Death on the roads - are we the only ones to blame?

In_the_sea

yes I agree in some instances like bad road conditions etc. but if you are driving 40 miles an hour on a main road in perfect weather conditions, it's uncalled for! thats where Im coming from.

unkel

mackerski wrote:

* There are plenty of situations where being within the speed limit doesn't mean your speed is safe.

* There are plenty (yes, plenty) of situations where being in excess of the speed limit doesn't mean your speed is dangerous (except to your pocket and points-tally).

My sentiments too. Surely all of us can see the common sense in a complete shift in government policy from being anal about speed checks to the real issue: enabling people to drive properly

Stop this L-driver dinosaur of a system right now! People should only ever drive if:

1. They have a full driving license
2. They are being instructed by a qualified and accountable professional driving instructor in a fully dual control enabled vehicle

Again, I hasten to state that I do not, in any way, blame L drivers driving unaccompanied. It is not your fault, it is the fault of the system

Victor

You mistake cause with effect.

The above factors cause accidents, the speed kills people.

unkel

Victor wrote:

You mistake cause with effect.

The above factors cause accidents, the speed kills people.

Sure enough, Victor. A very experienced and competent driver could possibly drive at speeds vastly exceeding the speed limits on some roads under certain circumstances without imposing an increased risk to himself / herself or others

Seth Brundle

Correct me if Im wrong but there is no concise analysis of what caused fatal 'accidents' kept in this country. Speed is used as the reason in many cases but may not necessarily be the true cause.

mackerski

kbannon wrote:

Correct me if Im wrong but there is no concise analysis of what caused fatal 'accidents' kept in this country. Speed is used as the reason in many cases but may not necessarily be the true cause.

At some level, "speed" is always the cause. Except for spontaneously exploding cars, an accident occurs because of motion. Logging speed as the cause may not be a useful analysis, though, because the only lesson you can extract is that of "drive more slowly". Removed from context, that isn't helpful.

If a car spins off the road at a bend at 3am and hits a tree, you might attribute it to driver inattention. Assuming the driver was being alert, the other possibility is that he just drove around the bend too damn fast. So was this caused by speed, or was it caused by failing to react to road conditions. I'll go with the latter, since it's the ingredient that could do most to avoid similar accidents in the future.

Dermot

ssh

I seem to remember reading that something like 80% of fatal road accidents happen within the speed limit. I remember it was on the NRA site, but I can't find it anymore. I'll dig some more, maybe it'll turn up.

Looking around most of Dublin, the speed limits in residential areas are too high (~40Km/h is irresponsible in a housing estate) and just about any other road is far too low. Motorways could safely be increased by 20Km/h, the Stillorgan dual carraigeway should be 80Km/h especially if they put proper barriers along the centre of it.

Speed cameras really only tackle a minor portion of the road safety problem. They don't do anything to stop drunk drivers, joy riders... they don't even do anything to stop a speeder on his way to a fatal accident. All they do is punish him the day after. I'd feel happier about them if the government just came out and said "We like fleecing motorists" rather than dressing it up in some fancy philanthropy.

Ultimately, you're never going to reduce road deaths to zero unless you ban cars. The question really is whether or not a given set of policies a) genuinely help the problem and b) are worth the increase in journey times for its citizens.

Anyway, my question is:

Is there any kind of motoring group which actually challenges the road safety policy of the government?

Seth Brundle

@ mackerski - speed isn't a cause. Inappropriate speed is.
However, is the car which spins off at 3am due to inappropriate speed, tiredness, drink/drugs, lack of observation...

As for ncreasing the speed limits by 20kmph - I would like this to happen but I don't think Irish drivers are ready for it. We need to be in a situation where numpties are removed from the road first.

Over the last two weekends I drive to Belfast and up to Leitrim from Leixlip. I found both journeys to be relatively stressful because of all the muppets on the road. On these, I passed cars which were weaving and/or using really really poor lane positions, had drivers chatting on phones, encountered traffic delays for stupid reasons (some idiot driving at 30mph on the N3 who would not let anyone pass), I had people brake suddenly when approaching speed cameras despite their speed being under the limit. I could go on and on! The cream on the cake was the dickhead in Virginia in the 04 Audi A6 who pulled right out in front of me causing me to both brake suddenly and move into the oncoming lane to avoid an incident. He never looked and I don't think he was even aware of my presence. Im really starting to hate driving in this country - I never thought I would say it!

ssh wrote:

Is there any kind of motoring group which actually challenges the road safety policy of the government?

Do we even have a safety policy?

