid pan training would probably be eye opening.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046056#Comment_121046056

Well, no. We wouldn't build any one-off housing. We'd continue to build serviced housing in accessible locations with good access to essential services.

airy fairy

We do not know the cause of most RTA unless it's hearsay from locals and he said, she said whispers. Yes, it's tragic for families involved, but we really need to be informed as to how a certain contributing factor was a cause of a death, be it speed, crap road surface, phone usage or whatever, to prevent more families being broken.

We need the cold, sharp reality of the reasons of road deaths. We need to feed that information into social media and any other form of feed necessary.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046057#Comment_121046057

Everything is impossible with current resources, unless we change our priorities. If it saves one life, right?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046330#Comment_121046330

RSA publishes that information regularly - speeding, phone use, seat belts, fatigue driving and I think one more are the major issues.

They refer to RTCs not RTAs - we need to move on from 'accident' terminology designed to let drivers off the hook.

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045162#Comment_121045162

"Not related to this accident but I do think that driving on our roads is reaching a new low"

The stats and records surrounding road injuries and fatalities completely dispute your thoughts on this matter.

• 138 deaths in 2018 vs
• 212 in 2010
• 415 in 2000 and
• 478 in 1990

We have more roads, faster roads, more drivers, more cars, faster cars, bigger/heavier cars and much more traffic in general these days, plus a greater number of more vulnerable road users ....e.g. people on scooters, mopeds etc. than we did in previous years and yet road deaths are a fraction of what they once were. When you take the above just on raw figures alone it looks bad. When you compare them as a percentage of the population, however, it's even more stark.

Deaths per 100 000 population (rounded to nearest whole person)

2020-----------------2010--------------------2000-----------------1990

3---------------------5--------------------------11--------------------14

Deaths per billion vehicle kilometres travelled

4-------------------5---------------------------12---------------------19

That's an 78% reduction in deaths over that time period, and an identical 78% reduction in deaths per billion kms travelled, despite that fact that the numbers of vehicles (2.8 million vs 1 million) and the amount of kilometres travelled (36.2 million vs 24.8 million) have exploded since then.

Recent harrowing tragedies aside, the fact is we have never been safer on our roads. Never, in the history of the state.

Source: https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/ireland-road-safety.pdf

AmpMan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046264#Comment_121046264

Serviced housing😂,

Not a thing in this country

Become Death

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046041#Comment_121046041

I shouldnt indulge you, but why?

If I said "the driver of a car hit me", it could be interpreted by people as I was punched by the driver of a car.

Why would you do this?

It was perfectly clear what the poster was saying. Why would you feel the need to say that?

Ugh.

airy fairy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046378#Comment_121046378

Yes, they publish stats etc but it needs to go further. Giving information on each and every accident, not just X amount of phone usage, X amount of poor tyre conditions etc. Reasons for the cause of each individual accidental death may hit home more than lumping numbers together.

Atlantic Dawn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045924#Comment_121045924

Not sure if it's in those reports linked but they did announce that in 2021 that over a quarter of those killed were not wearing a seat belt which is madness, the very basics of safety being ignored.

https://www.rsa.ie/news-events/news/details/2022/02/21/over-quarter-of-drivers-and-passengers-killed-on-irish-roads-in-2021-were-not-wearing-a-seat-belt

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045963#Comment_121045963

If the road surface is unsuitable then slow down.

Also slip roads are fine and offhand I can't think of any where you cannot reach a matching speed in time to merge.

However, I can't think of any of these shrinking back roads that you refer to (and I'd cycle a good few of them in Dublin, Meath, Kildare & Wicklow almost daily). Also bear in mind that our road surfaces are actually quite good when you compare to 20 or 30 years ago. Plus, if you head north of the border, you'll see what crap road surfaces look like.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046088#Comment_121046088

If someone doesn't want to wear a seat belt then I'll happily tell them to get out of my car before the car moves off - it's not that difficult to say.

Dial Hard

The Irish Times did a four-part (iirc) series a few years back called Anatomy of a Car Crash where they did a forensic examination of a fatal accident. It was incredibly well researched and a riveting read.

As others have said, the causes of fatal crashes are often established at inquest. However, inquests tend to happen months if not years after the fact, by which time the news cycle has long moved on and the public generally never hears about the outcome.

Jakey Rolling

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046381#Comment_121046381

In fact the RSA Trend Analysis on Fatalities and Serious Injury shows that serious injuries went up from 472 to 1506 between 2011 and 2019, a 200% increase.

It's a bugbear of mine that media concentrate on fatalities as the be-all and end-all of road traffic stats. While passenger safety improvements may improve survival rates in collisions, I'd be more interested to know how many have been left with life changing injuries.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046390#Comment_121046390

If you travel around Kilgobbin or Greystones much, you'll see how wrong you are.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046397#Comment_121046397

Because we've spend decades building up a culture that avoids holding drivers accountable for their actions;

'It was an awful accident'.

'I was hit by a car'.

'The car span out of control'.

Crashes aren't accidents, they're crashes. Drivers don't accidentally press the accelerator to speed, or accidentally pick up their phone or accidentally have that drink. These are deliberate decisions that lead to death and injury.

Cars don't hit people. Drivers hit people with their cars. The 'Absent Driver' Syndrome is so well known it has its own Twitter account.

https://twitter.com/absentdriver

If we actually want to stop this CARnage on the road, we have to stop letting drivers off the hook.