DubTony

ssh wrote:

Looking around most of Dublin, the speed limits in residential areas are too high (~40Km/h is irresponsible in a housing estate) and just about any other road is far too low. Motorways could safely be increased by 20Km/h, the Stillorgan dual carraigeway should be 80Km/h especially if they put proper barriers along the centre of it.

That brings to mind the "special" speed limit of 30km/h. Has anyone actually seen it used anywhere? The Stillorgan dual carraigeway has too many houses, garages and turns off it to increase the limit. But another "special" limit of 70km/h would be more appropriate, as it seems to me whenever I use that it's about the average speed.

ssh

DubTony wrote:

That brings to mind the "special" speed limit of 30km/h. Has anyone actually seen it used anywhere? The Stillorgan dual carraigeway has too many houses, garages and turns off it to increase the limit. But another "special" limit of 70km/h would be more appropriate, as it seems to me whenever I use that it's about the average speed.

Point taken about the houses... but from the UCD bridge up until the Montrose, it should certainly be 80Km/h. The only junctions are controlled by traffic lights. The same applies to certain stretches of the N11 - they used to be 50 Mph, no idea any more.

mackerski

DubTony wrote:

That brings to mind the "special" speed limit of 30km/h. Has anyone actually seen it used anywhere?

Not in this country. Nor have I ever seen the special limit of 120 applied to any non-motorway, nor the special limit of 100 applied on any non-national road. I'm not holding my breath either.

Dermot

MrPudding

Blitzkrieger wrote:

What does it stand for? Electronic Stability Program?

It doesn't matter how many safety devices you put on the car - if you make the car safer people will drive faster and neutralise the safety benefit. I'm sure it would save some lives but more driver training is the only answer.

I agree that driver training must improve in this country, it is a disgrace at the moment.

I was not sure of the point is ESP until Tiff Needell did a demo in a car on a frozen lake. It was very impressive.

MrP

Type 17

Around the world, engineers and those who work in the business of road-safety agree that most of the deaths on the roads can be distilled into the 3 E's (and here is how Ireland handles them):

Education: Ireland has a driving test (of sorts)... :rolleyes:

Engineering: We have the Irish road network to drive on... :eek:

Enforcement: We have a load of vested interests trying to tell us that speed kills, and nothing else matters :mad:

Now you know why most of the posts above sound so familiar, and make so much sense.

---

Slogan for when the Privatised Speed Cameras arrive:

Capt'n Midnight

Type 17 wrote:

Education: Ireland has a driving test (of sorts)... :rolleyes: [/IMG]

We don't have a driving test.

Oh yes there is an optional test that most people do eventually, but it isn't compulsary, so we might as well not have one, because it doesn't act to keep people who can't drive off the roads.

Out of the 400,000 on provisionals, how many people were prosecuted for the single offense of driving beyond the conditions on thier provisional license ?
(excluding cases where there were other charges)

unkel

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

We don't have a driving test.

Oh yes there is an optional test that most people do eventually, but it isn't compulsary

One can't put it more satirical than that, Capt'n. Unfortunately it is all too true

Blitzkrieger

John R wrote:

That's a statement I hear alot but it isn't really true.

Time and time again on boards I post scientifically proved facts and you can set your watch by someone piping up with some variation of "I disagree with your opinion". It doesn't matter how well-informed your opinion is; it doesn't matter how many studies support you; when you come out with a rule like "women can't drive as well as men" you get all sorts of ill-informed twits crawling out of the woodwork to give their two pence. It's why I've more or less given up posting on boards. That and the same topics crop up week after week.

It is true. It's not an opinion and you can disagree that the sky is blue all you like it doesn't make it less true (even if it is sort of grey right now. I know there are exceptions to every rule. I know that ESP would save lives but it would have limited impact.

This part is my opinion : ESP works very much 'on the limit' of the cars so by the time it kicks in in an emergency situation, wouldn't you already be fooked?



This isn't a personal attack - @ John - I counted three people refuting my 'opinion' before I got bored and went back to work.

blastman

Blitzkrieger wrote:

Time and time again on boards I post scientifically proved facts and you can set your watch by someone piping up with some variation of "I disagree with your opinion". It doesn't matter how well-informed your opinion is; it doesn't matter how many studies support you; when you come out with a rule like "women can't drive as well as men" you get all sorts of ill-informed twits crawling out of the woodwork to give their two pence. It's why I've more or less given up posting on boards. That and the same topics crop up week after week.

It is true. It's not an opinion and you can disagree that the sky is blue all you like it doesn't make it less true (even if it is sort of grey right now. I know there are exceptions to every rule. I know that ESP would save lives but it would have limited impact.

This part is my opinion : ESP works very much 'on the limit' of the cars so by the time it kicks in in an emergency situation, wouldn't you already be fooked?



This isn't a personal attack - @ John - I counted three people refuting my 'opinion' before I got bored and went back to work.

Sorry, I must have missed the post on this thread where you posted scientifically proven facts, doubtless linked to the source material.

I also don't see what you're trying to say in the opinion part of this post. ESP works on the limit of the car, maybe, that doesn't mean that you have to be doing 200kmh on country roads, though. You could be driving relatively slowly on wet or icy roads (as mentioned in the thread) and the ESP will be helping to keep you out of the ditch.

Yugo

I can't see your proof either, Blitzkrieger or any facts in what you say to support your opinion. I believe you are wrong on this point.

From personal experience ESP has got me out of at a few sticky situations in the last five years that I can think of. One involved what turned out to be black ice, another involved invisible criminal deterioration in road surface while overtaking - not involving high speed either I might add.

Check out the following links:

http://www.daimlerchrysler.com/dccom/0,,0-5-7180-1-465601-1-0-0-0-0-0-8668-7165-0-0-0-0-0-0-0,00.html

Also from [URL=http://]http://www.bosch.com.au/content/language1/html/3401.htm[/URL] 'a Daimler-Chrysler study based on data from the Federal Office of Statistics shows that after ESP® was fitted as standard, the proportion of Mercedes-Benz cars involved in serious single car accidents fell by around 42 percent'

From [url]www.whnet.com:-[/url]
Does ESP reduce accidents?
Mercedes accidents declined 42% when ESP was introduced. Serious accidents declined even faster by 66%. Similar numbers were found in Japan and Sweden. NHTSA studied accidents in five states and found passenger cars with ESP (many of them Mercedes) single car accidents dropped by 35% while fatal accidents dropped 30%. They also studied SUVs: ML320, ML430, ML350, ML500, G500, G55 AMG. Single vehicle accidents declined by 67% and fatal crashes by 63%. The IIHS studied ESP and found it reduced all accidents by 7% and all fatal accidents by 34%. Single vehicle accidents were reduced by 41% and fatal single vehicle accidents by 56%. ESP is thus as important as other Mercedes safety innovations like seat belts and probably more important than airbags.

That's just from a 5 minute search on google. Admittedly, these are from sites such as Damiler Chrysler and Bosch - 'They would say that wouldn't they' however, the research itself is independent..

Blitzkrieger

*Sigh

I have no intention of linking to source articles. TBH if I cared that much, I could just fake them. I orginally saw it on a documentary on channel 4 which isn't that easy to link to anyway. Even if I could link to other articles I saw in magazines there'd still be people who wouldn't believe me. Some people just refuse to consider any viewpoint other than their own.

What's the point?

Boggle

The cause of all road deaths bar acts of God is bad driving. Stick a spike out of every steering wheel boss and see fatality rates dive to near Zero.

Mike.

If that were the case tin-foil cars such as colts, civvy's, etc. would be proven to be the safest cars on the roads and in fact be safer than a merc... they're not.

blastman

BK, you can't complain about people dissing your "scientific fact" when you can't/won't provide a basis for it.

By the way, a mate's cousin saw a documentary on BBC 2 once that said 34% of all road accidents are caused by yodelling.

Scientific fact, I'm tellin' ya.....

Blitzkrieger

I wouldn't go around thinking everything is true "because I read it on the interweb", but I equally refuse to post links to everything. TBH if your best argument is "I won't get off my hole to look it up so I must be lying" I just don't care.

blastman

Didn't say you were lying, just that when you present something as scientific fact backed up with a vague reference and then get annoyed because others question its validity as fact rather than opinion, I can't see any grounds for your complaint, really.

Seth Brundle

yawn

blastman

*poke* Quiet, you.

DubTony

Blitzkrieger wrote:

Time and time again on boards I post scientifically proved facts and you can set your watch by someone piping up with some variation of "I disagree with your opinion".

That's the worst thing about the Discussion Forum. Everyone has a poxy opinion. You can't come on here and have a decent discussion without some arsehole discussing your discussion. They argue with you, because they have an opinion, and even when they're wrong they still argue and discuss. And the worst one is when they make glib comments with nothing to back it up. They're a bit like the guy in the corner of the pub who buts into your conversation with a "Yer talkin' outta yer arse". And there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Bloody Discussion Forums. I hate them.

Praetorian

Some roads aren't suitable for the speed limits which adorn them. Huge potholes are also a massive danger, and poorly marked and poorly finished roadworks are also a danger all pretty unique to our fare little backwards island. Of course those bastards get away it, "sure that'll do grand".

So for some accidents I believe the county council / government can be blamed.

blastman

DubTony wrote:

Bloody Discussion Forums. I hate them.

Is that your opinion or a fact?